Big Bend Settlers Win Land Rights Over Northern Pacific

Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith has promulgated a decision involving the title to certain lands within the indemnity limits of the Northern Pacific grant in Eastern Washington. This decision will be hailed with intense satisfaction by many occupants of lieu-lands in this state. It is a source of congratulation to the people in this vicinity that, by personal correspondence with the department, they have succeeded in accomplishing what the farmers of the Palouse country have recently failed to do. The lands affected are in proximity to Waterville, and were selected in lieu of lands claimed to have been lost. On December 9, 1890, M. D. Bailey of Waterville entered a contest against the Northern Pacific for a piece of land in the indemnity strip, which had been selected by the railroad company in a list filed at North Yakima. The railroad company appealed to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who sustained the local officers. The company carried the case to the Secretary of the Interior, who ruled that the indemnity lands must be taken nearest to the lost lands. He held that selections cannot be made in another state in lieu of losses in the state of Idaho until it is first shown that such losses cannot be satisfied from lands within the limits of its grant in that state. The Secretary concluded that the company cannot seize everything in sight and hold great areas of the public domain to the exclusion of actual settlers.