The Veterans' Colony at Port Angeles
A dedicated movement settles hundreds of Union veterans in a planned colony, promising a new boom for the Olympic Peninsula.
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.
The first train of old soldier colonists from Michigan reached Port Angeles yesterday on the steamer Garland. They were met by an immense crowd, a band, and a welcome from Mayor Smith. The party was served a sumptuous dinner before moving to the portion of the townsite reserve held for them to select their lots. Mr. Ashmun, who led the group, expects to bring 500 more people in the second installment. The total colony of 400 families is expected to settle on forty blocks reserved for them by January 1, 1893. This initiative is designed to bring 1,500 to 2,000 new residents to Port Angeles, with many soldiers arriving with surplus capital to establish fish canneries and mills. Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble, who recently visited the site, expressed his support for the settlers, noting the unique, thrifty community they have built from the wilderness.
“I reverence men who have fought in battle; men who have lost their opportunities of civil life; men who said 'let my country prosper and I shall be happy.'”
The Port Angeles townsite reserve was an ambitious federal project that survives today in the city's unique, wide-grid street layout. The story captures the era's 'homesteading' mindset and the powerful role of political patronage in shaping the geography of the Pacific Northwest.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.