The Great Land Rush of 1916
Thousands wait in anxiety as the first names are drawn for homesteading rights on the Colville Indian Reservation.
A total of 1650 names were drawn the first day of the Colville Indian reservation land opening last Thursday at Spokane. While the majority were residents of Washington, many were from Idaho, and some are from towns in other states. The force of clerks under Superintendent John McPhaul took up their work of sending notifications to successful applicants and opening the envelopes containing applications that were not drawn. These, nearly 85,000 in number, will be filed in alphabetical order to make sure that none of the persons entitled to file for homesteads registered more than once.
“The first 325 names drawn caused great anxiety over the Northwest.”
This event marked a major phase of Indigenous dispossession as the federal government opened reservation lands to non-Native settlement. Today, the legacy of these land openings remains a foundational, contested element of Washington's demographic and legal history.
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