The County Road That Came With a Price Tag
In 1908, Stevens County commissioners approved a 17-mile road from Gerome to Hunters, overruled a remonstrance, and paid four landowners for the right of way.
On January 8, 1908, the Board of County Commissioners of Stevens County heard the surveyor's report on the Edgar Leman road No. 157. The proposed county road, forty-eight feet wide, was to connect at Gerome, near the bank of the Columbia River, run up the river to Hunter Creek, and thence up the creek to the town of Hunters, with a quarter-mile spur north to the section line and a road to Anderson's ferry—about seventeen miles in all.
Most landowners along the route waived damages, but J. W. Hunter, W. C. Dew, Ed Sullivan and S. Wheelis claimed damages. M. C. Peltier was principal in a remonstrance circulated, signed and filed with the board opposing the road. After notice was served and a hearing held, the board found the road a public necessity and fixed damages as follows: J. W. Hunter $150, W. C. Dew $25, Ed Sullivan $50, S. Wheelis $75.
The board also granted the petition of J. W. Hunter and others to vacate a piece of road on the northwest side of Wilbur Hunter's ranch, to be abandoned as the new Leman road was established. The Leman road was ordered established as prayed for.
“That said road as proposed is a public necessity.”
This is the ordinary machinery of eminent domain: a public need, a route, and a fight over who gets paid. In Stevens County—and in Newport—road and utility corridors still set off the same arguments about access, compensation and whose land is treated as expendable.
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