USA > Washington > Walla Walla County > An illustrated history of Walla Walla County, state of Washington > Part 22
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seat twelve feet above the ground, and its grain sacks filled to be thrown off and picked up by the wagons which follow. In favorable places the harvesters have cut and threshed as much as seventy acres of grain in a day, at considera- bly less cost than would result from using a separate header and thresher.
In completing this journey through Walla Walla county we can see that although it has not had extraordinary rapidity of growth, it has advanced steadily to an enviable place among the counties of this great state.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INDUSTRIES OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
A favorite point for picnic parties in Walla Walla is Pike's Peak. This is the most con- spicuous peak in that part of the Blue mount- ains which overlooks our valley. From it may be seen every acre of land in the Walla Walla valley. Let us take our station on that pictur- esque summit and from it view the fair pros- pect spread out like a map below us. We shall see in one glance the tokens of the chief in- dustrial resources of Walla Walla county.
To the north and west, farthest in the dis- tance, melting into the haze and dimly edged by some of the gigantic peaks of the Cascades, and if the light be just right, girded with the shining band of the Columbia, lies a vast strip of rolling prairie. This is what used to be the great cattle range, stock raising being the first industry in time of this region. This same region is now rapidly becoming the great wheat belt, though for a long time thought to be so arid as to be unsafe for wheat culture. And in
wheat raising we have our second great in- dustry.
Then looking again here and there. more nearly in the center of the picture, and espe- cially around the point which with a glass we can see to have clusters of tree-embowered houses, and which we therefore know to be Walla Walla itself, we may observe dark bands of foliage beautifully contrasting with the dul- ler hues of the plain, and these we know to be the orchards and gardens, the sign of the third great industry, horticulture. Then having looked across the distant prairie belt of stock and wheat, and the middle zone of fruits and vegetables, our eyes now fall upon the foot- hill belt at our feet. rolling hills, cut with deep canons, girt with swift mountain streams, of the deepest. richest soil anywhere to be found. and with much greater rainfall than is found in any other parts of the country. This foot-hill zone was the earliest settled part of Walla Wal-
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
la county. and it has probably made more men rich than has any equal area of farming coun- try in this state, and possibly has not been sur- passed by any in the entire country. In it are to be found all three of the types of industry named, besides which it is beginning to be a region for the development of dairying, poultry, and fine stock, having for these purposes great natural adaptability, superior, perhaps, to any of the others.
.As we survey the rich expanse outstretched below our lofty eyrie, we can see the possibili- ties of manufacturing industry, still latent, in the swift and abundant streains, in the obvious plenty and cheapness of all the essentials of life
In general terms it may be said that thus far the main industries which are revealed be- fore us are those of stock, agriculture, and fruit-raising. Walla Walla is essentially a farming country. As we view the "lay of the land" and as we learn by examination some- thing of the geological history of the country, we see that it was fore-ordained to be one of the food-supplying regions of the world. Like nearly all of the Columbia valley the Walla Walla country is of volcanic origin. At some time, thousands of years ago indeed, yet recent in geological history, probably in the Miocene or Pleiosene ages, there were prodigious over- flows of lava, with the Cascade and Blue moun- tains as the centers of outflow. After the era of fire was one of flood, or more probably there were successive eras of volcanic outflow and mountain elevation, alternating with successive floods. Many curious Indian legends indicate the traditional condition of this country. Among these is the flood legend of the Yaki- mas. They say that ages ago, in the times of the "Wateetash," before the Indians existed, there was a beaver named Wishpoosh that in-
habited Lake Kichelas or Lake Cleclum at the head of the Yakima river. Wishpoosh was of enormous size, half a mile long, his scales glit- tered like gold, and he was so rapacious that he devoured animals and plants indiscriminate- ly, and even the rocks of the lake shore. Speel- vei, the great Coyote god, perceiving the des- tructiveness of the beaver, determined to kill him in order to save the rest of creation. So he harpooned him, or some say, caused him to swallow a coal of fire, which made him very "hot." In his fury Wishpoosh tore his way through the banks of the lake. and let the water down into what is now the Kittitass valley, which was then a great lake. In like manner lie tore out the banks of that lake, then he tore out the gap where Yakima City is now situated, and so the waters of all that upper chain of lakes became united with the vast lake which covered pretty much all that now constitutes the Walla Walla country. But Wishpoosh was not content to leave that inland sea undisturbed, and so the Umatilla highlands below Wallula were severed and the waters of this upper re- gion went on down to the sea, and so the beaver found himself in the ocean, and, accord- ing to the old methods, he began to devour whales and other denizens of the deep. Speel- vei, perceiving that all creation was threatened by the monster, entered the sea and after a dreadful struggle slew him. The huge car- cass was cast up on Clatsop beach, and from it Speelyei proceeded to form the various In- (lian tribes. Thus this legend accounts for the existence of the Indians and for the obvious fact that Walla Walla county, like the famous McGinty of a few years ago, was once under the sea.
It was, then, a combination of volcano and flood that created this wonderful soil where a yield of fifty or sixty bushels of wheat to the
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
acre is not unknown. The volcanic dust is as
water it has been deposited to depths almost unheard of in other parts of the world. There are places in Walla Walla county where over two hundred feet of soil have been found. From this enormous depth of soil it can readily be seen that vegetation in this region has al- most inexhaustible nutrition. Moreover it is well known that this volcanic dust, overlaid with vegetable loam, furnishes the ingredients for wheat formation in greater fullness than does any other known soil.
In addition to the peculiar adaptibility of this soil to farming, the climate is very nearly perfect for the great cereal crops. The rainfall is not heavy, ranging from about ten inches a year at the northwestern extremity of the county to probably forty inches a year in the most elevated part of the mountain section, while at Walla Walla city it is about eighteen or twenty. But this rather scanty rainfall is distributed with such general good judgment and adaptation to the needs of the growing crops that it is abundant. November, Jan- uary, and May are usually the months of heav- iest rainfall, and these are precisely the ones that need it most.
Many believe the experience of the last few years to indicate that the arid part of the coun- try is going to surpass the wetter and more fertile foothill belt for wheat production. Dur- ing the summer of 1900 in particular the wheat in the foothills, though magnificent in appear- ance, "went to straw," to an unusual degree, yielding only from twenty to thirty bushels to thic acre, whereas the "dry belt," though not equalling the other in appearance, "went" from five to fifteen bushels to the acre better. More- over the cost of raising a bushel of wheat is not
more than half to two-thirds as great on the fine as flour and by the action of wind and plains as in the foothills.
With this glance at the industrial resources in general of this favored land, let us present a view of the special industries, following then somewhat in the order of their development in timme.
First in order comes the
STOCK BUSINESS.
The first cattle in the Walla Walla valley were brought in by Hudson's Bay employees in the vicinity of Fort Walla Walla, now Wal- lula, and in the region now known as Hudson's Bay. Dr. Whitman brought several cows with him in 1836. Messrs. Brooke, Bumford, and Noble, who occupied the Whitman mission property in 1851, and thence onward until ex- pelled by the Indian war of 1855, had a large number of cattle. After the whites began to settle in the country in 1859, and especially after the discovery of the mines in 1860 and 1861, the stock business received a great im- petus and many cattle were driven in from the Willamette country. Most of them perished in the famous hard winter of '61-'62, but the business was at once resumed with such energy that by the summer of 1863 it was reported that there were 1,455 horses, 438 mules, 1,864 sheep, 3,957 cattle, and 712 hogs. The States- man reported that 15,000 pounds of wool had licen shipped out that year. It is said that there were 200,000 sheep in the valley in the winter of '65-'66. Sheep were worth at that time only a dollar per head. Stock of every sort increased rapidly from 1866 to 1875, when the country had become so well filled up that shipping to California and the east began on a large scale.
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
There seem no separate statistics available for the amount of stock driven out of what is now Walla Walla county. We find, however, in Gilbert's history a very valuable table pre- senting statistics of the amount of cattle driven from the "Inland Empire" from 1875 to 1880, which shows an aggregate of 259,100 head.
"Between 1874 and 1880 William Kirkman drove 2,000 cattle to California from eastern Oregon, and he informs us that in 1873 he pur- chased cattle for ten dollars per head that own- ers had refused thirty dollars for the year be- fore, and ten dollars became the ruling price for stock cattle until 1879. Steers would bring from sixteen dollars to twenty dollars during this time. Prices now range fifty per cent. higher : or yearlings nine dollars, two-year-olds and cows fourteen dollars, three-year-old steers twenty dollars, four-year-oldl steers and up twenty-five dollars. The winter that closed the year 1880, witnessed the sad spectacle of these poor brutes starving to death by the tens of thousands. A heavy snow fell upon the valley country, upon the top of which a crust was formed that prevented the stock from traveling. Gathered in little bands, in large ones, or singly, they were corraled by illimitable fields of ice, where the snow in coming had found them, and the great plains for hundreds of miles were found dotted in the spring with their bleaching bones. This country will generally furnish winter grazing for stock: but it is not safe to rely wholly, upon nature's fickle moods for such a result, as the foregoing has thoroughly dem- onstrated by a destruction of eighty per cent. of the horned cattle in that region. The loss 11 Walla Walla county was a much smaller per cent., owing to better preparation by owners for feeding. The facts are that, as there is usually so little need for feeding stock in the winter, many make no calculation for doing
so, consequently the heavy loss when such neces- sity arises."
The following paragraph gives the statis- ties of increase in both human and stock popu- lation for the decade of the seventies, for the entire territory :
Population, 75,120, increase 214 per cent. ; mules and asses, 626, decrease 34 per cent .; milch eows, 27,622, increase 63 per cent. ; sheep, 292,883, increase 565 per cent. ; horses, 45,848, increase 312 per cent. ; working oxen, 3.821, increase 75 per cent. ; other cattle, 103.111, in- crease 266 per cent .; swine, 46,828, inerease 168 per cent.
The following table derived from the as- sessor's rolls for the years 1863 to 1879 gives a complete view of the stock in Walla Walla county during that period. The years 1869, 1872, and 1873. are lacking.
1863
1564
1865
1866 1867 1868 1870
1871 1874 1525
llorses
14.50
2223
2450
2748
3788
4763
8807 8562
Mules.
438
1098
1726
1058
1727
1013
401
Cattle ......
3957
4374
7611 13439 14114 15730 22960 17750
Sheep ....
1×64
2601
4421 5767 12639 2126 32986
Ilogs. ...... . 712
1486
2650
4377
1988 5067 7269 8150 6920
In 1875 Columbia county with 2,160 square miles having been set off, the statistics of Walla Walla county shows quite a diminution.
1876
1877
1878
1879
Horses . . 5276
6403
6362
:553
Mule. ..... 25
198
205
214
U'attle. .. 11227
10990
1211;
Sheep .. 15133
1:31%
26066
20256
11og ....... 4000
4964
1264
Since 1879 the demand for agricultural land has steadily increased until the stock range has been so lessened that few range cattle or horses are longer produced. The number of stall-fed cattle has increased, and according to the assessor's rolls the total in 1900 is 7.407. The number of hogs has also decreased, until the number is now 3.680. The most marked increase is in the number of horses, which now,
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
according to the assessor's rolls, number 10,- 616. Sheep number 31,035.
There is a very great increase in the poultry of Walla Walla county, the number now con- tained within its limits having probably doubled within three years, though there are no reliable data available.
There is a very active poultry association in the city, and there have been several poultry exhibitions in the place, the excellence of which was a matter of astonishment to such as had not yet investigated our capabilities in that respect. Thousands of turkeys were shipped from Walla Walla to other parts of the state and to British Columbia during Thanksgiving, 1900. Walla Walla seemed in fact to be the only re- gion with a surplus. There is also the same interest felt in Belgain hares as swept over the country at large during the last few years.
The next great industry in order of develop- ment is that of
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AGRICULTURE.
To one contemplating the many beautiful farms of Walla Walla county, and observing the millions of bushels of grain shipped hence, it seems very curious, but it is nevertheless a fact. that for years after immigration had be- gun to enter it was not supposed that the up- lands of this region were capable of producing grain. The reason is plain. The first immi- grants, coming in the fall when the long dry summer had robbed the land of moisture, saw a seeming desert of rolling prairie, with only a few narrow belts of bottom land which pre- sented any appearance of fertility. Those bot- tom lands they accordingly believed to be the only lands capable of agriculture. These lands had been tested at various points by Hudson's Bay people, and Dr. Whitman at Waiilatpu had already raised considerable quantities of prod-
uce more than sixty years ago. Dr. Whitman made many agricultural improvements within a few years after reaching Waiilatpu. T. J. Furnham, visiting the mission in 1839. reports finding two hundred and fifty acres of land en- closed and two hundred acres in good cultiva- tion. A small grist-mill was then in operation. It may be remarked that the mill-stones of the old mill are now in the possession of Governor Moore of Walla Walla. In 1841 Joseph Dray- ton of the Wilkes exploring expedition visited the mission and discovered a very fine garden, with vegetables and melons in great variety. "The wheat in the field was seven feet high and nearly ripe, and the corn nine feet in the tassel." By 1841 the indefatigable Whitman had suc- ceeded in leading some of the Indians to culti- vate land and tend a few cattle and sheep. The Cayuses, however, never took kindly to agri- culture and the amount of land subdued by Indian labor was small.
Little in the way of grain raising was done anywhere in Walla Walla county after the Whitman massacre until the close of the great wars of 1855-56. In 1857, after the estab- lishment of the present fort, a garden was planted by direction of Captain W. R. Kirk- ham. This was such a success as to make it plain that the soil and climate were adapted to gardening.
Charles Russell, afterwards well known throughout Walla Walla, was at that time con- nected with the post and seeing the labor and ex- pense of transporting from the Willamette the large amounts of grain necessary for the horses, he proposed trying the valley lands with barley and oats. Accordingly in 1858 eighty acres of land on what is now the Drumheller place were sowed to barley. It yielded fifty bushels to the acre. During the same season Mr. Russell sowed one hundred acres of oats on the land
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
which he afterwards took up as the Russell place. The Indians were so threatening that he left it, and the cattle ranging in the country grazed it so closely that there was apparently no hope of a crop. But in June, the Indians having withdrawn, Mr. Russell went out and fenced in the field with the result that he se- cured a yield of fifty bushels of oats to the acre. During that same season one hundred and fifty acres of oats was sowed on Dry creek by a man named Walter Davis. lle, too, was warned away by the Indians, but a detail of soldiers from the fort went out and cut the oats for hay. In 1860 Stephen Maxon raised a fine crop of wheat on Russell creek, farther from the bottom than any one else then thought worth trying.
There were few people in the country at that time, and the few there had thought little as set of agriculture. There was no market. except at the fort. But the discoveries of the Idaho mines in 1860 and 1861 suddenly created a fine market. Farmers had little excuse for not making a "raise" in that year, though the lamentable winter of 1861-62 caused most of them more loss in cattle than they could make up in agricultural products.
As a sample of the prevailing prices of that time, we may quote figures presented in the newspapers of that period as to the market prices of the following articles:
Beans, from 12 to 15 cents per pound ; dried apples, from 20 to 24 cents per pound ; sugar, from 18 to 26 cents per pound ; soap, from 16 to 20 cents per pound ; butter, from 50 cents to Si per pound; eggs, St per dozen; flour, $5 to So per hundred; wheat, $1.25 to $1.50 per bushel.
In 1864 the very important discovery was made that grain could be produced on the hill land. Messrs. Stevenson, Evans and others experimented about that time in a small way.
some successfully and some unsuccessfully. But in 1867 a considerable field of oats was put in by John Montague on the "bench," north- east of Walla Walla, not far from the Delaney place, which yiekled over fifty bushels to the acre. Even this seems to have been little heeded at first. As some of the old settlers now ex- press it, they were determined that the upland should not produce grain. While the bottom land and some of the foothill land was already recognized as the very best quality of wheat lands, the majority of the settlers believed that the great body of up-lands north of Mill creek was adapted only to a stock range. In the meantime, however, there was a steady inflow of immigration, and the wheat acreage was rapidly increasing. In November, of 1864. the Statesman noted the fact that the wheat and flour of this region was superior to much of that grown in the Willamette valley. In 1866 there were already five flour- ings mills in the valley. These had improved machinery and turned out a really excellent quality of flour. In 1865 seven thousand bar- rels of flour were exported from the Walla Walla valley.
The wheat yield of 1865, for the entire "upper country." was estimated at half a million bushels, about half from the Walla Walla val- ley. It is recorded that in that year threshing rates were : wheat, cight cents, oats, six cents, and barley, ten cents per bushel.
We find in Gilbert's history the following data with regard to shipments and prices which are of permanent value, and hence we incor- porate them at this point.
An agricultural society was organized in July of this year, by an assemblage of citizens at the court house, on the 9th of that month, when laws and regulations were adopted, and the following officers chosen: H. P. Isaacs, president; A. Cox and W. H. Newell, vice-presidente; J. 1. Cook, treasurer; E. R. Rees, secretary; and Charles Russell, T. G. Lee and A. A. Blanch, executive commit- tre. For the fair to be held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of
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HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
the ensuing October, the last three gentlemen became managers, and the following the executive committee: H. P. Isaacs, J. D. Cook, J. H. Blewett and W. H. Ne- well.
In Is67 the grain yield of the Blue mountain region exceeded the demand, and prices that had been falling for several years, left that crop a drug. It was sought to prevent an entire stagnation of agricultural industries, by shipping the surplus down the Columbia river to the sea- board. Freights on flour at that time were: From Wal- lula per ton to Lewiston, 815; to the Dalles, $6; to Port- land, $6, and the following amounts were shipped:
To Portland between May 27 and June 13, 4,156 bar- rels; to The Dalles, between April 19 and June 2, 578 bar- rels; to Lewiston, between April 1x and May 14, 577 bar- rels; total to June 13 by O. S. N. Company, 5,311 barrels,
The same year Frank & Wertheimer shipped from Walla Walla 15,000 bushels of wheat down the Columbia, thus starting the great outflow of bread products from the interior.
In 1868 Philip Ritz shipped fifty barrels of flour from the Phoenix mills in Walla Walla to New York, with the foliowing results: (It was the first of Washington Terri- tory products seen in the east).
First cost of flour, 8187.50; sacks for same, $27.00; transportation to San Francisco, $100.00; freight thence to New York, 8107.80; total cost in gold, 8422.30; profit realized on the transaction, 877.46, or 81.55 per barrel.
Wheat had fallen to 40 cents per bushel in Walla W'alla, because of the following scale of expenses of ship- ping to San Francisco:
Freight per ton to Wallula, $6.00; thence to Portland, 86.00; thence to San Francisco, 87.00; drayage $1.50, commission 82.00, 83,50; primage and leakage ₹1.00, bagging $4.50, $5.50; total expense to San Francisco, $28.00.
In 1869 there was a short crop, due to the drough and want of encouragement for farmers to raise grain. June 14, a storm occurred of tropical fierceness, during which a waterspout burst in the mountains, and sent a flood down Cottonwood canyon that washed away houses in the valley. In consequence of the short crop, wheat rose to &1) cents per bushel in Walla Walla, and flour to $5.50 per barrel. In November, hay brought $17 per ton, oats and barley 2 cents per pound, and butter 37/2 cents.
Having traced agricultural development from its start and through its years of encouragement, till quantity ex- creding the home demand, has rendered it a profitless industry in 1868 and 1969, let us glance at the causes leading to a revival of inducements for tilling the soil in the Walla Walla country. It should be borne in mind that the farmers in little valleys and along creeks nearer the mines than this locality, were supplying the principal mountain demand, and the only hope left was to send prod- uce to tide water and thus to the world's market. What it cost to do this had been tried with practical failure as a result. This shipping to the seaboard was an experi- mental enterprise, and there was not sufficient assurance
of its paying to justify farmers in producing quantities for that purpose, consequently not freight enough of this kind to warrant the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in putting extra steamers or facilities on the river to en- courage it. The outlook was therefore gloomy. This was a state of things which caused an agitation of the railway question, resulting in the construction of what is more familiarly known as Baker's railroad, connecting Walla Walla with navigable waters. The building of this road encouraged the farmers to raise a surplus, it encouraged the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to increase the facilities for grain shipment, it caused a reduction of freight tariffs all along the line, and made it possible for a farmer to cultivate the soil at a profit. Something of an idea of the results may begathered from an inspection of the following exhibit of increase from year to year, of freights shipped on Baker's road to Wallula en route for Portland. Between 18;0 and 1×24, down freights shipped yearly at Wallula did not exceed 2,500 tons, In 1×74 Baker's road had been completed to the Touchet and carried freight from that point to Wallula at 81.50 per ton. In 1×75, it was completed to Frenchtown and charged $2.50. Walla Walla rates averaged 84.50.
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