The Land Grab That Built Tacoma: How the Northern Pacific Railroad Stole Millions of Acres

THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD AND ITS LAND GRANT.

[From the Seattle Star]

Carefully prepared article in the interest of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in relation to their land grants and the individuals under it. There are several very gross errors in that article, whether intentional or not, that require notice.

The writer says, "unmindful as I am that the company decided to change its main line from the Skagit to the Naches Pass, and on November 24th, died its claim of route and its relinquishment of all claims to lands by reason of the withdrawal of the Secretary of the Interior, in lieu thereof, a withdrawal of the lands under the latter route." There is nothing true in the foregoing statement except that said company filed a new map of their branch route over the Naches Pass. If the company had filed an abandonment or relinquishment of lands on the branch via the Skagit Pass, as they no doubt might have done by an instrument in the nature of quit claim deed, why were not those lands restored to settlement? They did no such thing. They filed their new map, and the same was approved by the Secretary of the Interior November 24th, 1876, and asked to have the lands withdrawn on this new line, without any legal or formal abandonment of the old line.

Our Delegate, soon as this matter came to his knowledge, did simply what was his duty: viz.—protested against the right of the company, of their own motion, to change their line of road, and against a further withdrawal under this new filing. To show further the audacity of the process that the Northern Pacific Railroad Company are willing that the lands heretofore withdrawn on that branch via the Skagit Pass should be restored to the government, it is only necessary to call attention to the fact, admitted in the article referred to, that all the lands in question, or nearly all of them, were withdrawn in favor of said company on the main line of their road in 1870 and 1872, and yet it is not claimed that there has been any pretense of an abandonment by the Company of said lands, or any part thereof. They have located their terminus at Tacoma, and all lands heretofore withdrawn on the main line north of that point it is admitted should be restored to the government.

Certainly there is no reason why this should not be done. There is no pretense that the company have abandoned or relinquished the lands withdrawn on the main line north of Tacoma, except by the location of the terminus at Tacoma which of itself, without a deed from the company, or an act of Congress does not restore them to settlement.

Why, if the company are anxious or even willing to do justice to the settler, that they do not by proper conveyance return to the company lands on the main line, and also the other lands withdrawn on the branch via the Skagit Pass? The reason is very plain. The company desire to misappropriate 700,000 acres of these lands north of Tacoma to the building of a local coal road from Tacoma thirty-one miles up the Puyallup river to certain coal mines.

The aforesaid writer says further in an article referring to it: "The company is compelled to build and is building its railroad up the Puyallup river under the withdrawal via the Skagit Pass. This it can do for the first forty miles." The unblushing effrontery of this statement shows, if there was no other earmark, that the article in question was written by a minion of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. No disinterested and honest person would use such language.

The branch route and the withdrawals upon it extend a little east of north from Tacoma, while the coal road which the company are building runs southeasterly, an entirely opposite direction, and besides the whole of said coal road is entirely within the limits of the granted lands of said company on their main line. And yet as absurd and fraudulent as this claim is, it affords a key to the action of the company in opposing a restoration to the government and the settlement of these lands north of Tacoma, on both the main and branch lines.

Perhaps they will succeed in this attempt to obtain a subsidy of 700,000 acres of the public lands in King, Kitsap and Snohomish counties for the building of this 31 miles of local coal road, but if they do it will be because they failed to make a proper report to Congress.

Again, the writer of the article in question claims that the grant to the N.P. R.R. Co. is a grant which can be changed by the company at any time before what he pleases to term a 'public road.' He says "the Northern Pacific Railroad may provide perhaps, routes, under the sixth section, and one of its tracks, under the third section." I am aware that such is the claim of the company, but there is no foundation for it either in the letter or spirit of the law. It is evidently manufactured in the interest of the company.

There is provision in section six of the act of July 2, 1864, for the alteration of map whatever. Section six provides for the survey of the lands, &c., "as fast as may be required by the progress of said railroad." But no provision for the filing of any additional or record map, or any map of not section three grants certain lands described therein, "at the time the line of said road is definitely filed, and at all filed in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office."

This is the only reference to the matter of plat or map in the whole Act.

First, consider the act itself; second, the filing of the plat or map; and third, that survey and locating the lands claimed. Such it is briefly stated by the Courts when it is understood that if the company have the right to change the location of its branch from the Skagit to the Naches Pass, it is not even conceded by the writer of the article referred to, that the company propose to build via Naches Pass. He says they may do so.

The Naches Pass has never been surveyed by the company to an altitude at least 6,000 feet above the level, and their road is not on any practical route to said pass. Our first position is, that having elected the Skagit Pass route, the company have no right to a subsidy in any other road; and secondly, they do not intend and cannot build a road by the aid of this 'subsidy,' and that the title of a route only for the purpose of getting up a claim to lands is fraudulent.

Congress has refused and will refuse this grant to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. They have no right to get out, it subsidizes the building of roads, let them open and run the Wollaston and Walla Walla, and not Seattle and Puget Sound. National companies have their share.

One conclusion Mr. Editor, also add to this: that whenever is deceived by any statement or evasions of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company is not one. They intend to keep all they have and get what they can. Most of the lands east of the Cascades are timbered lands, and the company have been, no doubt suppose did and are selling off the timber which constitutes their principal value, and therefore it is not in the interest of the company to have them restored to the government, and they will no doubt prevent such restoration as long as they can. Once for all, if these lands are restored to settlement it must be through the efforts of the people themselves.