The Monopoly That Almost Killed the Nooksack
Before the valley flourished, settlers fought to break the stranglehold of absentee speculators and corporate monopolies that kept the river choked with logs and local trade shackled.
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.
The Nooksack River drains that part of Whatcom County situated north of Bellingham Bay and west of Mount Baker. Until recently, the whole river was jammed, so as to prevent the passage even of canoes. Within the past two years, a subscription was raised and the Nooksack was cleared; the amount raised was less than $500. Previously, the region suffered under non-resident speculators who purchased thousands of acres, rendering the building of a town on the Bay an impossibility. The administration of affairs by the B.B. Coal Company was always the reverse of public-spirited, and their agent managed to be in antagonism to the interests of most of the county. Settlers had no cash market for their produce and no chance to sell except to the company at prices fixed by the firm. The suspension of the company is indeed a fortunate thing for these settlers as it enables a number of stores to spring to life, creating competition with its attendant benefits. With the river jams being cleared, a steamboat potentially running, and new mills established, the population of that valley should more than quadruple in the next two years.
“The administration of affairs by the B.B. Coal Company was always the reverse of public-spirited and enterprising, as far as other people were concerned.”
This 1878 report on corporate land-banking and shipping monopolies feels remarkably like current debates over development and infrastructure access. Just as 19th-century settlers fought to clear the Nooksack for local economic independence, modern residents grapple with how monopolistic land ownership and limited transit corridors dictate the affordability and livability of the rural-urban fringe.
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