City's Tide Lands Protected from Speculators
Federal land officials reject attempts to claim Seattle harbor water as private property using questionable land scrip.
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.
In the matter of the application to locate Sioux half-breed scrip, the commissioner of the general land office has again sustained the decision of the register and receiver of the local office. Letters received at the land office yesterday made known that application on appeal of the heirs of A. LaFromboise to locate on section 8, township 24, north of range 4 east, had been rejected. Commissioner William Stone agreed with the local officials that the land applied for was covered by the waters of Puget Sound and used for the purposes of navigation. The application on appeal of Roseau Lamoreaux was also rejected. Commissioner Stone considered, with the local officials, that the land could not be filed upon because it is unsurveyed, is covered by the waters of Elliott Bay and lies beyond the meander line of the government survey.
“Commissioner William Stone agreed with the local officials that the land applied for was covered by the waters of Puget Sound and used for the purposes of navigation.”
This 1891 ruling was a crucial victory for the principle that Seattle's waterfront and tide lands belonged to the public rather than private speculators. It resonates with current struggles over the development of the downtown waterfront and the ongoing legal questions regarding who controls the ground beneath the city's harbor.
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