So many different ownerships....
This is a summary of the unique ocean front ownerships on the Long Beach Peninsula. No where else in the state will you find this! My thanks to Charlie Mills, former owner of Pacific County Title.
When Washington became a state in 1889, the 1889 Government Meander Line was the westerly boundary of all beach property, with the implication being that the remainder was tidelands, etc., belonging to the state. At that time, the ocean came almost up to the ridge where the dwellings on Ocean Beach Boulevard are now located. In fact, the Long Beach Arch is pretty close to the meander line!
After the north jetty of the Columbia River was completed, a process of accretion from it northward began. Then, about 1940-1949, the State of Washington, wishing to assure itself of ownership of a major portion of this accreted land, arbitrarily surveyed and set out on maps what they called “The Western Boundary of Upland Ownership” (what we refer to as “WUB”). This WUB line was strictly arbitrary and except for about a mile and a half in the Long Beach area did not coincide with the 1889 Government Meander Line. After establishing this line, the state then claimed ownership to all the lands lying westerly of this western boundary.
Thus, in all but the approximately 1-1/2 miles in the Long Beach area, where the WUB and the Government Meander Line were one and the same, this then left a “no-man’s land” concerning ownership of the area westerly from the 1889 Government Meander Line to the Western Boundary. So, in the 1950’s a few people, with the encouragement of local attorneys, brought suit against the state to “quiet title” to that land, with themselves gaining ownership of this “no-man’s land.” These suits were brought in Pacific County Superior Court and the plaintiffs (landowners) all won their cases and acquired ownership of this land to the WUB. As events later turned out, this worked to their disadvantage, since in these civil cases, they had relinquished forever “all rights or claims to any land lying westerly of the Western Boundary.”
In the mid 1960’s a Long Beach property owner named Stella Hughes went one step further. She had not been a plaintiff in any of the civil cases and claim that, WUB or not, she owned all the accreted land to the line of ordinary high tide. She lost this case in Superior Court and ultimately wound up in the Washington State Supreme Court where she again lost. The case was then appealed to the US Supreme Court where it was ruled that Hughes did, in fact, own from her upland to the line of ordinary high tide. This was a historic case which effected waterfront property throughout the nation and settled once and for all the question of accretion land ownership.
Unfortunately, the people who had brought the civil suits against the state quieting title to the WUB, had voluntarily relinquished forever any right to any land west of the WUB so that the Supreme Court decision had no effect on them.
In the 1970’s the State then surveyed and set out on maps another line, which they called the “Seashore Conservation Line.” This involved property about 150-200 feet deep, east of the line of ordinary high tide. They then asked the upland owners to “dedicate” this land to the State, with the promise that it would be re-surveyed every 10 years and moved westward as the accretion built up, if it does. Many owners have done this, while many others haven’t and refuse to deal with the state.
This constitutes the “four lines” of the Long Beach Peninsula ocean frontage. There is also a “fifth” line – and that would be the Movable Seashore Conservation Line.
