Who Owns the Tide Lands? A Tacoma Title Fight Heads to the Supreme Court
Two Valentine scrip suits — Bier v. Moran Bros. and Mann v. Tacoma Land Company — are set to test whether private claimants or the State of Washington control the tide lands of its harbors.
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.
OLYMPIA, March 9. — [Special.] From advices just received from Washington City it appears that the famous Valentine scrip cases of M. D. Bier vs. Moran Bros. Co., and Jacob C. Mann vs. Tacoma Land Company will not be argued this month, but are set for hearing before the supreme court for April 2, 1894. The reason of this is that Justice Jackson, who is in ill health, has gone to Florida and is not expected to appear in his seat before April. Senator White, whose resignation will take effect March 12, 1894, will then occupy his seat on the supreme bench. In the case of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company vs. the harbor commissioners, the supreme court was divided in the opinion, and it seems there is an opportunity for this case to drag along again for two or three years, especially as it was not argued before a full bench. In a recent interview, Col. H. F. Garretson, a prominent lawyer of Tacoma, and also one of the recent harbor commissioners and a party to the suit in the Northern Pacific railroad case, stated that Justice Gray's decision did not affect the question of the Valentine scrip locations, but gave the state the right to establish harbor lines and control of its harbors, which is one of the features of state sovereignty and cannot be alienated either by the state or the general government. In Baer vs. Moran Bros. & Co., the question of title will be brought squarely before the supreme court, and Col. Garretson says that if the scrip men win they will be subject to the same restrictions as any other parties occupying tide lands within the harbor, that is, subject to the right of the state to regulate the harbor lines and building on them. Attorney-General Jones will probably not return until after the argument in these cases.
“…gave the state the right to establish harbor lines and control of its harbors, which is one of the features of state sovereignty and cannot be alienated either by the state or the general government.”
Washington's tide lands — the strip between high and low water — were the waterfront real estate that built Seattle and Tacoma, and this fight over whether the state or private scrip holders controlled them set the ground rules for a century of harbor development. The same public-trust questions resurface every time a marina, seawall, or waterfront tower goes in.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.