The Water Monopoly
Critics allege the First National Bank is steering the city council toward an expensive water project to inflate the value of land it holds in escrow.
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 city council did not hesitate to vote $500 to pay Engineer Weile for reporting that there is plenty of water in Mill creek and that it runs down hill, but it cannot see its way clear to allow $500 to carry out Councilman Smith's plan of sinking wells on the Thomas ranch to ascertain at what depth an adequate flow of subterranean water can be found. It is plain that the First National Bank is still using its subtle influence to induce the council to abandon the city's valuable water right on the Thomas ranch in order to increase the value of the land, on which the bank still has a claim, despite all assertions to the contrary. It is known that when the citizens' water committee made its investigations last winter a deed to the ranch was in escrow and the bank had a cinch on the land. Of course there are many ways of hiding the true ownership of property, but the people of Walla Walla cannot be fooled in this instance. The bank wants the city either to pay $25,000 for half the ranch, or to abandon its $10,000 water right and $15,000 development work. That is the true explanation of this persistent effort to have the city spend $250,000 to get tepid and impure water from Mill creek and then half as much more in settling claims for the infringement of riparian rights.
“Of course there are many ways of hiding the true ownership of property, but the people of Walla Walla cannot be fooled in this instance.”
Public control over water rights and municipal infrastructure remains a major point of tension in the Pacific Northwest, mirroring historic battles where private banking interests sought to leverage city utilities for private land-value gain.
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