The Great Land Sell-Off
The Northern Pacific Railroad begins dumping vast swaths of Washington Territory land onto actual settlers for $2.60 an acre.
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.
Gen. J. W. Sprague, general superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, telegraphs from New Tacoma to the Oregonian the following dispatch, which he has received from New York. It contains important information for large numbers of settlers on Northern Pacific railroad lands.
New York, Nov. 19. To J. W. Sprague: The board passed today the following resolution: Resolved, That the agricultural lands of the company west of the Missouri River to Puget Sound shall be offered for sale to actual settlers at the government price of $2.50 cash per acre, with an addition thereto of ten cents per acre to be paid to the company to reimburse it for the cost of selecting, surveying and conveying said lands.
This resolution does not apply to coal or iron lands nor to lands chiefly valuable for timber, nor to lands required for town sites or suitable for manufacturing sites, nor in regions where water is scarce, or lands containing springs or other natural supply where it shall be for the interest of settlers at large that such water privileges shall not be exclusively held or controlled by any individual, nor to lands required for the use of the company in connection with the operation of the roads. — Frederick Billings, President.
“Resolved, That the agricultural lands of the company west of the Missouri river to Puget Sound shall be offered for sale to actual settlers at the government price of $2.50 cash per acre.”
This 1879 announcement mirrors the perennial tension between large corporate landowners and 'actual settlers' in the Pacific Northwest. While the specific price of $2.60 per acre seems quaint today, the underlying debate over who controls public-facing infrastructure like water rights and land access remains a defining feature of Washington's ongoing housing and development crisis.
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