Northern Pacific's Land Claims Took Two-Thirds of Washington
A scathing critique of how the Northern Pacific Railroad manipulated maps and political influence to hoard millions in timber, coal, and agricultural lands.
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.
The Interior Department in 1883 published a map showing that the Northern Pacific Railroad's lines of withdrawal encompassed about two-thirds of the Washington Territory. These withdrawals were made in alleged compliance with the Act of July 2, 1864, which granted land to aid in the construction of a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. By ingeniously changing the names of 'branch' and 'main' lines, the company secured an immense grant of valuable lands which Congress had expressly declared the company should not have. These withdrawn lands, which the company treats as its own, embrace some of the finest coal, timber, and agricultural lands in the United States, worth more than $50,000,000. There is no pretense that the line across the Cascade Mountains is to be built, nor is any work being done in good faith. Is there any reason why this vast body of land should be longer withheld from entry and settlement, with no power in either the Government or Railroad Company to give title to one acre of it?
“Is there any reason why this vast body of land should be longer withheld from entry and settlement?”
This 1884 editorial highlights the long history of land monopolization in Washington, where corporate interests were prioritized over public settlement. The tension between private control of massive land tracts and the needs of a growing, property-starved population remains a foundational struggle in the Pacific Northwest’s political and civic evolution.
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