The Broken Promise of the Puyallup Coal Road
A political scandal erupts as Seattle accuses an attorney of pocketing fees while failing to stop the Northern Pacific Railway from seizing massive swathes of King County land.
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.
It ill becomes J. J. McGilvra to heave mud upon Mr. Brents for not doing what he himself was hired but failed to do. Mr. McGilvra was paid to go to Washington City as the attorney of the people of Seattle and King County to prevent the Northern Pacific Company from getting a grant of King County land for the building of their Puyallup coal road. What he did for the six, eight, or ten hundred dollars given him didn't amount to anything, and the money had better have been thrown into the Sound. The Northern Pacific Company has since ascertained that an extension is not necessary to enable them to retain their grant. It is theirs to the end of time, unless declared forfeited by Congress for the failure to build and earn. The lands along the completed lines are theirs beyond recall. Upon ascertaining this fact, the Company concluded that its interests would not warrant the giving to our people of several hundred thousand acres of land, worth well-nigh a million dollars. They ignored their former offer and soon after assumed the ownership and began the sale of the lands in question. If there is anyone toward whom the people of King County have a right to feel hard in this matter, it is Mr. McGilvra, who had the opportunity and who took the money out of their pockets and gave them nothing in return. Making King County pay for the building of the Puyallup coal road was a monstrous wrong, which the writer, in common with other citizens, violently opposed at the time.
“What he did for the six, eight, or ten hundred dollars given him didn't amount to anything, and the money had better have been thrown into the Sound.”
This 1880 dispute over corporate land grants and political accountability echoes Seattle’s long-standing tension between rapid infrastructure expansion and the protection of local public resources. Just as citizens felt betrayed by the 'Puyallup coal road' land grab, contemporary debates over public land use, corporate tax breaks, and development deals continue to stir resentment in the region.
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