A Frontier Estate on the Market
Royal Haskell offers his 147-acre Snohomish dairy ranch, mill site, and town house for sale as he prepares to depart for the East.
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.
Wishing to return to the East, I offer for sale all my real and personal property in this county, consisting of a very fine ranch adjoining Snohomish City, of 147 acres; 70 acres bottom land, the balance upland, adjoining 30 acres cleared, and excellent stock range. An average of over 20 head of stock kept on the place the past two years. 35 are now there, of which 13 are milch cows. $200 worth of fruit is annually produced by the orchard on this place. The location is one of the best for a dairy ranch in this county. 50 tons of hay was cut on this place last year. I also offer for sale 170 acres of land at Alto, near the forks of the river, with a valuable mill privilege and building for a mill ready to put in the machinery. Besides these two valuable pieces, I will sell one house and lot in Snohomish City. The house is well built, hard finished, one and one-half stories high and contains 7 rooms. For terms apply to the undersigned at Snohomish City. Royal Haskell.
“The location is one of the best for a dairy ranch in this county.”
This 1880s advertisement offers a snapshot of Snohomish’s transition from a wild timber and agricultural frontier to a settled community. The listing of a 'dairy ranch' just outside the city center reflects the rapid land conversion that defined the county's growth, a precursor to the modern debates over land use, density, and agricultural preservation in the Snohomish Valley today.
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