The Myth of the Land Monopoly
An 1877 Seattle newspaper sets the record straight for prospective homesteaders: unlike California, Washington Territory is free from the crushing weight of Spanish land grants and speculative hoarding.
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.
It is one of the felicities of Washington Territory that there is no land held by speculators worth speaking of—no Spanish grants. The great bulk of the lands belong to the public domain, and such as have passed into private ownership have, for the most part, been secured under the pre-emption and homestead laws. Millers from Kansas and Nebraska or other States, who have not had experience of the Land Monopoly curse of California, cannot appreciate the full fortune of this immunity. Farmers are not liable, as happened often in California, after they have invested their all upon their homesteads and accumulated the improvements of decades, to be ejected, bankrupt, through the discovery of some murky, or authentic, Spanish grant.
“Millers from Kansas and Nebraska or other States... cannot appreciate the full fortune of this immunity.”
In 1877, Seattle editors boasted about the 'immunity' of Washington's land from the monopolies that plagued California. Today, that narrative has flipped; Seattle is defined by a severe housing and land-use crisis where the 'monopoly' is not a Spanish land grant, but the high barrier to entry created by rapid development and rising land values.
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