The Fight for Salmon Bay's Tide Flats
State land commissioners hear the first of eleven contests over who gets to buy Salmon Bay harbor land, as shore owners, railroads and mill companies crowd the Ballard council rooms.
The board of state land commissioners, consisting of Erastus Brainerd, S. J. Chadwick and W. T. Forrest, commissioner of public lands and ex-officio chairman, spent the day at Ballard yesterday hearing contests over applications to purchase tide lands in Salmon Bay. The commissioners sit as a board of appeals. Whenever there is a conflict in applications to purchase tide lands, the board passes on the law and equity of the case. Thus far eleven contests have been filed from Salmon Bay, and all will be heard.
Yesterday morning the case of the West Coast Improvement Company vs. Alfred C. Pates was heard in the council chambers at Ballard, with Seattle lawyers well represented—eighteen from this city in attendance. The West Coast Improvement Company alleges that the harbor lands it desires to purchase had no valuable improvements prior to March 28, 1890; that the present improvements were made after that date and consist of a row of piling and a dwelling house. Pates answers that the harbor line had not been established according to law; that the law required the lines to be established along the waterways; that the waterways were not adequately established. He also contends that the local tide-land appraisers did not complete platting the land in front of Ballard, having platted only to the government meander line instead of the high tide land. He complains that the appraisement is excessive and denies that he had no valuable improvements before March 28, 1890. Some aspects of the case have already been litigated in the supreme court, but the board will pass on the other points not touched by that ruling.
Other contests filed for applications to purchase tide lands in Seattle harbor include Fleming & Ayerst Company vs. Seattle & Montana Railway; West Coast Improvement Company vs. Seattle & Montana Railway; West Coast Improvement Company vs. Fleming & Ayerst Company; Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway vs. Northern Railway; A. E. Pretty vs. O. J. Carr, trustee (two cases); Walker P. Sanderson vs. Thomas Winsor and Ida Winsor; Seattle Cedar Lumber Company vs. O. J. Carr, trustee; and T. W. Lake vs. Annetta J. Vold.
The case of the Lake Shore road vs. Seattle & Montana Railway, Fleming & Ayerst Company and the West Coast Improvement Company will be heard this afternoon at 2 o'clock in the Chamber of Commerce rooms in this city. The Pretty case will also be heard there this afternoon. The Sanderson case and the Seattle Cedar Lumber Company case will be heard at the Chamber of Commerce tomorrow.
During the hearing yesterday of the West Coast Improvement Company vs. Alfred C. Pates, the council rooms at Ballard were crowded almost to suffocation by residents of that place and others interested in the contests.
“During the hearing yesterday of the West Coast Improvement Company vs. Alfred C. Pates, the council rooms at Ballard were crowded almost to suffocation by residents of that place and others interested in the contests.”
The tide flats that once drew rival claims are now the Ballard Locks, Shilshole marina and some of Seattle's most contested shoreline. Then as now, the question of who gets to claim the water's edge — and on what terms — shapes the city.
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