Mussel Slough Tragedy Historical Landmark

The Mussel Slough Tragedy was a dispute over land titles between settlers and the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) that took place on May 11, 1880 on a farm located 5.6 miles (9 km) northwest of Hanford, California in the central San Joaquin Valley, leaving seven people dead.

Frank Norris' 1901 novel, The Octopus: A Story of California, was inspired by this incident, as was W. C. Morrow's 1882 novel Blood-Money.

The exact history of the tragedy has been the source of some disagreement, due to a popular anti-railroad sentiment in the 1880s which saw the tragedy as a clear example of corrupt and cold-blooded corporate greed. Muckraking journalists and anti-railroad activists glorified the settlers and used the tragedy as evidence and justification for their anti-corporate crusades.