The City Cut a Street Through Four Lots, and the Warrant Went to a Stranger
A Seattle property owner sues to freeze $2,100 the council voted to pay out for a Water Street condemnation — money he says belongs to him.
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.
James Dougan and wife brought suit yesterday to enjoin the city from paying to another party the amount of a street grade warrant amounting to $2,100.
According to the complaint, Dougan, in 1890, sold four lots in Northern addition to Thomas Johnson and wife, taking a mortgage to secure the payment of a balance of the purchase money. This balance was not paid, the mortgage was foreclosed and the property sold, Dougan being the purchaser.
While the property was still held by Johnson, the city passed an ordinance condemning a 100-foot strip of ground through the four lots involved in the suit, and four other lots, for the cutting through of Water street. The damages for this were fixed at $2,100, and warrant was issued to Johnson as evidence of the debt. Johnson afterward disposed of this warrant to a third party, who is unknown to the plaintiffs. On August 22 the city council passed an ordinance providing for the payment of the warrant.
It is claimed that no one except the plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of the warrant, or at least one-half of it. The court is asked to restrain the city from paying the warrant to anyone, and that it be required to deposit with the court the amount of the warrant. It is also asked that the party holding the warrant be required to appear in court and declare what interest he has in it.
“The city passed an ordinance condemning a 100-foot strip of ground through the four lots involved in the suit ... for the cutting through of Water street.”
In the early 1890s Seattle was carving streets straight through private lots as fast as it could grade them, and paying the owners in warrants that traded like paper among speculators. The warrant in this case had already been sold on to somebody the original owner could not name — a small window into how municipal improvement money sloshed around a boomtown. Condemnation awards, third-party assignees and lawsuits over who actually gets paid remain the ordinary weather of Seattle street and transit projects.
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