The Kent Road Dispute
A bitter neighborhood battle over property rights and road construction near Osborn Station comes to a quiet end.
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.
J. W. Morgan, Oliver T. Cornwell and Campbell Robinson, the appraisers appointed to investigate and assess the damages in the matter of the road petitioned for by Frank J. Kent and others, near Osborn Station, concluded their labors late yesterday afternoon and filed their report with the county commissioners. In the report they recommended that the road be established along the line petitioned for by Kent. They estimated the damages to the land owners through whose property the road will be constructed as follows: Obadiah Osborn, $375; J. J. Gallaher, $60; and Jesse Drumheller, $60. When the petition was first filed with the commissioners, Osborn filed a claim for damages in the sum of $1,400, and Gallaher and Drumheller each wanted $100. The commissioners deemed the claims as excessive and after considerable delay it was finally decided by all parties concerned to submit the controversy to three disinterested persons and abide by their decision. The commissioners will now order the road established.
“The commissioners deemed the claims as excessive and after considerable delay it was finally decided by all parties concerned to submit the controversy to three disinterested persons.”
Conflicts over property rights and public access in rural areas remain a staple of local governance. While the dollar figures have changed, the tension between individual land value and infrastructure development is as present in modern Walla Walla County as it was in 1904.
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