[Cooke, Jay] Western Land Association of Minnesota:

DEED NO. 461. WESTERN LAND ASSOCIATION OF MINNESOTA. THIS INDENTURE, MADE THIS SIXTH DAY OF MAY IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD [1881] BETWEEN THE WESTERN LAND ASSOCIATION OF MINNESOTA, A CORPORATION DULY CREATED BY AND EXISTING UNDER THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA, PARTY OF THE FIRST PART, AND WILLIAM G. WILLIS OF SAINT LOUIS COUNTY MINNESOTA, PARTY OF THE SECOND PART. WITNESSETH THAT THE SAID PARTY OF THE FIRST PART, IN CONSIDERATION OF THE SUM OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS, TO IT IN HAND PAID BY THE SAID PARTY OF THE SECOND PART. . .DOTH QUITCLAIM UNTO THE SAID PARTY OF THE SECOND PART . . . THE WESTERLY HALF OF LOT 41 ON WEST SUPERIOR STREET DULUTH.

Printed folio document, 10-1/4" x 15-1/2." Completed in ink manuscript. Signed by the President [S. N. Felton] and Secretary [Chas. Hinchman] of the Western Land Association. Docketed on the verso, with manuscript release of portion of a mortgage from the Association. Usual folds, Very Good plus.

A Jay Cooke project to give him access to the lands along a Minnesota Railroad. "One of the projects growing out of Jay Cooke's connection with the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad was the 'Western Land Association of Minnesota.' The purpose of this company was similar to George Francis Train's Credit Foncier of America. It sought to exploit Duluth and the town sites and land privileges along the right of way of a projected railroad. The first published report of the Western Land Association was made in 1871. The company had received cash of $200,000 for its shares. Its receipts consisted of $97,321 for real estate sold and $21,166 in interest on deferred payments, and it paid out $182,390 for real estate purchases. But the most important item mentioned in the report is the stock interest acquired in the company by the Northern Pacific Railroad. In return for an agreement of the Northern Pacific to fix its eastern terminus at Duluth and to connect with the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, the Western Land Association sold 2,000 shares of its stock for $120,000 to the 'Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company,' the real estate subsidiary of the Northern Pacific.
"The president of the company, Mr. Samuel M. Felton, said, 'The company will soon be attacked by the Press and in the Courts as a monopoly, and being the creature of the law, may be subject to continual and expensive annoyance.' Moreover, 'the Western
Land Association has now accomplished, as a holder of a large number of town lots, the object for which it was organized, and kept out of the hands of unprogressive speculators the property they would otherwise have held to the detriment of all large plans of improvement". [Sakolski, THE GREAT AMERICAN LAND BUBBLE. Harper & Brothers. 1932. Chapter 14, page 294 et seq. Reprinted 1966.]. Item #41384

Price: $450.00