The Battle Over Seattle’s Waterfront
Delegates at the constitutional convention debate the legality of old railroad land grants that once promised to privatize Elliott Bay.
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.
The tide land issue came up in configuration again this morning. Mr. Moore introduced an elaborate resolution directing the committee on school and granted lands to investigate fully the history of tide lands. Mr. Buchanan of Adams County rose, stating, 'I do not see the purpose of this resolution. The tide has flowed and ebbed and flowed over them from the very beginning, and that is all the history they have.' The discussion eventually stalled, but Moore's resolution highlighted the serious interest in questioning the status of land titles before Washington became a state. Separately, a proposal was introduced to invalidate an 1873 act by the territorial legislature that granted almost all tide lands in Elliott Bay to the Seattle & Walla Walla Railway. That company failed to build the full line, and proponents argued that the grant was never earned and should not cloud future titles.
“The tide has flowed and ebbed and flowed over them from the very beginning, and that is all the history they have.”
This 1889 debate over tide lands and corporate land grants reflects the deep-seated tension in Seattle’s history between private profit and public access to the waterfront. The fight to define whether these lands belonged to the state or private rail interests established the legal landscape for the modern port and the public ownership of much of the downtown shoreline.
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