The Battle for Roslyn’s Coal Fields
A legal challenge emerges against the Northern Pacific Coal Company, as locals allege a fraudulent scheme to seize even-numbered sections of the lucrative coal-rich 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.
A. P. Sharpstein, son of Judge B. L. Sharpstein of Walla Walla, president of the last territorial council, was in Yakima a couple of weeks ago, in company of Messrs. Knott and McKinney of Portland, investigating titles to certain lands in this land district. Mr. Sharpstein now says that title to a considerable portion of the coal lands held by the Northern Pacific Coal Co., in the Roslyn district, is to be contested by him, as counsel for various individuals, on the ground of fraud. He says: ‘The company’s title to the odd sections is, of course, undisputed, being obtained from the railroad company, but four or five of the even sections along through the center of the coal fields, it is alleged, were taken up by persons employed by the coal company to do so, who received a small amount for making the filing, but who never saw the land, but at the time of filing gave the company power of attorney, and they paid for the land and took the title.’ The company admitted this in a suit they had on a contract. Mr. Sharpstein has been engaged for the past month in getting affidavits of the parties who made the original filings on these lands and is attending to the business of the parties who have relocated on fifteen quarter-sections thereof. Recent decisions of the secretary of the interior, he states, show that the title of the coal company to the land is invalid, and the new locators expect to have no trouble in securing good titles. These persons have contracted to furnish coal at low rates from these lands to persons who are assisting them to secure title to the lands.
“The company’s title to the odd sections is, of course, undisputed, being obtained from the railroad company, but four or five of the even sections along through the center of the coal fields, it is alleged, were taken up by persons employed by the coal company to do so.”
The Roslyn coal mines were once the engine of the region, and this legal fight echoes the long-standing tensions in the American West between corporate land consolidation and individual claims. While the Northern Pacific Railroad eventually dominated the extraction, these early contests reveal the chaotic, high-stakes scramble for resources that defined the territorial period.
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