The Right-of-Way Racket: How One Man Tried to Sell Seattle's Waterfront Twice
A legal battle in King County reveals the chaotic land grabs of early Seattle, where a single deed could claim ownership of deep-water access rights across the entire waterfront.
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.
A peculiar case was brought into the district court yesterday by the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway Company against J. Gardner Kenyon.
The complaint alleges that Mr. Kenyon had a quitclaim deed to the right-of-way (thirty feet wide on the waterfront adjacent to his property) recorded without the company's knowledge and before they had time to examine it. The document contained a clause unknown to the railway, giving Mr. Kenyon the right to sell access to the westward of the right-of-way to deep water for thirty years over the right-of-way he deeded to the company.
The complainant wishes to have such rights disclaimed.
The following appears on the memorandum fee book for 1896 and 1897, in the office of the recorder of King County, page 300: "Right-of-way deed from J. Gardner Kenyon to Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, filed April 25th, 1897, fee $1.50, filed by Burke & Miller. Instrument taken out and receipted for by Burke Haller, per T.K.U., April 25th, 1897." The deed was written by Hon. J.R. Kinnear, sealed, signed and delivered in...
This 1897 dispute over a thirty-foot strip of land highlights the frantic, often predatory nature of Seattle's early real estate development. Just as today's housing crisis is driven by scarcity and complex ownership layers, this era saw developers fighting over every inch of waterfront access—a resource that defined the city's economic survival. The legal maneuvering described here mirrors modern battles over zoning rights and infrastructure control.
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