# Who owned Mount St. Helens before it erupted in 1980? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 5, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426 "2010-05-05T17:49:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/1 "2010-05-05T17:49:02Z")
It’s now part of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, created two years after the eruption to preserve the area, but was it either a state or federal park before 1980? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/2 "2010-05-05T17:53:15Z")
Public land. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which includes the present day monument. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/3 "2010-05-06T02:56:53Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > It’s now part of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, created two years after the eruption to preserve the area, but was it either a state or federal park before 1980? Mount St. Helens is not a federal park. The National Park Service does not manage the land, pre- or post-1980. > [@yabob](#): > > Public land. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which includes the present day monument. **yabob** is correct. Although it has national volcanic monument status, it’s managed as a district within the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, from which it was created. Bonus answer. Prior to the 1980 eruption, the top of the volcano was owned by the Burlington Northern Railroad. After the eruption, the then nonexistent summit was transferred to the Forest Service in a land exchange. Lest this appear as a bad deal (exchanging something for nothing) the actual 1980 summit still remains as a series of large hummocks and other debris in the Toutle River valley. Had this land swap not occurred the Railroad might have had legal claims to bits and pieces of land down the valley. This coming May 18th is the 30th anniversary of the eruption. Lots of neat stuff already going on with the [Forest Service](http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/msh30/), [USGS](http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/30Years/framework.html), [local communities](http://www.visitmtsthelens.com/mount_st_helens_30.html), [MSH Institute](http://www.mshinstitute.org/), etc. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/4 "2010-05-06T03:43:29Z")
Bonus supplementary question. Why would a railway want to own the top of volcano? Did they own a corridor leading to the summit? Planned for a scenic railway or theme park? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/5 "2010-05-06T03:58:40Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > Bonus supplementary question. > > Why would a railway want to own the top of volcano? > Did they own a corridor leading to the summit? > Planned for a scenic railway or theme park? Taking something of a guess here, but one possibility would be that it had belonged to a predecessor railroad of the BN and was used as a watershed to ensure a continuous supply for steam locomotives. ETA: I was wrong. It was part of a land grant provided as an incentive for the building of the Northern Pacific: > **[Burlington Northern loses its mountaintop in Mount St. Helens blast o](https://www.historylink.org/File/8741)** > > At 8:32 a.m. Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in Southwest Washington ends months of geologic suspense and erupts, blasting tons of Burlington Northern Railroad property into the air an ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/6 "2010-05-06T04:06:03Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > Bonus supplementary question. > > Why would a railway want to own the top of volcano? > Did they own a corridor leading to the summit? > Planned for a scenic railway or theme park? Under the Pacific Railway Acts: [Pacific Railroad Acts - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railway_Acts) The federal government granted 10 miles of public land to the railways for every mile of right of way. They usually took these in a checkerboard pattern owning every other square-mile section. The idea of the land grants was to finance the costruction of the railroad\*, so the railroads would either sell the land or lease it out. In much of the northwest, they leased it out to timber companies. (\*Slight non-GQ tangent, but don’t let anyone tell you corporate welfare is anything new) ETA: What he said up there. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owned-mount-st-helens-before-it-erupted-in-1980/538426/7 "2010-05-06T12:32:12Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Prior to the 1980 eruption, the top of the volcano was owned by the Burlington Northern Railroad. After the eruption, the then nonexistent summit was transferred to the Forest Service in a land exchange. Lest this appear as a bad deal (exchanging something for nothing) the actual 1980 summit still remains as a series of large hummocks and other debris in the Toutle River valley. Had this land swap not occurred the Railroad might have had legal claims to bits and pieces of land down the valley. Really? I find it hard to believe that moving dirt and rocks (by an Act of God or other way) creates any legal claim to real estate. I can believe that the railroad might have been (theoretically) able to claim ownership of rocks and debris sitting on someone else’s property after the eruption but can’t see how the eruption changed any real estate ownership. After all the land where the summit was located still exists and was still owned by the RR, it’s just that there was a lot less rock on it, so it wasn’t really a summit any more.