Grays Harbor City Townsites Scheme Ends in 1891
How professional townsite boomers once built a 'city' of imagination that existed only on paper, leaving investors with nothing but worthless lithographs.
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 ceremonies attending the formal interment of the Grays Harbor City townsite scheme on the first of this month naturally raises the question as to what the local press had to say on the subject at the time of its inception. The curse of Grays Harbor has been those parasites of civilization who live on the gullibility of the human race. The sufferers from this curse have been those who, with the future interest and well-being of our Grays Harbor country at heart, have placed here all their interests and all their energies to build up on its merits the wonderful country around us. A locality's good name is as precious to its inhabitants as their own personal reputation; and there are none among us who are ignorant of the blow given to our country four years ago by the townsite boomers who, with all the aids known to the art of the modern professional boomer, built a city of wind, imagination and fancy-colored lithographs, with streets, residences, railroads, stores and manufactories that began on paper and ended there.
“A city of wind, imagination and fancy colored lithographs, with streets, residences, railroads, stores and manufactories that began on paper and ended there.”
This 1895 editorial serves as a cautionary tale for the boom-and-bust development cycles that have characterized Grays Harbor for over a century. Just as the 'Grays Harbor City' scheme preyed on outside investors with false promises of rail connections, modern property markets still grapple with the legacy of land speculation and the enduring need for authentic, grounded development.
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