The Ex-Congressman's Lumber Scam
How a high-stakes lobbyist used a fake canal project to strong-arm mill owners for land titles.
An ex-congressman, an ex-candidate for the senate, and an attorney for a gigantic corporation visited one of our large mill-owners and confidentially informed him that he was on his way back east and expected to place an order for 180,000,000 feet of lumber for the Nicaragua canal and he would like to know if the mill-owner would take 20,000,000 feet of the order. Of course, the mill-owner was of the opinion that that was exactly what he was here for, and from the lumber order, the conversation turned to that little matter of a $20,000 subsidy subscribed by the mill-owner, and the chances of the ex-congressman getting a deed for his corporation to the land subscribed. The plan worked so well that it was immediately tried upon the other mill-owner across the Wishkah, but with disastrous effect. He wasn't in the canal business and didn't think he could cut a single stick. Neither was he in any mood for signing or delivering without value received—and so the ex-congressman went away sore.
“The plan worked so well that it was immediately tried upon the other mill-owner across the Wishkah, but with disastrous effect.”
This story of a powerful lobbyist trading influence and false promises for land rights echoes the ongoing struggle in the Pacific Northwest over land ownership and corporate speculation. The tension between municipal development and private extraction remains a staple of local civic arguments in Aberdeen.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.