The Railroad’s Big Heist: Northern Pacific Claims Indian Land It Doesn’t Own

WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. 23.—A telegram received here today from Tacoma reveals that General Counsel McNaught of the Northern Pacific road has claimed a large part of the Puyallup reservation for his railway, thereby giving it vast possessions adjacent to large cities in Washington.

McNaught stated: "We claim we are entitled, under direction of the interior department, and two decisions of the supreme court, to the odd [numbered sections] in the Indian country as soon as the Indian title is extinguished... We shall make this claim upon a decision given by the secretary of the department in the Guilford-Miller case, and also a recent decision by the United States supreme court in the cases of Butts vs. the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad Company vs. Phelps. There is no question of our right under these decisions."

The demand of the Northern Pacific railroad for the odd-numbered sections of land in the Puyallup Indian reservation has caused considerable comment among sympathetic admirers of the red man. According to the act passed by Congress in 1864, the Northern Pacific railway is entitled to twenty miles on each side of the track, allowing the road forty square miles of public land to every linear mile of railroad.

However, the condition of affairs in the Puyallup Indian reservation is very different from that of the Crow reservation. The Indian claim to the land is based upon treaty stipulations entered into with the United States December 30, 1854, long before a grant to a railroad was made. Under the provisions of that treaty, all lands of the reservation except 389 acres have been allotted in severalty to the Indians, for which patents have been issued in fee simple.

To extinguish the title of these individual Indians to their respective allotments, so patented, it will be necessary for the government to purchase outright all the present market value, of which the Indians themselves are fully apprised. This land, from the richness of soil, its adaptability to cultivation of hops, and its close proximity to navigation, will command a price not less than $100 per acre.

Unofficial opinions of officials at the Indian Bureau are against the success of the Northern Pacific in its efforts to lay claim to the odd-numbered sections of the lands in the Puyallup reservation. The subject has been discussed in dispatches to the Eastern press, and some have characterized it as a bold move on the part of the company. The claim of the company for the odd sections, it is estimated, includes 9,000 acres said to be worth millions of dollars.

The very value of these lands would be a barrier to their passing to any company as their part of its land grant. It would necessitate the purchase by the government, and then the turning over of the property to the company. The department expects that if there were an attempt to change title other than by actual purchase, nothing short of a decision by the Supreme Court would settle the question.