The Land Commissioner Halts the Olympic Highway Land Rush
Speculators are lining up to snap up land along the new Olympic Highway, but State Land Commissioner C. V. Savidge says the state isn't selling yet.
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There are some people in this world whom Land Commissioner C. V. Savidge insists are altogether too previous, and he isn't a bit slangy when he uses that old-time phrase to describe them. Already the state land office is being besieged by people who are eager to buy small tracts of land on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula for future development as resort sites, gas stations, and even summer residences. The word has gone out that the state is opening up the western link of the Olympic Highway as rapidly as possible, and the idea seems to have occurred to scores of people simultaneously that a big rush of tourists is certain to follow. That is why a number of people are trying to buy tracts now, hoping to improve them before the road is opened. Land Commissioner Savidge will not sell. The only way some of the desirable tracts could be reached would be by trail or airplane. Moreover, Mr. Savidge wishes to make a thorough examination of the country before he allows anybody to acquire state land for development as summer resorts or rest stations.
“The only way some of the desirable tracts could be reached would be by trail or airplane.”
This 1925 'land rush' prefigures the permanent tension between public land management and the commercial development of the Olympic Peninsula. Savidge’s caution highlights the era's transition from an untouched wilderness to a mass-tourism economy.
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