Railroads Eye the Puyallup Reservation as Opening Rumors Swirl
Members of the Puyallup tribe meet to consider granting railroad right-of-way through their reservation, amid speculation that the land will be thrown open to settlers within sixty days.
TACOMA, Feb. 26.—[Special.]—There is speculation resulting from rumors that the Puyallup Indian reservation will be thrown open inside of sixty days. A meeting of the Puyallups was held yesterday on the reservation to consider of allowing right-of-way to railroads seeking the same through the reservation. So far as there was power to act, the proposition was considered favorably. The camps on Brown's Point, supposed to be railroad surveying corps, attracted many visitors today.
“There is speculation resulting from rumors that the Puyallup Indian reservation will be thrown open inside of sixty days.”
The Puyallup Reservation was eventually allotted and opened to non-Native settlement, a process that dispossessed the Puyallup people of most of their land. This brief item captures the moment when railroad interests and federal policy began to converge on Indigenous territory — a pattern repeated across the American West.
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