The Real Estate Frenzy North of the Border
Speculators are scouring the Canadian countryside near Lynden, betting on a new electric railway to Bellingham.
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.
There is a big land movement on just across the Canadian line, and any owner, it is said, has almost daily opportunities to dispose of his land at from $50 for rough uncleared land to $125 for partially improved farms. The buyers are Vancouver and Westminster real estate men and capitalists and it is said their eagerness is due to the statement that an electric line is to be extended from Westminster to Aldergrove, nine miles north of Lynden. Many of the Canadian farmers believe that the line is really planned to be built from Vancouver to Bellingham and they think it will run almost straight south from Aldergrove, in which event it would pass through Lynden. A farmer friend of the Tribune's says: 'I refused $50 for some uncleared upland. Several tracts have been sold at that price. The Thos. Dutton farm at the corner of the township line and Vale road sold for $125. It had few valuable improvements. There is scarcely a day that auto loads of buyers are not scouring the country trying to buy. They try to buy options, but will pay cash. Those men believe the tram line is to be built through to Bellingham, opening up a lot of new territory to Westminster and Vancouver.'
“There is scarcely a day that auto loads of buyers are not scouring the country trying to buy.”
The speculative fervor for land surrounding transit infrastructure is a recurring theme in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Today, this translates into debates over transit-oriented development and the pressure on rural land use as population centers expand.
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