The Great Timber Land Swindle: How Seattle’s Elite Claimed Farmable Soil as Forest

The decision of the Commissioner of the General Land Office in the celebrated case of the United States vs. Stephen S. Bailey, Randall K. Hawley, and Russell A. Alger has been received at the local land office.

The opinion, dated March 10, 1891, from Washington City, addresses timber land entries made between 1883 and 1887 in the Olympia series. The case centers on whether these lands were truly "timber culture" plots suitable for forestry or if they were, in fact, valuable agricultural lands fraudulently entered under laws intended for forest conservation.

The government argued that the entries were fraudulent because the land was primarily arable. Witnesses for the United States described the soil as "sandy loam," "clay loam," and "dark-brown color" with a subsoil of yellow clay, noting it was capable of producing crops like wheat and potatoes once cleared.

However, Commissioner Stone delivered a sharp rebuke to the claimants. He noted that fir and cedar do not grow upon good soil; rather, they thrive on poorer ground. The commissioner found that the majority of the tracts—including those held by Bailey, Hawley, and Alger—were indeed fit for agriculture.

"It is timber land," the headline declares, but the ruling suggests otherwise for many of the contested plots. While some portions were deemed too rocky or steep for plowing, the core argument held: if it grows good crops, it isn't timber land under the 1878 act.

The decision effectively cancels several entries, declaring that the lands are not subject to entry under the Timber Culture Act because they are agricultural in character. This ruling strikes a blow against the concentrated ownership of prime farmland by speculative interests who used legal loopholes to secure fertile soil near Samish Lake for less than its true value.