The Fever Dream of a State Capital
North Yakima land speculators are betting their fortunes that the town will be chosen as the seat of the new state government.
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.
The residents of North Yakima are confident that the capital of the new state will be located there, and are firmly of the belief that a direct railway from Portland will run through the Yakima valley on its way to the Big Bend country. The Ellensburgers are just as confident that they will win the capital prize, while Pasco is sure of it. Some place out of the mountain war will doubtless be selected, and when it is, there will be a lively boom in real estate. North Yakima property is on the rise every day. Less than a year ago, Colonel Hewlett gave $50 per acre for eighty acres of government land (sage brush) about a mile and a half from the town, which he afterward sold for $125 per acre to George Browne, of the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company. Mr. Browne has since declined $150 an acre for it. This land is on the third bench or rim of land west of the city, and one of the Yakimaites told me confidentially that the new state capital would be erected there. It would be a delightful location, and perhaps Mr. Browne, who is a public-spirited man, could be induced to donate it for that purpose.
“North Yakima property is on the rise every day.”
Long before Yakima became the city it is today, it was a hotbed of real estate speculation fueled by the hope of becoming the state capital. The 'third bench' land mentioned likely refers to the higher elevation areas west of downtown that still remain prime, if contentious, real estate in the city's ongoing growth debates.
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