Who Drew Tacoma's Harbor Lines? A New Affidavit Deepens the Tide-Land Fight
As Tacoma and the Northern Pacific fought over the waterfront, a witness swore he saw a Tacoma Land Company representative preparing the very maps the state used to fix the harbor line.
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.
TACOMA, Jan. 4.—Special.—A motion to dissolve the injunction in the waterfront controversy between the city and the state board of tide land commissioners and the Tacoma and the Northern Pacific will be argued tomorrow.
An affidavit has been prepared by John Snyder, attesting that he saw C. O. Dean preparing harbor line maps which are said to be the same used by the state board of land commissioners in locating Tacoma's harbor. It has been denied that Mr. Dean, who is charged with representing the Tacoma Land Company in the matter, prepared the maps, hence the significance of Mr. Snyder's affidavit. There is said to be another affidavit to the effect that the civil engineer employed by the state land commission at the time did not prepare the Tacoma harbor line maps.
“An affidavit has been prepared by John Snyder, attesting that he saw C. O. Dean preparing harbor line maps which are said to be the same used by the state board of land commissioners in locating Tacoma's harbor.”
Tacoma's waterfront is now a public esplanade and port, but the 1895 fight over who drew the harbor line echoes today's battles over public land, private fill, and shoreline access. Then as now, the question was not just where the line fell but who got to draw it.
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