The Fight for Lewis County Land
A federal court decision could strip railroad corporations of vast land grants held since the early days of territorial expansion.
The story, cleaned up
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Judge Dietrick, in federal court yesterday, refused the plea of abatement filed by the Southern Pacific to knock out the Roy Kinkier suit, by which he seeks to compel the company to sell him 80 acres of land in Lewis county under the old land grant terms of $2.60 per acre. The case promises to set a precedent and to strip the railroad corporations of their great land grants where they have refused to dispose of the land to settlers for the price imposed in the grant. This particular land was under the grant to the old Oregon-California railway, which was never built. The company passed into the hands of the Southern Pacific and it grabbed the lands and still hangs on. Uncle Sam is trying to get them back now for people who want to use them.
“The case promises to set a precedent and to strip the railroad corporations of their great land grants.”
This early 20th-century litigation highlights the tension between powerful transcontinental rail monopolies and individual homesteaders. It mirrors modern debates over public land ownership and corporate accountability in the Pacific Northwest.
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