The Great Seattle Tide-Land Land Rush

The sixty days within which the owners of tide land and valuable improvements might apply to purchase lands in Seattle harbor expired, and there was a great rush in sending applications to Olympia. The work has been very heavy, for it is estimated that the applications cover almost every tract within the harbor limits of the city. Lawyers and engineers have been working night and day to ascertain the descriptions of the tracts they have to purchase and to prepare the applications.

Under the law, the owners of valuable improvements which existed on tide land at the time of the appraisement have the first right to purchase at the appraised value for sixty days from the filing of the plat by the county board of appraisers. If they fail to avail themselves of this privilege, or if the land is without improvements, the owners of the shore land have the next right. Applicants are required to pay 10 per cent of the purchase price upon the expiration of the sixty-day period; otherwise they lose the land, and the tracts not thus sold may be sold by the board of state land commissioners at public sale at a price not less than the appraised value.

As there is no means of determining the limits of the tracts they may buy, the applicants are applying for everything they have a possible chance of winning. The commissioners will therefore have to decide the rights of every applicant and will have a perfect maze of contests to go through. Not only will there be endless contests, but there is talk of attempting to change the appraisement of some tracts which the applicants think have been put at too high a price. The appraisers followed the rule of valuing wharf property at low figures, while the adjoining land, close to the shore, being easily filled and adapted to buildings of a more solid character, was set at a higher price. This distinction has caused great differences in the valuation of adjoining blocks and has called forth much criticism from those interested. Among those who have appealed on this ground are the receivers of the Lake Shore road, who alone have made 17 distinct applications.

State land commissioners will today begin the examination of the applications and will order a hearing wherever two or more persons or corporations have applied to purchase the same tract. These contests will occupy some time, unless the decision on the first contest should involve the laying down of some general principles which would prove applicable to the other contestants as a basis of compromise without carrying the controversy into the courts.