The Unclaimed 480-Acre Homestead
A prime piece of King County farmland near Lake Washington goes on the market as the region's early real estate rush begins to accelerate.
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.
FOR SALE AT A BARGAIN! A ranch situated on Coal Creek near the Newcastle Mines, Lake Washington, containing 480 acres, 300 of which is good bottom land. Good buildings, orchard, and spring water in abundance. This is the best bottom land ranch in King County. Apply to McNaught & Leary. Seattle, August 31st, 1876.
“This is the best bottom land ranch in King County.”
This 1876 listing for 480 acres in what is now the Newcastle/Bellevue area reflects a time when massive tracts of land were treated as commodity 'bargains.' Today, the same expanse of territory has transitioned from agricultural bottom land into a dense web of suburban tech corridors and housing developments, showing how the scale of Seattle's 'available' land has shifted from the rural to the hyper-urban.
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