Land Giveaway, Logging Corruption Linked New Book Asserts Deals Ruined Northwest Forests

A huge land giveaway during the Civil War led to the illegal creation of four timber giants and the ultimate destruction of Northwest forests and logging communities, a new book asserts.

President Lincoln and Congress signed the 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad land grant to open up the West.

It also opened and filled a lot of private pocketbooks, says the book, “Railroads and Clearcuts,” published by a Spokane environmental group.

Corporate interests got 40 million acres - a swath nearly the size of Washington state - to raise money for a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound.

After the line was built, the lands were supposed to be sold to homesteaders at auction for $2.50 an acre, but instead passed to Weyerhaeuser Co. and other firms.

Those industrial forest lands have been logged so extensively that the ecological effects have damaged neighboring national forests, the book alleges.

The 198-page paperback was published by the Inland Empire Public Lands Council through a small publishing house in Sandpoint.

The lands council contends a greedy faction that included financier J.P. Morgan and lumber magnate Frederick Weyerhaeuser manipulated corrupt politicians and cowardly journalists to subvert the land grant. The book builds its case based on historical accounts and documents.

The legacy of the grant continues to influence life in the Inland Northwest, said contributing author John Osborn, a Spokane physician who founded the lands council in the early 1980s.

“The timber companies have overcut forests they control and are now reaching for the national forests,” Osborn said. “This was one of the most fraud-filled, corrupt periods in U.S. history. It unleashed enormous corporate forces on the West. The whole fabric of Pacific Northwest forests and communities is unraveling.”

The main authors, Spokane’s Derrick Jensen and Seattle corporate researcher George Draffan, target Plum Creek Timber Co., Weyerhaeuser Co. and two of its spinoffs, Boise Cascade Corp. and Potlatch Corp.

The companies’ reaction to excerpts from the book ranged from amusement to annoyance.

“It must be a slow news day,” said Andy Drysdale, spokesman for Boise Cascade.

Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Montye Male noted that the issue is old news, 131 years old.

The lands council is unveiling the book today during simultaneous news conferences in Spokane, Seattle and St. Paul, Minn.

J.P. Morgan and railroad promoter James J. Hill lived in neighboring mansions in the Minnesota capital city.

Plum Creek spokesman Bob Jirsa issued a six-page response to the book’s allegations and said, “We … categorically reject its premise.”

In addition, he said, Plum Creek has replanted millions of trees and is practicing a new, environmentally sound brand of forestry.

The 1864 land grant was so controversial that 60 years later, President Calvin Coolidge asked Congress to investigate the deal.

The government found the grant had been violated in several ways, including the fraudulent acquisition of 15 million acres of land in Washington state and on Indian reservations.

The railroad also was not built according to the mandated time schedule, stock was not sold to the public as required, and Northern Pacific illegally diverted money to build branch lines.

After the government’s five-year investigation ended, President Herbert Hoover ordered Northern Pacific to be sued for the return of 2.8 million acres.

In a partial settlement in 1941, the railroad agreed to give back the 3 million acres and pay $300,000. In exchange, the government closed its fraud investigation.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has reviewed “Railroads and Clearcuts” and said the industrial forest land should be returned to the American public.

“This is one of the biggest corporate welfare giveaways in history,” Nader said from his Washington, D.C., office. “No one is asking they return their ill-gotten gains. Just return the land.”