Railroad Money Buys the Ground for Ione
Deeds filed at Colville show the Idaho & Washington Northern’s investment company assembling the old Stecker ranch and nearby tracts for a brand-new townsite on the Pend Oreille.
The deeds from Houghton, for the Jones land at Usk to the Fred E. Grinnell Co., of Spokane, and from that firm to the Panhandle Investment Co. have been filed for record at Colville. The consideration named in the deed was $22,500.
The deeds from Margaret McDougal for the old Stecker ranch, adjoining the townsite of Ione, to the same parties have also been recorded. The consideration was $10,400. The Ferguson five-acre tract in the same district to the same parties has also been filed.
It is understood that this covers all of the land purchased by the Idaho Washington Northern interests for the new townsite of Ione.
“It is understood that this covers all of the land purchased by the Idaho Washington Northern interests for the new townsite of Ione.”
Ione’s townsite was bought up by railroad-backed investors in 1908, the kind of speculative town-building that reshaped the Pend Oreille corridor. The same questions—who owns the land, who gets to plat a town, and who profits when the railroad arrives—still shape rural Washington development.
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