History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 105

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 105
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 105
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 105

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As he stepped from the railway coach, he was the only arrival, a horde of men gazed at the incoming stranger with curiosity. The arrival of a train was one of each day's important events. All the male. inhabitants of the town seemed to have congregated there. There were cowboys booted and spurred whose saddle ponies, with bridles trailing on the ground, waited nearby without other restraint, for the return of their riders. Indians wrapped and muffled in blankets held close to their chins, stood leaning lazily against the depot walls or stepped softly on moccasined feet, looking on with stolid air. Beside them on the platform sat their squaws holding their bundled babies strapped to boards, powerless to move and scarcely able to assert themselves even with their only language of a cry.

The station was located at the intersection of Front Street and Yakima

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Avenue which at that time was no thoroughfare, West Yakima Avenue being nothing but a cow trail winding through the sagebrush.

As the train moved out the crowd moved on and the writer moved with it down the avenue under the canopy of trees, turning south at First Street until the old Guilland House on the corner of Chestnut was reached. This was not the only but the leading hotel in the city. Under a wooden awning extending across the sidewalk sat the owner, smoking his pipe at his ease. In a decided French accent he extended a cordial welcome to the only arrival on that train.

The hotel was built of boards in the prevailing style but was two stories high. It too was far from new, having been moved on wheels from the "Old Town" over four miles of trackless sagebrush at the time that the "New Town" was planned and built on the ruins of the old. It continued to be the leading hotel until "The Yakima" was built and opened on a summer night in 1889 with a dance, in one of the store rooms on the first floor, that was the leading social function that had ever been held in the town that gave the hotel its name. Only one thing marred the festivities of the evening. While the dance was at its highest a red glow was observed on the northern horizon and soon afterward word was received that the neighboring and rival town of Ellensburg was on fire and was threatened with destruction.

Many men who made history in the West have been sheltered under the hospitable roof of the Guilland Hotel. Among them were Henry Villard, jour- nalist in the period before the Civil War and war correspondent during the four years of combat and later one of the great financiers and railroad builders of the country. Also his associate, Paul Schulze, Land Commissioner of the Northern Pacific Railroad who dealt the death blow to the "Old Town" in plat- ting and exploiting the new and was feared and hated as a consequence of it, and who later built the Sunnyside Canal. The writer will never forget his first sight of these two men. It was another such a summer evening. They had just arrived on the train and were walking down the avenue on their way from the station to the Guilland House.

News of their coming had spread and the town was out curiously intent on seeing these men who held in their hands the destinies of an empire and the fortunes of those who lived in it. On Henry Villard more than any other man had depended the completion of that great enterprise, the Northern Pacific Railroad. On the successful issue of this great undertaking hung in the bal- ance the fortunes of the country through which the road passed and to it the town of North Yakima owed its birth and its continued existence.

It was a silent awe-stricken crowd that watched these men who apparently were oblivious of the fact that they were the cynosure of all eyes.

Villard, the personification of controlled force and reserve power, heavy of countenance and of serious mein, walked with bowed head and measured step. Schulze, affable but arrogant, true representative of his race, dressed in the height of fashion, walked with head erect and jaunty air.

The two presented a marked contrast to each other yet each was true to type. The modest and quiet dignity of the one served only to emphasize his apparent strength and force of character and as a foil to the egotism and vanity

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of the other but Schulze was a big man in his own way and a considerable fac- tor in the upbuilding of the state.

Villard was gifted with the vision of a builder of empire. He built a rail- road through a trackless country, sparsely inhabited, in which there was scarcely any traffic, but the growth and development of which he foresaw and which has since confirmed his judgment. He did not foresee the vicissitudes and periods of depression through which the country would pass and the length of time required to develop a traffic adequate to support the great enterprise, and its failure and that of its great promoter occurred simultaneously. Both, however, possessed the inherent strength to recover, but Villard's troubles hastened his end and he died in 1900. The railroad has developed into one of the world's greatest transportation enterprises and to a large extent it is a monument to his genius.

To Schulze, the Yakima Valley owes a debt of gratitude because he con- ceived and carried out the irrigation of that part of the valley known as the Sunnyside country by means of the Sunnyside Canal which at the time was per- haps the largest in the west. It has since been acquired by the Federal Gov- ernment under the terms of the Reclamation Act and has been greatly improved and extended.

HEADGATES OF CANAL RAISED

On a raw, cold day in December of the year 1890, the headgates of the canal were raised for the first time with appropriate ceremonies and the waters of the river tumbled and surged into it with a rush and roar that told of their life- giving qualities that have since transformed that section from a vast desert into a land of orchards and meadows and gardens and homes of a prosperous and contented people.

A comparatively small number of men and women had assembled there. Schulze, over whom even then hung the shadow of impending doom, was mas- ter of ceremonies. The headgate which was large enough to accommodate a considerable number of people, served as a platform. Fashionably dressed as usual and carrying a small bunch of flowers in his hand and leaning on a cane he made a short address. He and his special guests had been driven from the town of North Yakima to the intake of the canal in the one covered hack that the town afforded. Among those assembled were several so-called cattle kings whose stock for many years had fattened on bunch grass that grew on the plain which now would cease to be a range. They were silent but interested wit- nesses of the event. To them it meant that their day was passing. that the ownership of large herds would no longer be profitable, that the old West of vast unoccupied spaces and long distances, with here and there a corral or a low roofed cabin home near a spring or watering place, was passing out for- ever. A new era had come and the cattle range and the picturesque cowboy and the unbroken solitude would soon be only a memory. Not long afterward it became impossible to longer conceal that the enormous and unexpected cost of building the Canal had led Schulze to wrongfully convert the funds of the railroad company of which he was a trusted employee into the coffers of the irrigation company of which he was the controlling spirit. Game to the last, however, he died by his own hand before his default had been exposed.

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FIRST REAL ESTATE BOOM

It was at about this time that the first real estate boom was inaugurated. The Western boom is a creation of man and is not necessarily justified by con- ditions as they exist but is a product of the imagination and of the hopes and aspirations and cupidity of man. Under the guidance of those who had been a part of the development of the West and who had followed it in its westward course, the measure of a man's wealth soon became the number of town lots he owned. Additions to the town for which there was no need were platted, the lots were sold not for the purpose of building homes or improvement, but for resale by the purchasers at advanced prices. A few pretentious buildings were erected, for which there was no real demand, to some extent at least for the purpose of influencing values and accelerating sales of nearby properties. Many real estate offices were opened and many men without offices made it a business to buy and sell, and for a time at least they prospered.

Among the large non-resident owners of property were Martin Van Buren Stacy, who was a frequent visitor and for short intervals made his home at the Guilland Hotel. He was the most plausible of men, full of resources and with an extraordinary ability in carrying conviction to others. It was worth whatever it may have cost to come under the influence of and to be swayed by the won- derful power of this man. He met adversity in the same spirit as success and he never admitted defeat until he met that implacable enemy before whom we all must succumb in the end.

Another of the large non-resident owners was Allen C. Mason of Tacoma. His was the spirit of a crusader and the faith of a religious bigot. He believed in the State of Washington and in his home city and in Yakima and he believed in himself and with good reason, because everybody that knew him believed in him as well. He financed the Selah Canal and other large enterprises and in many ways was a considerable factor in the early development of the city and valley. He still lives at Tacoma respected and honored by all who know him.

Among the local real estate promoters, Fred R. Reed was the outstanding figure. He was not a large owner himself but represented large owners. He was a spender rather than a saver and was filled with an enthusiasm that spent itself in effervescence and with a kindliness and charitableness that found their outlet in many generous deeds and that made everybody his friend and made him the friend of everybody. For the brief space of a year he was mayor of the city and his duties as such were more honored in the breach than in the observance, but he gave a certain glamour to the office that shed a reflected light on the city that gave it much gratuitous publicity.

Although he has lived elsewhere a quarter of a century, his was such an unusual personality and he was so much admired and loved, that there are those among old timers to this day, who hope and believe that some day he will return to his first love that has in the fullness of time so richly fulfilled his highest imaginings. It is such men as these that made the West. It is the West that made such men as these. The child is father to the man. It is with the passing of such men that the West is passing away forever and with it, the spirit of tolerance. the charity, the breadth and unconventionality of the pioneer. It is like the passing of youth never to return and it is an irreparable loss.

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THE BUBBLE BURSTS

But the bubble burst as all bubbles will. Rapidly rising real estate values anticipate not the immediate but the distant future, and many of the prospective developments that values were based on in that distant day have come to pass only in recent years, twenty or twenty-five years after the transaction in real estate which was prompted by them was made, but they have come to pass and the prophets of old have been vindicated.

It was the boom that changed the character of the town and its people. It ceased to be a village and that, after all is said. was its greatest charm. In the true village there is a restfulness and lack of conventionality and a degree of good fellowship that is not found in larger places or those that are rapidly increasing in numbers. There is time for leisure and rest and sociability. This is especially true in localities in which the Summers are long and warm. During the heat of the day there is no incentive to work, business is at a low ebb and the indoor dweller seeks the out of doors and relief in idleness. The heat leads to relaxation of the restraints of life. This was true of Yakima. It was no uncommon sight of a late Summer afternoon to see business and even pro- fessional men gathered around a box on the sidewalk eating watermelon or sitting on the curb discussing the weather. Chairs tilted against the walls of the buildings told their own stories and so did their occupants. The wonderful Summer nights, peculiar to the arid regions, clear and starry and with a slight breeze drifting down from cooler altitudes, were spent out in the open. People sat out on their porches and visited with each other and as the Summer advanced all those who were able to do so, camped out in the mountains for a week or two usually at the Altanum Soda Springs located about thirty miles from the city. Public entertainments were of the amateur variety and usually much enjoyed regardless of merit.

TOWN WAS WIDE OPEN

In marked contrast to present day conditions were the large number of saloons that were run wide open and the practice of gambling. There were professional gamblers known as tin horns whose sole business and a profitable one at that was dealing in a stud poker game or at faro or turning a roulette wheel. Large sums were staked and won and lost and many men of good standing in the community were addicted to the habit. The games were carried on without much concealment and the click of chips as they passed from hand to hand could be plainly heard by the passer-by even though the players were hidden from view. Saloons were open day and night including Sundays. Efforts made by churches to enforce the Sunday closing laws for a long time were unavailing and in one instance at least, almost ended in a riot. It was the frontier spirit that held sway, the spirit of adventure that knew no bounds. It was a part of the first beginning of the West that did not survive the influx of people intent on building homes and permanent development.

This new era of home building and development was ushered in by the construction of irrigation canals. The Sunnyside Canal, which covers sixty thousand acres of the lower valley, has been referred to. The first settlers (57)

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under that consisted largely of such as had lost their positions and means of making a livelihood in the collapse of the boom throughout the state and imme- diately after the first blighting touch of the panic of 1893. They were attracted by the alluring stories of opportunities to secure productive farms and attrac- tive homes at a low cost, land that would pay for itself within the time that payment for it was stipulated to be made. No account was taken of the diffi- culties of subduing the land, of successfully irrigating it and of the hardships of pioneering. The result was that in the course of a few years, scarcely a settler remained and the partially improved, abandoned farms and homes told a sad story of blighted hopes and tragic failure. It was the successors of these people that have made the Sunnyside country the equal of any in the West in the value and quantity of its production.

The Selah Valley Canal is another of the early irrigation enterprises whose vicissitudes were many but all of which were overcome in the course of time by those who profited by the costly experience of its original promoters. It was conceived and carried out ten years before its time by John A. Stone, with the financial assistance of Allen C. Mason.

Stone was in every sense a Western product. A strong man physically, full of energy and resources, he lacked stability and moral fibre and this in spite of the fact that he was intensely religious and believed the Bible from cover to cover. His faith was unquestioning and that was to him all sufficient. It did not serve him as a moral guide nor as a restraint to the freedom of his actions. He had little book learning but his wits had been sharpened in the school of experience and by contact with specific situations and he possessed the faculty of putting to effective use the knowledge thus acquired. He was generous to a fault and would give his last dollar to a friend and as is often the case the day came when he no longer had a dollar to give.

To finish the Canal he exhausted his every financial resource and after the failure of the enterprise it was with difficulty that he raised sufficient money to go to Alaska in the vain effort to retrieve his fallen fortunes.

The development of the country, however, in spite of the reverses of the men engaged in it went on apace and was reflected in the growth of the town, and the village has long since ceased to be.

Today the city of Yakima and the Valleys of the Yakima in the fullness of their development are the realization of the hopes and aspirations of those men who toiled and struggled in the days of long ago, the days that have so swiftly and silently passed away.

THE WOMEN'S CLUBS

One of the most potent influences for culture and progress in the history of Yakima has been the women's clubs. We count ourselves fortunate indeed to be able to present here a sketch of these organizations, together with some pioneer remembrances, from one who is eminently qualified to give such a view, Mrs. A. E. Larson.

PIONEERS

Of the sacrifices of the pioneer women many interesting "early day" stories

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are told by the surviving few, of how they braved the hardships and kept faith alive in their hearts, looking toward the great future. The community spirit linked together, as neighbors, the people of Yakima -- disregarded distances and the mode of traveling, which in the very early days was a lumber wagon or an Indian pony.

Nurses were unknown and doctors were not to be obtained. The good pioneer women cared for the sick and needy. The roads were never too rough nor the weather too cold for them to respond if there was sickness or trouble in one of the families. And when conditions prompted it, food was shared among the pioneers as willingly as were their joys and their sorrows.

The spirit of comradeship prevailing in the community was conducive of happy times in "get together" meetings ; chief among them was the all-day "quilting bee" joined by the men folk in the evening for supper and later in the evening indulging in a "corn popping" and a "taffy pull." Then there was each year the community Christmas tree in the schoolhouse followed by a dance and supper : singing schools and spelling schools were very popular during the Winter months.

In the Summer time, on a Sunday, a very attractive diversion was a horse- back ride to see Mrs. Lauber's flower garden. Mrs. Lauber lived in the suburbs of what is now known as Union Gap, and was noted for her wonderful flower- garden. Her friends, all citizens were friends in those days, would come, often as far as fifty miles, to get a little sprig, cutting, or some seeds of those choice flowers. The seeds were sent to Mrs. Lauber from a friend in the east, and out of this fact grew the dandelion story.

A story is told, relating the origin of the dandelion in the Yakima Valley, thusly-Visitors viewing the flower-garden of Mrs. Lauber, who was unaware of the nature of the dandelion, admired very much the soft little yellow blos- soms and invariably carried away a few seeds or small plants which were lov- ingly and carefully planted in their own front yards, to be divided the next year as they grew and waxed strong, with the neighbors who had not yet pro- cured them. The sun shone, the floods came, and the winds blew, and the precious little seeds were scattered on Yakima soil.

With the coming of the railroad in 1885 and the building of the city, the people of Yakima stood on the threshold of a new era, and new ideals actuated the minds of the women toward a broader education, self culture, and higher standards in social conditions. The study club idea grew and culminated in the organization of six clubs in the city of Yakima. Following is a short sketch of each presented by the club :

THE WOMAN'S CLUB, YAKIMA

The Woman's Club of Yakima was organized March 7, 1894, through the efforts of Mrs. Susanna E. Steinweg, at whose home a group of women gath- ered socially, planned a future meeting, which convened at the home of Mrs. Edward Whitson, on the date given above, and organized the club. Upon the adoption of a constitution, twenty-five women signed the roll as charter mem- bers. The membership, at first limited to twenty-five, was later increased to

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fifty, and finally to one hundred and ten. Although the club was formed origi- nally for social and intellectual culture, it was from the first ready to cooperate with kindred forces, and when, in 1896, the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs was formed, the Woman's Club of Yakima became a charter member, sending as its representative, Mrs. J. M. Gilbert, one of its charter members.

In the early years, the club purchased the books needed for its study, which was along the line of literature, history, and art, with discussions of practical questions and current events, and these books helped form the nucleus of a public library, also founded by Mrs. Susanna E. Steinweg. Besides books and magazines, the club gave two hundred dollars to the library. For many years a member of the club has served as a member of the library board. Thus, almost from the beginning, the club formed for study and self-improvement widened its interests to include the good of the community, and when in 1908, the acquirement of property in the way of real estate required by-laws which should govern the club, it became a corporation by the adoption of those by-laws in 1909.

The objects of the corporation were stated to be the promotion of stand- ards of social and intellectual culture among its members, and the community in general, along literary, social, intellectual and civic lines. The work the club has done in assisting the local Young Women's Christian Association, the Educational Loan Fund of the Federation, its initiative in calling a health com- mittee of the Federated City Clubs, which, in conjunction with representatives from the medical society and other organizations, accomplished a marvelous improvement in sanitary and health conditions in Yakima-all show that its interest is in the life of the community and that it is a force in molding public opinion.

In 1913, the Woman's Club became to an extent departmental by organizing classes for study.

In 1917, the Woman's Club acquired a club house, by purchasing a suitable building, formerly a church, for club uses.

When the demands made by the World War reached the Yakima Chapter of the Red Cross, the Woman's Club gave time, financial aid, and encourage- ment to the work. For two years past, half of its meetings have been given entirely to Red Cross work and from its ranks several have been chosen as leaders in the patriotic work demanded by the times. It has also aided the patriotic work of the state and nation.

MUSICAL CLUB

The Ladies' Musical Club, one of the oldest of the women's clubs of Yakima, was organized in the year 1898, the outgrowth of a choral society, which had been meeting under the direction of George Vance. The most prominent women of the city were the charter members, among whom were Mrs. Edward Whitson, Mrs. Frank Horsley, Mrs. H. M. Gilbert, Mrs. H. M. Bartlett, Mrs. Guy L. McRichards, Mrs. Slemmons, Mrs. O. A. Fechter, Mrs. A. B. Dow and Mrs. Verdie Erwin.

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The club was organized with the same ideals, those for promoting the best in music for its members as well as for the community, as it holds today, in its twentieth year. Meetings were held twice a month, at first in the homes, and later in the club houses. Choral singing has always held a prominent place on the club programs, and among its many members during the years, there have been many very fine soloists, singers, and pianists, the product of the world's finest teachers. As an organization it has been an influential and progressive asset to the city, bringing gifted musicians as soloists, and giving programs of such worth as to attract a large following.

TWENTIETH CENTURY CLUB

In the year 1900, there was organized in the city of Yakima the Twentieth Century Club, the second study club to be organized in this growing little inland city of the Northwest. It began its existence with a membership of fourteen. Mrs. Mary Blanker served as the first president. The club grew in member- ship and at the present time has seventy-five members, with the husbands as social members.

Originally organized for self culture, it soon broadened its horizon and in 1904 initiated the civic movement in this city, assuming as its maiden effort the beautifying of the High School grounds, which at that time occupied the site of the present Lincoln Ward School building.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 105

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134