The Log Boom Battle at Salmon Bay
A railroad company takes the city of Ballard to court over control of tide lands, seeking to block the city from driving piles for its own infrastructure.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A temporary injunction was refused yesterday by Judge Lichtenberg in the suit brought by the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern to restrain the city of Ballard from driving piles on the tide lands of Salmon Bay now used by the railroad company for a log boom and dump. The judge, in making this decision, intimated that he was guided by the opinion that the remedy of the plaintiff lay in an action at law for damages. The application of the railroad for a writ of injunction was dismissed by the court without prejudice, and it is probable that there will be further legal proceedings by the company. Its officers claim that it had an established right-of-way on the property in dispute before the city of Ballard was founded, and propose to make a vigorous fight.
“Its officers claim that it had an established right-of-way on the property in dispute before the city of Ballard was founded, and propose to make a vigorous fight.”
This 1892 legal skirmish over Ballard's Salmon Bay tide lands mirrors the city's ongoing, century-long struggle to define public versus private use of our waterfront. What was then a dispute over log booms is now a battle over maritime industry, public access, and environmental reclamation, proving that control of the ground beneath the water remains a defining feature of Seattle politics.
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