The Steamboat Scheme to Sneak 10,000 Sheep into Washington
Barred from driving his Oregon flocks through Klickitat County, M. McLennan charters a special steamer to slip them into Skamania County and on to Yakima.
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.
M. McLennan, who bought 10,000 mutton sheep last winter in Oregon, has hit upon a plan to get them into this state that proves him a true son of his strategical Scottish highland ancestors. It has always been the custom to cross the Columbia into Klickitat county, and thence come on into the winter feeding grounds of the Yakima, but this year the Klickitat commissioners have said nay. So McLennan, we understand, has chartered a special steamer to transport his sheep down the Columbia into Skamania county, where no objection will be made to their entering, and from there gradually work his way to Yakima.
“he has chartered a special steamer to transport his sheep down the Columbia into Skamania county, where no objection will be made to their entering”
Then as now, livestock regulations and county lines set off cat-and-mouse games. McLennan’s steamboat end-run around a local ban echoes modern disputes over agricultural access, water rights and interstate movement—and the enduring tension between protecting local resources and letting the market roam.
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