The Great Land Grab of 1890
Official records from the Seattle land office reveal a massive migration of settlers moving into Washington’s 'virgin soil,' fueling a population boom and shifting the region's economy toward private ownership.
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 progress of Washington as a state can be seen in the reports of the United States local land offices. In the past twelve months, 1,973,888 acres passed from the government to private individuals, with over 600,000 acres filed through the Seattle office alone. These figures exclude the vast areas annually brought under the plow by hardy settlers, silencing those who claimed that Washington’s cities were growing beyond the capacity of its rural districts. Estimating each new entryman has a family of two, the state saw an increase of 23,610 in its agricultural population. The Seattle land district currently carries the distinction of being the largest land office in the United States, transacting more business than the other six land districts in Washington combined. However, the lack of government surveys and the resulting dearth of land has left approximately 2,000,000 acres of unsurveyed land in Western Washington held by settlers under mere 'squatters' rights. Register T.M. Reed notes that while these settlers are eager to stake their claims, they must be wary of Northern Pacific Railroad grants and state-owned sections, lest they lose their labor and their homes.
“The one great advantage is that there is plenty of everything—in a raw state. Beyond that all depends upon the man.”
In 1890, Seattle was the primary gateway for settlers claiming 'virgin' land—often ignoring Indigenous land rights. Today, the struggle for land has shifted from the frontier to urban infill, where the tension between 'squatters' rights' and institutional development remains a defining, albeit modernized, feature of Seattle’s housing landscape.
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