The Shadowy Syndicate Gobbling Up State Timber
A state land commission investigation reveals a complex web of fraudulent claims and suspicious inactivity by the Saginaw Mill Company.
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.
Considerable trouble may be experienced in making state selections of lands, and no doubt this has become quite apparent to the land commission. For years past, milling companies have been absorbing lands in Sound counties by peculiar methods. They place agents as timber claimants before surveys are made, and frequently, while waiting for surveys, the claims will be abandoned by original claimants. The mill companies, being in possession of the facts concerning abandonment, place fraudulent homestead claimants upon abandoned claims of homesteaders, claiming to be original settlers. Timber lands are frequently colonized by mill representatives, and thus are enabled to petition for a survey. What is known as the Saginaw Mill Company has been operating in Clallam and Jefferson counties for upwards of eight years. There are at least twenty-five claims in Clallam likely to be lost to the state owing to lapse of time for a protest. The state land commission discussed this matter today and referred it to the attorney general, with the request that he instruct his assistants to investigate these cases and, if the suspicions of the board are correct, to file contests.
“For years past milling companies have been absorbing lands in Sound counties by peculiar methods.”
This 1893 report exposes the persistent Washington struggle between public land preservation and industrial exploitation. While the specific mill syndicates have changed, the tension over how state-controlled natural resources serve public versus private interests remains a cornerstone of Washington’s political identity.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.