The Man Who Owns Fifteen Townships Comes to Town
W. H. Babcock, back in Walla Walla after six months in Trinidad, is selling off Douglas County land he bought at 75 cents an acre — now fetching up to $12 — and keeping thousands of acres back for sheep.
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.
W. H. Babcock arrived in Walla Walla this morning from Trinidad, where he has been the past six months superintending the sale of several townships of lands he owns in Douglas county in the vicinity of Waterville. In addition to the sobriquet "Wheat King" of Eureka Flat, Mr. Babcock can easily lay claim to being the largest individual land owner in the state if not in the whole northwest, his land holdings on the flat and in Douglas, Chelan and Kittitas counties amounting to some 15 townships.
Much of his holdings in Douglas county has been placed on the market and this morning Mr. Babcock said he felt satisfied with his venture. Much of the land bought several years ago for 50 and 75 cents an acre is now readily selling for $5 and $11, the present price depending of course on the location and fertility of the soil. Several sections were disposed of to eastern parties last week at from $8 to $12.
"I am not placing all my land on the market by any means," Mr. Babcock said this morning. "While much of it has already been sold I expect to retain several thousand acres for sheep range. There is money in the sheep business."
"The country about Waterville and Trinidad is filling up fast. Many homeseekers have come west this summer and Douglas county I believe has attracted her share."
“Much of the land bought several years ago for 50 and 75 cents an acre is now readily selling for $5 and $11.”
A single investor holding fifteen townships — roughly 350,000 acres — of Eastern Washington is a reminder that the Inland Empire was built on land concentration, not the yeoman homesteader of the booster pamphlets. The 50-cent-to-$12 run-up in a few years is the same speculative curve that now drives farmland prices and outside-investor purchases across the Columbia Basin.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.