An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 52

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 52
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 52
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 52

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Speaking further of North Yakima's business enterprises and outlook, the writer says:

"North Yakima is rapidly assuming impor- tance as an industrial center and in manufactur- ing and kindred industries. One of the largest and best appointed sawmills and sash, door and box factories in the west is just being completed. There is a large and well equipped flouring mill with a capacity of two hundred and fifty barrels of flour per day. Several creameries are in opera- tion in and near the city as a result of the rapidly growing interest in dairying throughout the country. The large amount of fruit and vege- tables raised nearby is attracting canning and pre- serving industries, and such works have already passed the experimental stage and promise to

assume great importance. The wholesale and commission business is well represented, and many other interests, including a fine new ice factory, are well established. There is also a large and well equipped electric light and water- works plant. The various mercantile establish- ments would do credit to a much larger city. They carry, as a rule, larger stocks and a higher class of goods than is ordinarily found in a city of this size supported by a farming community. This is necessary to meet the peculiar demands of its inhabitants and of a thickly populated com- munity of intelligent and well-to-do people, suc- cessfully engaged in diversified and intensive agriculture. The three banks of the city held in deposits, January 1, 1903, approximately $1,500,- ooo, and transact an average daily deposit and exchange business of about $150,000, which cer- tainly speaks well for the business enterprise and general prosperity of the city and surrounding country.'

The city is divided into between thirty and thirty-five additions and sub-divisions, besides which practically all of the land for three or four iniles on all sides has been subdivided and platted into small tracts of from one to ten acres. These suburban lands sell at from one hundred to one thousand dollars an acre, depending upon their location, the character of the soil and the state of improvement and cultivation. The city is in easy and quick communication with all parts of the surrounding valleys by means of rural free delivery mail routes and telephone systems. Telegraphic service, locally and with the outside world, is furnished by the Western Union Com- pany, and telephone service by the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company.

The city is symmetrically laid out with streets one hundred feet wide running north and south and eighty feet wide running east and west, with two exceptions, Yakima avenue, the main busi- ness street, which runs east and west, and Natches avenue, running north and south, which is one of the prettiest boulevards in eastern Washing- ton. Each street, except Yakima avenue, is fringed on both sides with rows of beautiful shade trees of at least a score of varieties, watered by small irrigating ditches. This gives a pleasing and refreshing appearance to the city and speaks highly for the wisdom and æsthetic nature of its founders and people. In fact, it would seem as though the corporation had done or was doing everything in its power to promote the healthful- ness, safety, comfort, stability and beauty of the metropolis.

The old city charter, granted by the terri- torial legislature, remained in force until the city was incorporated under the general state law as a city of the third class. This charter at present governs the corporation. The city's boundaries are as follows:

Commencing at the northeast corner section

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thirty, township thirteen north, range nineteen east; thence north one-half mile on section line to northeast corner southeast quarter section nine- teen, township thirteen, range nineteen; thence west one-quarter mile to northeast corner of northwest quarter southeast quarter section nine- teen, township thirteen, range nineteen; thence north three-quarters mile to northeast corner southwest quarter of southeast quarter, section eighteen, township thirteen, range nineteen; thence west one-quarter mile to northeast corner of southeast quarter of southwest quarter section eighteen, township thirteen, range nineteen; thence north one-quarter mile to center section eighteen, township thirteen, range nineteen; thence west one mile to center of section thirteen, township thirteen, range eighteen; thence sonth seven-eighths of a mile to northeast corner of south one-half of southeast quarter of northwest quarter of section twenty-four, township thirteen, range eighteen; thence west one-quarter mile to northwest corner of south one-half of southeast quarter of northwest quarter of section twenty- four, township thirteen, range eighteen; thence south five-eighths of a mile to southeast corner, southwest quarter of southwest quarter of section twenty-four, township thirteen, range eighteen; thence east on section line one and three-quar- ters miles to point of beginning.

The municipal government is in the hands of the following officers, whose terins expire Janu- ary 1, 1904: Mayor, A. J. Shaw; city attorney, Vestal Snyder; city engineer, C. G. Wands; city clerk, H. B. Doust; city treasurer, Charles R. Donovan; city marshal, J. N. Mull; police judge, J. A. Taggard; city physician, J. B. Burns; conn- cilmen, first ward, Harry E. Moran, A. L. Aikins: second ward, E. J. Wyman, Thomas R. Fisher; third ward, J. C. Liggett, A. F. Switzer; at large, E. O. Keck (elected for two years, the terms of four expiring each year). The fire department, with headquarters at the city hall on Front street, is composed of C. M. Hauser, chief; hose com- pany (volunteers paid for service at fires), F. T. Liggett, captain, S. E. Bunce, driver; engine company, W. D. Walker, engineer; hook and lad- der company, Ernest Hamilton, captain. The police department, also with headquarters in the city hall, is in charge of Marshal Mull and Police- men G. C. Hunter, A. J. Villaume and James Curran.

PROSSER.

Second in size of the towns of Yakima county, but second to none in the brightness of its pros- pects for future development is Prosser, situated at Prosser falls of the Yakima river, on the main line of the Northern Pacific railroad. Like many other towns of central Washington, it owes its development to the magic power of irrigation in the reclamation of desert land. Its history. therefore, may, without great inaccuracy, be

said to have had its inception with that of the irrigating era in Yakima county.

A small village was, however, called into existence at Prosser falls nearly twenty years ago by the necessities of farmers and stockmen in the vicinity, and of construction crews at work on the railroad. The land was located by the well-known Colonel William Prosser in 1883, and that same year, the first two business houses were put up by that esteemed pioneer of the place, Nelson Rich, and a man named Chamber- lain. Both were stocked with general merchan- dise. The town consisted of little more than two stores, a blacksmith shop, a saloon and five or six dwelling-houses until 1890, when it began to move forward at a quickened pace. The Yakima Herald of January 2d of that year, after briefly reviewing the previous history of the town, and noting its slow growth and small population, says:

"Brighter prospects are in the air for this little hamlet, however, and capitalists who have in the last few months obtained large holdings in and adjoining the townsite propose to make things hum this coming season. M. V. B. Stacy, Mr. Alexander, of Tacoma, and Eugene Canfield are interested in the booming scheme, and it is said that Robert Harris, late president of the Northern Pacific, will have a hand in the pie. Electric lights and waterworks are to be estab- lished with power taken from the falls, and other improvements and enterprises inaugurated. The big ditch to be built by the Yakima Irrigation and Land Company will open up much tributary farming land, which will be a stimulus to the building of the town."

From the issue of the same paper bearing date of April 19, 1894, we learn of the completion of the enterprises referred to in the above quota- tion. It tells us that the happy event was cele- brated three days before by appropriate exer- cises, including speeches by Colonel W. F. Pros- ser, W. L. Jones, G. L. Homes, president Tacoma Chamber of Commerce; W. D. Tyler, receiver of the Hunt system of railroads; D. E. Lesh, president Moxee Company; Dr. N. Fred Essig, of Spokane, and James F. Kinney. It likewise states that the officers of the company which had accomplished the important and mer- itorions enterprise were: President, J. G. Van Marter; vice-president, G. B. Hayes; secretary and treasurer, W. B. Dudley; manager, Fred R. Reed; superintendent of buildings, Frank McCartie; engineer of construction, Frank Bart- lett. From the pen of the last named, we obtain the following description of the work:

"A pumping plant has lately been put in at this place to irrigate four thousand acres, and arrangements have been made to furnish water power for different factories soon to be erected. * * * The Prosser Falls Irrigation Company con- trol the south side of the river. The land on this side of the river is too high to be covered by

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any gravity system, and though it is as produc- tive as any in the state, without water it would be worthless. The power of the falls is utilized to raise water one hundred feet high to cover this land. The water power here is the best ou the Yakinia river, the fall being twenty feet in half a mile, and during the dry season in October, 1893, the river discharged 2,662 second feet, equivalent to 6,050 horse power.

"The headgates are placed in the rock on the south side of the river. The headgate frame is made of sixteen by sixteen timbers; is twenty- two feet high and thirty-six feet wide, and has six openings for gates, each four feet in the clear. In front of the headgate frame is a rack frame made of twelve by twelve timbers, on which rest the racks which will keep floating tim- ber and ice out of the wheels. A wing dam has been built from the headgates out into the river to direct the current toward the flume.

"The headgates supply two flumes, each ten feet deep and twelve feet wide in the clear, and the water will be six feet deep in the flumes when the river is lowest. One of these flumes will supply water to the factories; the other fur- nishes water for the irrigation canal, and the power to raise that water one hundred feet, also water to supply the town. From the headgate to the power house is six hundred and fifty feet. Part of this fall is lost during high water, and the machinery has been designed for a twelve- foot fall. The flume connecting the headgate and power house is made of two-inch tongued and grooved planks with bents every two feet, made of six by ten timber. The water from the flume enters a forebay ten feet wide, seventeen feet deep and sixty-five feet long, and from the fore- bay enters three penstocks, from which it is dis- charged through the turbines.

"The turbines are forty-eight-inch, special Victors, and develop one hundred and thirty-five horse power each, under twelve-foot head. Each turbine drives a duplex power pump, twenty-five- inch cylinder, twenty-four-inch stroke. Each pump has a capacity of four thousand gallons per minute. This is the discharge of an eighty-foot per minute piston speed, and the pumps, when necessary, can be run at a one-hundred-foot pis- ton speed. Two pumps and two turbines are now in successful operation, and when the third pump is in, the plant will have a daily capacity of seventeen million two hundred and eighty thousand gallons.

"From the pumps this water will pass through twenty-eight hundred feet of twenty-eight-inch steel pipe to the penstock at the head of the com- pany's canal. Three hundred feet from the pen- stock the canal divides into two branches-the western one being nine miles long, the eastern now only three miles long, but with a proposed extension. The water supplied to the canal is twenty-seven second feet, which, at a duty of one

hundred and fifty acres to the second foot, will irrigate four thousand acres."

The inauguration of this irrigation system resulted in the starting of a newspaper, the Pros- ser Falls American, in the town, the opening of the First National Bank of Prosser Falls, and the establishment of a number of other enterprises, with the natural increase of population attending such development. But the era of financial depression soon dawned, giving a quietus to any- thing like rapid progress for the time being. The Prosser Falls Irrigation Company became involved in financial difficulty, and with them the country suffered. After a pause of three years, the town and its environing country resumed their onward march, but the irrigation company, unfortunately, was not able to recover itself, and its property eventually passed into other hands. Some conception of the rapidity with which the country picked up may be gained from a comparison of the volume of Prosser's shipping business in 1898 with that of the pre- ceding year. In 1897 there were transported from the town two cars of wheat, four of flour, fifteen of wool, three of hay, seven of melons, forty of cattle and four of sheep; total, seventy- five cars. In 1898 there were shipped twenty- nine cars of wheat, twelve of flour, twenty-four of wool, twenty of hay, twelve of melons, twenty- two of cattle and four of sheep; total, one hun- dred and twenty-three cars.

February 11, 1899, a city election was held in Prosser, at which the question of incorporating was at issue and a corps of officers were to be chosen for the new city should the friends of incorporation carry. The result was: For incor- poration, forty ; against, eighteen ; mayor, E. W. R. Taylor; councilmen, James Whiting, G. W. Anderson, Joseph Ponti, Fred Brandt, C. H. Denley ; treasurer, C. A. Jensen.

Notwithstanding the fact that in 1899 the sale by the receiver of the Prosser Falls Irrigation Company's property became necessary, there is no evidence that any stagnation existed in the town during that year or the ensuing two. It is, however, plainly evident to the most superficial observer that the Prosser of to-day is largely a product of more recent growth. The United States census of 1900 gives to the town a popula- tion of only two hundred and twenty-nine. The census may have been incomplete, but is surely to be taken as an approximation to the truth as it then existed. But if the actual population was four hundred, it has almost, if not altogether, tripled in the three years that have since elapsed. No statistics from which the present population may be estimated are at hand. Men well ac- quainted with the town have, however, stated to the writer that there must surely be at least a thousand people in Prosser, and some have ex- pressed the opinion that an enumeration would show an even greater number.

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An idea of the present business development of Prosser may be gained from the following register of its business men and establishments, which is thought to be very nearly, if not quite, complete: General merchandise, the Prosser Mercantile Company, Nelson Rich, E. W. R. Taylor, D. S. Sprinkle, Coffin Brothers; hard- ware, Cheshire & Sovern; hardware and furni- ture, Harper & Sons; furniture, the Prosser Fur- niture Company; groceries, Reider & Kuhnley, E. C. Johnson; undertaking. William Guernsey; livery, Lee & Miller, Bandy & Smith : blacksmith, W. W. Smith; drugs, Elkins Drug Company, the Angus Drug Company, whichi also carries paints, etc. ; paint and wall paper, Kuhnley Brothers; millinery and fancy dry goods, Wil- liamson Brothers; meat market, Ed. Wilson, 1. J. Croufutt; candy and confectionery, Finn & Hinsling; hotel, the Lape; restaurant and bakery, Kuhne & Allgaier; three Chinese restaurants; lodging house, S. H. Mason ; photograph gallery, Horace C. Deitz; barber shops; Ethan R. Allen and E. Burk; banks, Prosser State Bank, J. D. Bassett, of Ritzville, president, and the Prosser Commercial Bank, established and soon. to be opened for business ; harness and saddlery, Hinkle & Castor; the Prosser Steam Laundry, A. W. Baker, proprietor; flour mill, Taylor & Kemp; warehouse, Ezra Kemp; jewelry, Elmore T. Hen- sler; saloons, Ward & McFarland, James H. Bailey and Joseph Ponti; postmaster, Nelson Rich; the Prosser Lumber Company, St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company ; contractors and build- ers, Creason & Barandt, J. H. McKevitt; brick- maker and contractor, Theodore Wright; a num- ber of dressmakers; dealer in coal and wood, H. W. Creason; draying and hauling, Railsback Brothers; newspapers, Prosser Falls Bulletin and Prosser Record ; city waterworks, the Prosser Falls Irrigation Company; electric light, Thompson & Pratt; tin shop and plumbing, J. W. Jett; milk- man, G. W. Krippner; real estate dealers, A. J. Bussen, A. G. McNeill, W. H. Hill, Ashley-Burn- ham Land Company, H. J. Jenks, Williamson Brothers, L. A. Clarke, C. A. Jenson and G. W. Krippner; dentist, R. A. Calkins; physicians, Charles C. McCown, D. M. Angus; lawyers, G. A. Lane, S. H. Mason and McGregor.

Prosser has a fine public school of eleven grades, and six teachers-two men and four women-labor during nine months of each year for the intellectual and moral betterment of the juvenile population. The number of children of school age in 1903 was one hundred and twenty- six males and one hundred and twelve females, and the average daily attendance was seventy-five male and seventy-eight female children. There are two church edifices in the town, the Presby- terian and the Catholic, but services are held by several other denominations of Christians. Not a little interest is manifested in fraternal organ- izations, flourishing lodges of the Masons, I. O.

O. F., M. W. A., Yeomen, R. N. A., Rebekahs and Women of Woodcraft being maintained. The water system before referred to as owned and operated by the Irrigation Company, fur- nishes, besides a supply for domestic purposes and for the beautifying of yards and lawns, an abundant protection against fire, while an elec- tric light plant gives to the town an up-to-date appearance at night.

The rapid development of Prosser during the past year or two is not the result of over-adver- tising or the efforts of the professional boomer, but is the legitimate outcome of an extensive development in the surrounding country, a coun- try whose natural capabilities for wealth produc- tion cannot easily be over-estimated. Nor is this era of progress approaching its end. On the con- trary, it is believed to be just beginning and that nothing short of a general financial stringency can bring it to a speedy end. It is stated that at least thirty thousand acres of land under the Sunnyside ditch are tributary to Prosser, and the projected extension of that canal will, if carried into execution, result in the population of another large tract whose trade will naturally flow to that town. Of the farmers on the exten- sive Rattlesnake wheat plateau to the north and the still more extensive Horse Heaven country to the south, a very large proportion make Pros- ser their trading point. The possession of this vast extent of rich tributary territory, of a splen- did water power and of an unexcelled climate has inspired in the people an abiding faith in their future, a faith which in itself is the best possible earnest one could seek of what that future will be. It impels the citizens to strive most zealously for the encouragement of enterprise, cheerfully making whatever of personal sacrifice may be necessary for the attainment of the general good.

This public spirit has recently manifested itself most. emphatically in efforts to secure the erection of a five-hundred-ton sugar factory at Prosser and the building of a branch road to Sunnyside to bring the sugar beets of that rich irrigated section to the factory. A mighty effort has resulted in the raising of the required subsidy for the beet sugar company, which is the same that has. done so much for the people of the Grande Ronde valley of Oregon, and if a satis- factory adjustment can be effected of certain diffi- culties at present existing between the citizens and the Northern Pacific Railway Company rela- tive to the subsidy required by the latter for the construction of the Sunnyside spur, the factory will soon be an established fact. There is every reason to believe that the last slight obstacle in the way of this great desideratum will be speedily removed, and that the town and country will receive the impetus which must result from the inauguration of such a splendid industry.

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CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

SUNNYSIDE.

The Sunnyside irrigation region of Yakima county enjoys a fame that is widespread and de- served. It has come to be thought of by multi- tudes as a sort of Utopia, a land of sunshine and warmth and good cheer, the birthplace of fatness and plenty, the home of industry, morality and thrift. The evangels of its fame have been the products of its soil, which, borne by the arteries of commerce, have penetrated all parts of the west and crossed a continent and an ocean. Its succulent alfalfa is in demand in the orient, while the lusciousness of its fruits has appealed most powerfully to the palates of the denizens of the eastern states.

This renowned valley is situated on the north- eastern side of the Yakima river between it and the high Columbia divide, and extends from Union Gap to below the town of Prosser. A short distance back from the river, an irregular, long, high basaltic ridge, named Snipes mountain in memory of a pioneer cattle king of the county, gives boundary to the gently rising slope and shuts in the greater part of the valley. The main canal winds along the base of the Columbia river divide, perhaps ten miles north of the river in places, sending forth its hundreds of miles of laterals to water the hillsides and plains consti- tuting the farming section. Wherever the canal's vitalizing fluid has gone, orchard, field and garden have sprung into being, comfortable homes and buildings have taken the place of the sage brush waste, and a prosperous people have expelled the coyote and the jack rabbit. The luxuriant foliage, the bloom of orchard and gar- den, the emerald hay fields, the comfortable homes are indeed a gladsome sight to the summer visitor-and summer on the Yakima is a long season. Tens of thousands of acres are here in cultivation, generally intensively farmed, produc- ing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, bringing the blessings of abundance to multi- tudes of homes and challenging the admiration and wonder of the vsitor from less favored regions.

The city of Sunnyside, the commercial center of the valley, is situated at the eastern end of Snipes mountain. It is surrounded for miles in all directions except toward the ridge by a rich, irrigated region. The townsite forms the cen- ter of a circle embracing a solid area of cultivated land, broken only by the projection into it of the narrow end of Snipes mountain. Twelve miles to the north rises the sharp crest of the barren divide separating the watersheds of the Columbia and the Yakima; seven miles south is the Yakima river at Mabton; while the broad valley stretches eastward and westward at least twenty miles in each direction.

Says Walter N. Granger, organizer and present general superintendent of the Sunnyside Canal

company: "At the instance of friends, in 1889, I had come from Montana to look over the irriga- tion project presented by that portion of the lower Yakima valley, locally called the Sunny- side section. So one June morning, accompanied by a guide, I left North Yakima. We soon passed through the gap, Parker bottom and out into the valley. A few miles farther down we ascended Snipes mountain and traveled along its summit, the better to view the country on either side. When we reached the lower end of the bridge, the vast area of practically level land below us plainly indicated that we were in the heart of the region. As I gazed on the scene I then and there resolved that a city should some day be built at the base of the mountain, for the site was ideal. My mind had been made up regarding the feasibility of the canal project, and next day we rode to the nearest telegraph station, where I wired for my crew of engineers. The rest of the story has been told so often that it need not be repeated."

The canal was built and two townsites laid out in the region to be irrigated, Sunnyside and Zillah. Mr. Granger became the president of each townsite company, the stockholders being canal company officials. True to his resolve, President Granger platted the town of Sunny- side, named after the great canal, on the site he chose that June evening. The land was acquired from the railroad company, being section twenty- five, of township ten north, range twenty-two east. The canal passed the site in 1893, and in December of that year the engineers surveyed the town.

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 52

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146