A Skagit Valley Farmer’s Ruin
After the dikes failed, a prosperous farm on Skagit Island was reduced to 10 percent of its value, with the farmer pinning the blame on timber booms.
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.
Capt. J. W. Keen, the old government Alaska pilot, is now at Providence hospital, recovering from a severe cold contracted four weeks ago, while trying to save his cattle from the flood of water that broke through the dike on Skagit Island and swept over his tilled acres. The captain lost twenty-nine head of cattle and all his crops. He says that his farm, once valued at $12,000, is now valued at about 10 percent of that sum. He claims that the big log boom at the mouth of the Skagit River is responsible for $150,000 worth of damage on the island and $250,000 elsewhere.
“The captain lost twenty-nine head of cattle, all his crops, and says that his farm, once valued at $12,000, is now valued at about 10 per cent, of that sum.”
This 1894 account of flood damage caused by industrial debris mirrors contemporary struggles in the Skagit Valley, where debates over land use, diking districts, and flood management persist. The tension between resource extraction—like timber booms—and agricultural viability remains a core conflict in the Pacific Northwest’s rural landscape.
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