The Man Who Bought the Territory: Harry Allen’s Rise from Drifter to Lumber Baron
A local anecdote about a young man who turned advice to buy land into a $150,000 fortune in Washington Territory.
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.
Harry Allen was a wild Maine youth, who left his family a lot of trouble, and finally went off to the west. He procured a situation at a store in Washington territory. One day he began to say to the storekeeper that he'd got quite a little and ought to put it in the bank and this man replied: 'Don't do that. Put your money into land.' Harry took his advice, bought land, and after that invested every dollar he could raise in the same way. When he was about 40 he saw a chance to make a big trade, and made it. Then his brother went into the same speculation, and they put up mills and engaged extensively in the lumber business. To-day Harry Allen is said to be worth $150,000.
This snippet captures the speculative fervor of early Washington Territory land deals, where a single piece of advice could launch a fortune. It mirrors modern narratives of tech or real estate booms, where early adopters who bet on 'land' (or now, digital assets) reaped exponential rewards while others played it safe in banks.
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