The Shadow Over Seattle's Growth
A look at the 1876 struggle between the promise of development and the ‘incubus’ of land monopolies.
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 monopolizing claims of a few individuals to huge tracts of land are supposed to act as a check to agricultural progress. The various Mexican grants bought up by capitalists shortly after the cession of California embrace many leagues of land fit for cultivation. Some of the grants have already been mapped out and subdivided into small parcels for sale to settlers, but thousands of acres are still held intact, and are not likely to be thrown upon the market until the demand makes the price firm and satisfactory to the owners. It is folly to tell capitalists that it is wrong to hold landed possessions. So long as men have money to spend and there are lands to buy in large or small quantities in any country, this kind of speculation will be considered legitimate. However, the practice of securing large tracts of land in new territories has the effect, to too great an extent, to retard the growth of communities and the rapid settlement and cultivation of lands around towns struggling for business, vitality and progress. It is true that the check is only temporary, but it extends over a generation, and the generation feeling this incubus is annoyed and irritated while it lasts.
“The practice of securing large tracts of land in new territories has the effect, to too great an extent, to retard the growth of communities.”
In 1876, Seattle was a growing town grappling with the effects of concentrated land ownership and speculative pricing. Nearly 150 years later, as Seattle faces a severe housing supply crisis, the editorial's frustration with landholders who 'retard the growth of communities' remains a persistent, unresolved tension in the local political landscape.
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