A $500 Promise and a Government Land Dream: The Homestead Scam Drawing Inquiries Daily
Operating out of Seattle, Tacoma and Bellingham, promoters allegedly charged would-be settlers $500 for 'prior rights' to Oregon land tangled in a federal suit against the Southern Pacific.
Seattle — Lured by promises made by land locators operating in Seattle, Tacoma and Bellingham, scores of innocent and ignorant men have been induced to part with considerable sums of money in the belief that they would be able to obtain prior rights as homesteaders and timber-land claimants in filing entries on land in Oregon involved in the suit brought by the United States Department of Justice against the Southern Pacific. The charge made by the locators is $500, of which $150 is paid down, and the homesteaders are told that they will obtain first rights should the land revert to the government. This is the land involved in the sensational attack of President Roosevelt on Senator Tillman a few weeks ago. The local United States land office receives inquiries every day regarding these lands, the inquirers believing that the land is government land and subject to entry.
“The charge made by the locators is $500, of which $150 is paid down and the homesteaders are told that they will obtain first rights should the land revert to the government.”
Public-land fraud was a major Northwest industry in this era, and the story's mechanics—upfront fees, insider claims, and government land everyone assumes is free for the taking—are recognizable in modern timeshare, mineral-rights, and 'land investment' schemes. The local land office's daily stream of anxious inquirers shows how quickly rumor could become a market.
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