Ninety Thousand Acres, Not a Cent in Taxes
An Orcas Island correspondent blames railroad-linked land companies for hoarding the island while residents carry the county tax burden.
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.
The following is from an Orcasville correspondent of the Leader:
Our island has sustained considerable injury through speculators during the last few years. The Lake Superior and Puget Sound Land Company, together with the Hackney estate, controls about 90,000 acres, on which they do not even pay taxes, thereby throwing the burden of the county's support upon the residents. People have not sufficient faith in a tax title to pay the delinquent taxes for any. The Lake Superior and Puget Sound Land Company's land is now in the hands of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and they certainly should feel sufficient interest in the development of the country to pay the taxes on it, if they are holding it for a future purpose.
“The Lake Superior and Puget Sound Land Company, together with the Hackney estate, controls about 90,000 acres, on which they do not even pay taxes, thereby throwing the burden of the county's support upon the residents.”
The complaint is uncannily familiar: absentee owners, idle land, and a local tax base stretched by outside capital. In the 1880s the villain was railroad-linked land companies; today the same arguments surface over speculators, REITs and tax-exempt holdings.
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