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The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., July 12, 1912, page 6

COUNTY DIVISION

TO THE EDITOR OF ENTERPRISE -

At a meeting of a committee of citizens of Western Klickitat county, held at White Salmon July 14th, for the purpose of discussing county division; some statements were made by good substantial men relative to the assessed valuation of real property in the proposed new county, which were misleading, and if not refuted the people throughout might take them for facts.
Our friend, Wm. Coate, stated that the West end is assessed from 15 to 25 per cent higher than the middle portion or eastern Klickitat. Now the facts are:
In Trout Lake valley, the highest that any land assessed is at $30 per acre for the highly improved clover or timothy hay land from which they get two crops of clover each year. Can anyone buy that land for $100 per acre? I do not believe that it can be bought for any less than that. The best wheat land around Centralia is assessed at $20 per acre, from which a crop is harvested every other year; this land can be bought for $60 per acre; in fact, States sold 160 acres not far from Centerville at less than that $40 per acre. Is there any disproportionate assessment about that?
The same thing applies to Lyle district of which Mr. Ewing complains about; the fact is, Mr. Ewing or anyone else from the west end cares very little how the central or eastern portion of the county is assessed.
As to Herbert Williams' statement, citing his own case, that his land was assessed at $225 per acre, a more deliberate mis-statement never appeared in print. The fact is that Mr. Williams is on 17 acres at $140 per acre, and the balance much lower, some of it as low as $5 per acre. The above fact needs no comment. Moreover, Mr. Williams is assessed on $300 acres with a total assessment of $6307, or a trifle less than $18 per acre.
Not so many years ago men came from the West end of the county and testified before a court that their was land in that portion of the county which paid a fair interest on $1000 per acre valuation; that was when they were holding up the railway company! That is another story and, I suppose, should not be told here. We have seen a good deal in print about what has been made off of land around White Salmon, and what has been refused by their owners for them, one place in particular, $12,500 for a ten acre tract. Now what amount should it be assessed for? It is assessed for 1912, nine acres, at $140 an acre, one acre at $110 an acre, and the improvements at $40, a total for the $12,500 tract at $1410. Now I do not want it understood that I have any fault to find with assessments made in the county. I think our assessor, Roy Wertz, is conscientious and trying to give all parts of the county a square deal. If Mr. Wertz were to assess that man's land who refused $12,500 for a ten-acre tract, according to the owners valuation, or what he refused for it. Mr. Wertz would have to assess many of that man's neighbors in the same proportion, which would work a hard-ship on his neighbors, as well as upon the man himself. I think the assessor used good judgment in making the evaluations for the different parts of the county, and I could cite many instances of valuation of different parts of the county for comparison, but others can find out for themselves. If you are entitled to a separate county get it on some of their plea, but don't bring the cry of unequal assessments.
A.R. Hayes was fair in his statement. The people of Goldendale and vicinity put up a big bonus to get a railroad, and to take away the benefit of taxation from the county would be an injustice to those who put up the money. I do not think anybody from Trout Lake or White Salmon put up a cent for that. We must remember, too, that the heaviest burden of taxation for a good many years fell on the middle portion of the county. Many of us older residents can remember when the taxable real estate was very small in the western part of the county, only a tract now and then; it is only in the past six or eight years that most of what is now a accessed west of Klickitat river became taxable.

Peter Ahola