The Midnight Queue for a Piece of Skagit Land
When the government opened new timber claims, hopeful settlers staged a chaotic, near-violent all-night standoff to be the first in 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.
Some time since, certain townships and ranges, timbered and located on the Upper Skagit River, were surveyed and advertised to be open for filing. The land is very choice, and as soon as it became known that it was to be thrown open for settlement, there were four to five settlers on each claim, the two townships being converted into a 'booming' district. Yesterday afternoon, soon after the land office closed at 4 o'clock, a crowd of men had congregated about the door of the office with the intention of staying all night and presenting their filings. By this morning, a line was formed. Some rather clever fellow who first presented the door knob with the intention of maintaining his position at the door, nerveously held the knob for the duration of the night until morning, by which time the hallway in which the office is located became impassable. Naturally, for positions in the line, incidents occurred which on several occasions gave promise of culminating in open fights, but, however, by some measures of peace, at 8 o'clock the tension of the crowd was relaxed. The action of the applicants was met with cold grace by some of the others, there being threats of them being tied. All the crowd today would be deemed by the department as almost a mob. No violence of any kind followed.
“Naturally, for positions in the line, incidents occurred which on several occasions gave promise of culminating in open fights.”
Today, competition for land and housing in the Puget Sound region is handled via digital interfaces and escalating real estate prices, but the 'fever' of a land rush remains a haunting reflection of the same scarcity-driven desperation seen in 1889. The intensity of the crowd, then as now, highlights the volatile struggle for stake-holding in a rapidly developing Northwest.
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