A Frontier Life for Sale
A departing settler lists his massive Snohomish ranch and a Quico mill site, offering a snapshot of a region transitioning from raw wilderness to cultivated industry.
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, some cleared, and excellent stock range. An average of over 20 head of stock kept on the piece the past two years. $200 worth of fruit is annually produced by the orchard on this piece. The location is one of the best for a dairy ranch in this county. 80 tons of hay was cut on this place last year. I also offer for sale 170 acres of land at Quico, near the forks of the river, with a valuable mill privilege and building for a mill ready to put in the machinery. Besides those two valuable pieces I will sell one building 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. 80 tons of hay was cut on this place last year.”
Haskell’s 1880s advertisement perfectly captures the era when Snohomish was being carved out of the wilderness into agrarian plots. Today, that same land—once valued for its 'dairy ranch' potential and 'mill privilege'—has become the site of intense suburban sprawl and real estate speculation, echoing the same cycle of land conversion that defined the territory’s early history.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.