The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-01-29
INSIDERS GET
CHOICE LANDS
Mysterious Tip From Wash
ingtOn" Source Of Profit to
Score of Entrymen.
TRACT in T0OELE COUNTY
is QUICKLY P0UNCED UPON
No Notice Given to Public That
7000-Acre Area Is to
Be Opened.

Seven thousand acres of government
land were distributed among a score or
more of friends of "those on the in
side at the United States land Office at
the federal building in Salt Lake on
Saturday morning. The land is choice
dry farming land in Tooele county near
Topliff and was thrown open for entry
under the enlarged homestead act with
out advertising.
The letter from the department Of
the interior at Washington, D. c., max
ing the designation was received by
Register E. D. R. Thompson in Salt
Lake on Friday afternoon. according to
Mr.. Thompson. He said that his clerks
worked until 6 o'clock and after On
Friday night preparing for the open
ing of the land for entry on Saturday
morning. He was SO busy. he said, that
he had no time to notify the newspapers
or anyone else OF the fact that the land
would be open for entry the following
morning.
Tip From Washington.
Mr.. Thompson declared that he had
no knowledge of how the people who
| appeared at 9 o'clock on Saturday
morning with their applications pre-
pared for entry surmised that he had re-
ceived letter instructing him to open
the land for entry He suggested that
some one in Washington who had
worked the matter up" for the en-
trTymen, had notified them or that
else at Washington they had learned
when the letter designating the land
to be opened for entry would be re-
ceived in Salt Lake.
AT any rate. when the land was
o"ened to entry the applicants we're
lined up four deep, ready to file on
the land. There were about fifty of
| them altogether, and the 1000 acres
were exhausted within three minutes
application describing the land select
ed by him and an affidavit that he
had visited the land filed upon. Among
| those who secured the land were sew.
eral people from Provo. the home of
Senator Reed Smoot. Several filed on
the same pieces Of land, and in some
cases the applicants compromised and
in other cases the land was sold to the
highest bidder.
Information Comes Mysteriously.
"The letter designating the land for
entry was received by me at O'Clock
on Friday afternoon" said E. D. R.
HolHpSou nau NO previous knOWl-
edre that the land was to be opened for
entry, My clerks were forced to work
until 6 o clock at night preparing for
the opening, I didn't have time to
notify the newspapers that the land
was open for homesteaders, or to let
anyone else know anything about it.
81 don't know how the applicants
knew that the land was TO be opened,
but they must have found out some
way, for they were lined up four deep
at 9 'clock at my office. they evi-
IDENTIFY had somebody hired to work it
up at Washington and to notify them
that the land was TO be opened, or
else they learned of it through the
senators or someone else. 1t is possible
that somebody wired them from Wash
ineton when the letter was sent to me
or when it would arrive here, I no.
titled no one concerning it. The law
does not require me TO advertise an
openin- or to give the public any no.
tice of it.
The land is described as follows: All
Of sections 6, 7, IS, 19 and 80, and
parts of sections 5, 8, II, 20, 80 and 81,
township s. south, range west, Salt
Lake meridian.