The Survey Line That Decided Who Owned Port Angeles' Waterfront
A tide-land appraiser says a corrected meander line puts Front Street back where it belongs—and preserves waterfront owners' prior right to buy the state's tidelands.
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.
A. H. Howells, of Port Angeles, chairman of the Clallam County board of tide land appraisers, who is stopping at the Occidental, says that the difficulty in regard to the survey of the Port Angeles tide lands has been settled satisfactorily to all concerned by making a correction of the map filed with the state land commission. "The meander line has now been placed on the north side of Front Street, instead of seventy-two feet further out in the bay, where the former survey located it. The trouble arose because there was no government meander line in front of the business portion of the town or from Chase to Tumwater streets, but the north line of Front Street was universally recognized as the place where the line should be located. By putting the line seventy-two feet further out the state would lose the proceeds of the sale of the tide lands on which there are improvements, and the present water front improvers would have been deprived of the prior right of purchase of the lands in front. The whole matter, however, is now practically settled, and applications for purchase of the tide lands can now be sent in to the land commission."
“The meander line has now been placed on the north side of Front Street, instead of seventy-two feet further out in the bay, where the former survey located it.”
Tidelands were a public resource, but 'prior right of purchase' gave waterfront owners a powerful inside track—a pattern that still echoes in fights over public shorelines and private development. The survey line, not just the land, decided who got the bay.
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