The Booster Who Sold a Forest by the Lot

Washington City, March 7.—Special. Hugh Wallace is posing in Washington City as a great man from the Pacific coast, and indeed he has matters pretty much his own way here, for he is recognized by the administration as the one man in the far-off state he represents upon whom it can rely to tell the truth about applicants for office and various other minor matters. When the local papers here speak of him they write his name in full, “Hugh Campbell Wallace,” and never fail to add his two titles of distinction, “National committeeman for the state of Washington and Chief Justice Fuller’s son-in-law.” He is boarding with his wife’s father’s family, but makes his headquarters at Chamberlain, the most famous resort of politicians and poker players in the national capital. One of the city papers gives a brief sketch of his life as follows:

“Mr. Wallace was raised in Kentucky, and was appointed receiver of public moneys at Salt Lake City by Mr. Cleveland during his first administration. He became imbued with the energetic spirit of the far West and located at Tacoma, Washington state, soon after his term of office expired at Salt Lake City.”

Then follows a picture of the “City of Destiny” which many will recognize:

“Shortly after Mr. Wallace’s arrival at Tacoma he engaged in the real estate business, at which time the ‘City of Destiny’ was booming at a very rapid gait. He at once purchased a virgin forest and laid it out in town lots and had it magnificently pictured on the finest paper. The erstwhile addition to the city of Tacoma was elaborately advertised. Bands of music proclaimed its virtues, free excursions and lunches were given—in fact, Wallace created the greatest appetite for town lots whereof the country then knew not. The sale was fixed for a certain day, and it was to begin at 9 a.m. So abnormal was the desire for these particular lots that the populace formed in line in front of Wallace’s office at 4 o’clock the previous afternoon. The first day’s sales amounted to about $135,000.”

The sequel to this sudden acquisition of wealth is a pleasant little romance:

“About a year and a half after Wallace engineered his great sale of town lots, which made him famous in the far West, he, with a couple of friends, went hunting for a few days. They prepared their outfit with considerable care. After enjoying several days of good sport they started homeward. They lost their bearings and finally realized that they were lost. Their provisions gave out, and, in dire distress, footsore, weary, about to give up and lie down and die, without hope that their remains would ever be found, they determined to make one last effort. So summoning all their courage and strength, they sallied forth for the struggle of their lives, dragging their almost lifeless bodies through several miles of the densest wood. Wallace stumbled over a white surveyor’s stake. Grasping it with both hands he read the marks on its side and fainted.

“It marked the intersection of Cleveland and Hendricks avenues in the city which Wallace had started and sold so many lots in a year and a half before.”