The Ghost Island of Arcadia
A squatter fights for the right to claim a six-acre island that the federal government officially claims doesn't exist.
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.
Steamboat Island is a small patch of real estate of about six acres, opposite Arcadia. A man named Ephraim Branson settled there in 1884, and he has made application for the island, but the land office refuses to accept a filing for the reason that the island is not shown on the plat of official government survey made in 1855. It is said that the Barker estate, as owner of adjoining mainland, will endeavor to assert a claim. Branson has made application for a survey and David Shelton and William Walter make affidavit in support of application, stating that to their certain knowledge the island was the same topographically forty years ago as now, and that the original surveyor must have wilfully omitted the island from his survey.
“The land office refuses to accept a filing for the reason that the island is not shown on the plat of official government survey.”
Land disputes involving 'omitted' or improperly surveyed lands are a classic trope of Pacific Northwest history, reflecting a time when federal land policy was often at odds with the reality on the ground. Today, the legal status of tidelands and shoreline property remains a contentious issue in Washington, echoing these century-old fights over who owns the water's edge.
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