Land Claims in T.11S R.7E

This map appeared in Stephen A.D. Puter’s 1908 book, Looters of the Public Domain, written while the author was in jail for land fraud. It shows Township 11 South, Range 7 East, an area of land high in the Cascade Mountains that was at the center of the first major land fraud trial in Oregon.

During the first decade of the twentieth century Oregon’s national reputation was marred by a series of embarrassing land fraud scandals. Federal investigations revealed that land speculators and timber companies had illegally obtained large portions of the public domain with the assistance of corrupt public officials. The first case to be broken involved the township shown in the map reproduced here.

In 1900 a group of swindlers led by Stephen Puter and Horace McKinley hired several people to take out a dozen fradulent claims in township “11-7,” located in a remote part of the Cascade Forest Reserve. Once the claims were patented, the land fraud ring planned to sell the land to the Minnesota-based C.A. Smith Timber Company, which in turn would trade the relatively worthless land for much more valuable “lieu land” outside of the forest reserve. Both the land fraud ring and the timber company stood to make a tidy profit from the illegal deal.

However, the land fraud ring encountered a series of delays in obtaining title to the land. In 1902 Puter traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Oregon Senator John H. Mitchell to see if Mitchell could clear up the matter. Puter later claimed that he gave Mitchell a $2,000 bribe to expedite the claims, a charge Mitchell vociferously denied. Mitchell did, however, meet with the commissioner of the General Land Office, fellow Oregonian Binger Hermann, who arranged for the claims to be patented.

During this time General Land Office agents were investigating the claims in township 11-7, as well as claims the land fraud ring had made in another township located near the Umpqua Valley. In the fall of 1903 indictments were returned against several members of the ring, including Puter and McKinley. All but one was found guilty in a well-publicized trial the following year.

Puter fled the state before sentencing, but was captured and sentenced to two years in the county jail. He served a year and a half before President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned him so that he could turn state’s evidence. Puter's testimony led to the indictment of most of Oregon’s congressional delegation, as well as a number of other prominent Oregonians and federal officials.

Further Reading:
Messing, John. “Public Lands, Politics, and Progressives: The Oregon Land Fraud Trials, 1903-1910.” Pacific Historical Review 35, 1966: 35-66.

O'Callaghan, Jerry A. “Senator Mitchell and the Oregon Land Frauds, 1905.” Pacific Historical Review 21, 1952: 255-261.

Puter, Stephen A. Douglas. Looters of the Public Domain. Portland, Oreg., 1908.

Written by Cain Allen, © Oregon Historical Society, 2006