The Land Grabbers of Snohomish: How Loggers Hoarded Tide Marshes

Resources of the Snohomish.

In last week’s paper was a full description of the tide lands at the mouth of the river, following a general description of the topography of that section in a previous number. The promise was made of another article in reference to the yield of this class of lands, with a statement of some reasons why no more improvements have been made thereon.

With the exception of Whitney’s 150-acre tract, very little of the lower Sound country was settled by families with a view of living by agriculture, over ten or twelve years. In fact, the main agricultural improvements have been made since 1870. Ten years ago, scarce a dozen white women were to be found in Snohomish county, logging having begun in a systematic manner on this river some years previously: so that while scarce any families existed, there were already several hundred men without families who were bound by very slight ties to this country; working in camps in the summer, and boarding at the saloons and boarding houses during the winter. Only a portion were farmers, and very few at even this class knew much about the value of this class of tide lands.

The leading interest of the valley being then, as now, logging.

Within the last half dozen years, nearly all the lower river tide marsh suitable for immediate cultivation has been secured by transient or single men, who learned that such lands were deemed valuable, yet the purchaser from the government, while securing title to the same, had no design of improving them. The process being like this: when work would be slack in the camps for a few months, a person could file on, and improve a tract sufficiently to get his title, then go back to his logging again.

Nearly all the Snohomish tide marshes being thus held, very little real improvement has been made, yet it is not as if this land was owned by large capitalists, who were carefully estimating the prospective value as a means of permanent investment, for these men do not improve, chiefly, because their attention is absorbed by other interests, and they do not possess the habits or instincts, as a class, of the cultivator of the soil. Few have the moral courage to undertake so new a calling, and many are convinced that it would be more to their interest to sell out to practical farmers and use their money elsewhere, rather than follow an occupation they do not understand.

Therefore, there are thousands of acres of excellent tide lands, more convenient of access than any around the Sound, at the mouth of this river, with a perfect title, all ready to improve, which can be purchased as cheap as any lands of the same quality around the Sound.