THE ILLUSTRATED WEST SHORE.
245
national meeting in Chicago at the time of the Columbian exposition, when it
will place at the service of the ladies the assembly room in the woman's build
ing, and, should it not prove large enough, through our congress auxiliary the
magniticent Auditorium can be secured for the meeting of the International
Council of Women.
WOMEN WHO HAVE TAKEN UP CLAIMS IN THE NEW
STATE OF WASHINGTON.
One of the remarkable women in the northwest is Mrs. H. E. Hough
ton, of Spokane. Mrs. Houghton's career is a living illustration of what
pluck and grit can accomplish, and teaches the lesson to even energetic young
men of the country that they must look well to their laurels. There are
many eastern young women in the new state of Washington who have made
money chiefly by taking up timber, pre-emption and homestead claims, and
by buying town property, but Mrs. Houghton is, so far, ahead of all. She
moved to Washington six years ago from Wisconsin. Her husband, H. E.
Houghton, is a lawyer, and now a state senator. The boom was just striking
Washington at that time and Mrs. Houghton got to investing money on her
own account. She pur-
chased timber and coal
lands and desert acres,
good if irrigated. Be
sides this she became
interested in numerous
town sites, notably 'at
Bonner's Ferry and
Post Falls. Everything
has gone her way and
she is now worth some
$500,000, all realized, it
is said, from an original
investment of but $100.
Mrs. Houghton is not
boastful about her suc
cess, however, and says
that what she has done
can be done by other
young women, and that
she lecls the great west
is the place fur the
young women of the
crowded east, whether
they want to obtain
wealth or husbands.
Mrs. Houghton is but
little more than thirty
years old. Although
naturally one of the
most retiring of women
she has often been
known to make long trips by rail to Tacoma and St. Paul to consult with rail
road officials and others in regard to land deals. She has also made many a
perilous trip by stage over the wild and mountainous sections of Eastern
Washington and Northern Idaho. Where many men would hesitate to set
out on a journey because of snow or rough roads, Mrs. Houghton sees in
such obstacles an incentive to her energy. She has acquired nearly all her
wealth since 1887.
Emulating Mrs. Houghton's example many young ladies from the east
are locating on the public lands of the state. About Olympia, Tacoma and
other towns of Western Washington many of these young ladies have made
and are now making locations. Many of them have come from the far east,
principally from New York and Boston. They have taken up their lands un
der the timber, pre-emption or homestead act mainly, and in some cases they
have gone out into the woods, put up cabins and made their nominal home in
the wilderness, while engaged for a part of the lime in the towns from eight
to a dozen miles away in teaching or typewriting. 0te a number of them
have very good log cabins, well furnished and truly comfortable. Lots of the
girls can shoot with the best marksmen of the sterner sex, and if you go into
one of those cabins you will see a sight that will interest you in the highest
degree deer horns, a gun, skins of wild animals, Indian relics and glittering
specimens of ore are a few of these things. The young lady's cabin, how-
ever, differs from that of the young man in being more neatly kept. One of
these young women from the east is Miss Lulu Lamson, of the Emerson
high school, of Tacoma. She came two years ago from New York City.
She came to make a winning, and with this in' view did not differ from scores
of other young ladies who arrived about the same time. Miss Lamson began
teaching at once, and meantime took up a pre-emption claim and afterward a
homestead at Washougal, on the Columbia river, near Vancouver. She built
a cabin and has lived there for part of a year as required by the land laws.
Only a small fee is required by the government when the initial papers are
filed, and if the claim be a pre-emption or a umber claim only $1.50 or $1.25
an acre, according as it is within the railroad limit, will have to be paid to
complete title and get patent. The pre-emption claim requires the locator to
live upon the land at least six months, On a homestead claim the locator
must live five years, but after that there is no money to pay. People of little
or no means are therefore enabled to get land, which, on account of the rapid
settlement of the country, speedily becomes quite valuable. Oftentimes a
single claim of 160 acres that has cost, all told, not more than $500 or $600,
will be sold for $2,000 to $5,000 in a year. This gives the locator a good
start, and if he or she be shrewd, a large sum can sometimes be made in fu
ture operations. These lands, however, are fast being taken up, escially
" "'v.
. . . . .; .... , . T 1 . -
.. W J,
St'KXK ON THK (OKNKI.I. ROAD, NKAK IMKTI.ANI), ORKliOS.
those that arc accessible and covered with good limlier, The lands that are
now to be liad are mainly in outlying sections somewhat remote from railways,
and can be reached only with some difficulty. As new wagon roads and mil
roads are being pushed all the time, however, there are other opportunities for
people who w ish to take land. Probably not lrss than 1 50 young women
have taken timber lands along Puget sound during the past year. In F.atlem
Washington probably loo others have located hinds. Just now there is a
growing interest in the arid, or desert, lands along the Columbia river. There
are some large enterprises for irrigating these lands, and the thounarals of ai res
are being picked up. In a short lime pmhahly lens of thousands of acres of
these lands, upon which there is now nothing hut sage brush, will be made
highly prtxluctive. So long as there arc limlx-r hinds to locate, however, the
girls have some hesitancy a!out going to the desert. Xrw York Sun.
THE COKNELL ROAD.
."What a lovely retreat!"
She was a faded woman, young and fair, who had once been pretty 1 but
bereavement, disappointment, ill health, or all combined, had wrought serious
havoc with her charms.