Ezra Meeker Tries to Take Back Puyallup's Park—and Loses
The state supreme court rules that a public dedication survives the town's invalid original incorporation, leaving Puyallup's park in the city's hands.
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.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 17.—[Special.]—The decree of the lower court was affirmed in the case of Ezra Meeker and wife, appellants, vs. city of Puyallup, respondents. This suit involved title to Puyallup's park, which the plaintiffs sought to recover on the ground that they had conveyed it to the town of Puyallup, the incorporation of which was afterwards held invalid, and that the present city of Puyallup therefore had no title to the land. The court holds that the land was properly dedicated to the public and that the city succeeded to the title.
“The court holds that the land was properly dedicated to the public and that the city succeeded to the title.”
Public dedications can outlast the governments that made them. The 1893 ruling is an early Washington case on the principle that land given to the public stays public—an argument still heard whenever parkland or waterfront access is contested. Ezra Meeker, later famous for retracing the Oregon Trail, here appears as a litigant against his own town's civic commons.
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