Who Owns the Mud Beneath Smith Cove?
Seven King County men file claims on twenty acres apiece of Seattle tide flat, then protest the state's plan to fill and sell the same ground out from under them.
Olympia, May 30. — A novel contest has been begun in the office of the commissioner of public lands by Horatio N. Pike, Hector C. Hallonet, A. M. McMillan, Solomon Gould, Albert Adist and J. Roach, all residents of King county. These gentlemen give the land commissioner notice that they have located, each for himself, twenty acres of unimproved and unappropriated tide lands in front of Smith's Cove, for various purposes, asserting that on the date of their location the title to such shore was still held by the sovereignty of the state.
They have posted notices on each of their claims, kept them there five days, and filed certificates of location with the auditor of King county. They claim the lands against all subsequent locations and platting, and say that they have paid for work and improvements, and that the lands are the more valuable for their purposes because of that work.
Since the time of location the parties named have expended a large amount of money, labor and time in their improvements, and for these reasons the protestants enter their solemn protest against the state entering into a contract with any person, or making any sale or grant to any person, of any of these lands, either by reason of improvements made by them or otherwise. We claim the right, uninterrupted, to work our respective claims.
May 31 has been named as the date for hearing and disposing of all protests against the letting of contracts for the excavation of waterways and filling in of tide lands at Smith's Cove and Salmon Bay by the commissioner of public lands.
“We claim the right, uninterrupted, to work our respective claims.”
The tide flats these men staked with notices and five days' patience are now the filled ground under Interbay and the Smith Cove cruise terminals — some of the most valuable public waterfront in the state. Then as now, the fight was not really about mud: it was about who gets to convert publicly held shoreline into private value, and whether the state's plans for a working waterfront can be stalled by whoever files first.
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