Sawmill Company's 2,700-Acre Timber Land Fraud Exposed
A government investigation exposes how powerful sawmill companies in Washington Territory used dummy entrymen to systematically steal thousands of acres of federal forest 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.
According to the annual report of Commissioner Sparks for 1886, the most extensive frauds in Washington Territory and Oregon have been examined in the interest of sawmill companies and lumbermen. One report details an Olympia district scheme in which the agent of a mill company procured parties to make nineteen timber land entries and eight pre-emption entries of a valuable tract containing 2,700 acres. The entrymen were employees of the company and never resided on their claims. The company's agent provided the tract descriptions, filled out applications, and paid the fees. When the investigator for the General Land Office arrived, the company’s agents discovered his business, SPIRITED WITNESSES OUT OF THE COUNTRY, and employed spies to watch him. On one occasion, two persons who were about to confer with the agent at his hotel were knocked down and dragged away. Notwithstanding this, the agent obtained affidavits from ninety entrymen who admitted being hired to make the applications for a consideration of $20 each. It appears that the company's agents worked systematically, hiring surveyors to locate the best timber and scouring the streets of Eureka and elsewhere to find people who could be induced to make application for land and transfer their interests to the firm.
“The agents of the company soon discovered his business, spirited witnesses out of the country, and employed spies to watch him.”
This 1886 report mirrors the ongoing tension in the Pacific Northwest between large-scale industrial resource extraction and the public interest. While the mechanisms of 'dummy entrymen' and land-office bribery have evolved into more sophisticated lobbying and land-use litigation, the fundamental struggle over the stewardship of Washington's natural wealth remains a central theme in Seattle's political identity.
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