History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 107

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 107
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 107
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 107

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).

OLD TIMES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY

I became interested in the Yakima Valley in 1883, while living in Pendle- ton, Oregon. Hearing so much about it, we decided to go there and locate. I lived with my sister, Mrs. G. W. Wilgus and family, at that time. We left Pendleton the 7th of September, by wagon, for the Yakima Valley, and crossed the Columbia River at Wallula. The ferryman told us a great many people were going to the Yakima country. We followed an old trail up the Columbia River, passed a surveyor's tent near where Kennewick now stands, and struck the Yakima River at the Rosencrantz ranch. We passed a small railroad camp where Kiona was afterward built and followed the river up to where Prosser now stands. As we came near we could hear the noise of the Falls. Not having heard of the Falls we could not imagine what the noise could be. They made a great deal more noise then than they do now.

We passed a house with a family living in it. Afterwards we learned it was Colonel Prosser's homestead and that the family had been there but a few days. We went up the river a short distance and camped. As soon as we had camped I went to have a look at the Falls. Also stopped at the house and met Colonel and Mrs. Prosser.

During the night our horses wandered off and went over the hill into Horse Heaven. When Mr. Wilgus came back from getting them he gave such a glowing description of the land over the hill that we decided to locate there. We stopped at James Kinney's homestead just west on the river from Colonel- Prosser's and stayed several days, finding out what we could about the country.

Then we went to Yakima to file. A man by the name of Haines went with us. We went on the Reservation side of the river. About one-half way to Yakima City some squaws had a lunch counter. The men took lunch but I was not hungry. We got into Yakima City about nine o'clock. In the morn-

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ing we went to the land office and filed on land, G. W. Wilgus taking land on the Yakima River where he now lives and Mr. Haines and myself taking land in Horse Heaven. James Kinney claimed the honor of naming it Horse Heaven.

Michael Ward and his daughter, Agnes, now Mrs. Pengruber, filed on land near here during the Summer but did not come here to live until late in the Fall. A mail route was started between Yakima City and Ainsworth about three weeks before we came into the valley.

RETURN TO PENDLETON

In October I went back to Pendleton, having a three months school to teach near there. I paid $5.00 to ride on the stage from Prosser to Ainsworth. Said stage was a big lumber wagon with sideboards. Myself and grip and a very thin mail sack was all the passengers and baggage he carried.

I came back to Yakima Falls the last of January, 1884, and there I found a big change all along the valley ; but the greatest improvement was at Yakima Falls. It looked like quite a town in comparison to what it was when I left three months before. One lone house stood there then. Now there were stores, saloons, a restaurant, and a hotel being built, besides several dwelling houses and numerous tents.

Mr. Carpenter had built a boat on the river, and was boatman for all who wished to cross the Yakima at this place. When my brother-in-law moved upon his homestead, he fastened three railroad ties together and ferried his family and household goods across. When they took teams or stock across they went up the river to Rocky Ford and crossed over.

James Kinney tried to start a town on his homestead. A few resident buildings were put up, a saloon or two and a store building, but the store was never opened. Most of the buildings were put up near Colonel Prosser's home.

In March a meeting was called to vote on the location of a schoolhouse. There was some rivalry between the two settlements as to where the school election was to be held, but as Kinneyville (as they called it) had a vacant house, it was decided to hold it there: The location selected was near where the Riverview schoolhouse now stands. Our school precinct was first called "Lone Tree," afterward changed to No. 16.

Until now we had no mail service, only as the mail carrier brought it from Yakima City. He charged ten cents per letter. Few papers were brought in. Our postoffice was Prosser (the name sent in was Prosser Falls) and Mrs. Prosser was the first postmistress. Gilbert Chamberlain was deputy postmaster and ran the postoffice.

Work on the Northern Pacific Railroad was being pushed along at a lively rate, and people began settling, or more correctly, squatting in Prosser. No . town had been surveyed or platted yet.

A FERRY BOAT

In April Nelson Rich put in a ferry boat for the accommodation of the public. About this time Henry Creason, a blacksmith, moved into Prosser and Uit up a blacksmith shop. It burned down in the Fall but he rebuilt immedi-

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ately. A feed yard and corral were put up about this time by H. Jenks and C. Hooper.

In May Mrs. Nelson Rich asked me to start a private school. She would furnish the room and all necessary furniture. But before we had things ar- ranged to our mutual satisfaction word was received informing us that if a schoolhouse was built public school money would pay the teacher. The com- munity decided to build a schoolhouse. Deciding and doing have the same meaning when women like Mrs. Rich and Mrs. Prosser are the leaders. The lumber had to be hauled thirty-five miles from the Bickleton sawmills, and not very good roads. But men and teams were found who donated the hauling. Carpenter work was mostly donated too. Some money was collected but most of the funds came from a dance the ladies gave, the first entertainment ever given in Prosser. In June the schoolhouse was completed and a three month school started with Miss Emma Cobb ( Mrs. Warnecke) as teacher. Nelson Rich was the first school director. There were twenty pupils enrolled during the term. About one-half were transient, some coming but a few days.

Prosser celebrated on July 4, 1884. A good sized crowd from the railroad camps attended. A platform for dancing was erected and all seemed to have a good time.

In August I went to Yakima City to attend the teachers' examination and while there was married to Fred Warneke, a rancher in Horse Heaven.

The railroad was completed to Prosser in the Fall. The depot was built and an agent sent here. The first agent was Mr. French. Late in the Fall Colonel Prosser had his homestead laid out in town lots and people began to build near the depot. Prosser was now a real town.

In the Fall I was hired by Mr. Chamberlin, one of the directors, to teach a five months term of school beginning the first of November. About the 20th of December we had a very heavy fall of snow, fifteen inches on the level prairie after it had settled. The first death occurred just after the holidays. A section man on the railroad was found dead in his bed one morning.

About this time a small tract of land south of Colonel Prosser's townsite, was proved upon and sold to a number of local men who platted it out in town lots. It was called Rich's Addition to Prosser.

The first county commissioner from Prosser was Ira Van Antwerp. In the Spring of 1885 all the buildings except Colonel Prosser's home, were moved into town, and Prosser took her proper place on the map.

Old times in Prosser, these words recall to my mind memories of old friends and associates long forgotten. Few are left to remind one of old days. Some have drifted away and have been forgotten, others come back now and then and are seen on the streets, looking as familiar as of old. But the greater part have taken the trail to the Great Beyond, the trail we all must take.

MRS. EMMA COBB WARNEKE, Prosser, Washington, R. No. 1.

Each location has its peculiar interest or charm. We have spoken in the chapter preceding this of some of the distinctive features of Kennewick. As this place appeared in its wildness of thirty-five years ago is vividly told for us in the next selection, by Mrs. Daisy Beach Emigh, the "first girl in Kenne-

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wick," now residing in Spokane. Rare literary ability enables Mrs. Emigh to impart a peculiar charm to what had indeed a frontier charm in the old days.

RECOLLECTIONS OF KENNEWICK

Having spent my first years in the two largest cities of the Pacific Coast of that time, San Francisco and Portland, the announcement of my mother one Spring morning in 1882, that we would go to Ainsworth for a time, was re- ceived with great joy.

Father was a millwright by trade, and had gone to work in a saw mill that was being built on the Columbia River near, or rather in the town of Ains- worth. Looking over the deserted site of this pioneer railroad town recently, it was difficult to realize that once it was the scene of so much activity ; that once it was the important town,-the only town of a large section of eastern Washington.

Father had built a little house near the mill and near the river-too near the river, for high water occupied it before we did. However, we moved in in the early Summer, expecting to return to Portland in a few months-the change being in the nature of an outing.

The great Columbia was our chief source of pleasure, and while we chil- dren boated, fished and waded daily, our big times were the days when father was free to take us in a row boat, on a picnic. One of our first boat rides was to the site of Kennewick, the party consisting only of our family, laden with the all-important lunch basket and off for a good time.

Starting from home early one morning, we rode up the river past the Big Island where there was a really truly Indian village. Here, later, occurred the big wedding and dance of the chief's daughter. We were among those invited · to the dance and I shall never forget the sight nor the sounds perceived while standing at the end of a long tent near those noisy musical ( ?) instruments.

The Big Island was beautiful with wild begonias, as well as alluring with its Indians on that Summer morning, but only a brief stop was made. Across the river and on up the stream we went till we came to one of the very few clumps of willow and cottonwoods to be found on the banks of the river, for the "Old Oregon" is a barren banked stream in this section, in keeping with its desert environment.

Here at the willows, we landed, ate our lunch and then explored farther on. Just above, where the dock now stands, was such a pretty green place. so rare in those days-not green grass but a weed, somewhat like alfalfa. Then we came to what we always called the Little Island covered with wild rose and currant bushes. This little island was the scene of many of our good times and picnics of the early days. Extreme high water has so changed it that its original attractiveness is not appreciable. As we walked back from the river what a different sight met our gaze than one beholds today !

SAGEBRUSH EVERYWHERE

We saw the desert primeval,-not yet touched by the hand of man. Acres and acres, miles and miles! Such a wide, wide horizon, broken by the rather

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level hill on the south, Rattlesnake in the west and a faint outline of the Blue Mountains in the east. The gray lines of the sagebrush were everywhere. And such a stillness over all! A stillness broken only by the chirp of the cricket, and the beautiful but brief song of the meadow lark, and in the evening by the lonely hoot of the owl and the howl of the coyote.

The vastness especially impressed us children, accustomed only to the town with its buildings close together, and its narrowed horizon further emphasized by trees bordering the streets.

But even more than the broad expanse, did the freedom appeal to us. While it was really only a desert, to us children it was one vast playground-the wind- blown sand surpassing any sand-box, wonderful wild flowers in abundance that we might gather and arrange as we pleased, wild rabbits to chase and above all the delights of the river.

On later picnics, we visited Doc. Livingston, whom we first met at the mill where he, too, worked. Perhaps he was one who preferred to live apart. Howbeit, he built a little house here, the first in Kennewick and took up his lonely abode. Here he dispensed hospitality, or sold of his food supply to the cowboy or occasional passerby. Even at that early date, a few stockmen were living farther up the river and drove down along its banks to the ferry and Ainsworth. Well do I remember the generous slices of bread, thickly spread with the coarsest of brown sugar and moistened with water, with which Doc treated us children. Such were my first visits to Kennewick.

Summer waned; Winter came and our outing had changed to a permanent stay. Father was working on the Snake River bridge but we continued to live near the mill.

PREEMPT A CLAIM

The next Summer, we resumed our picnics and one day father said he could get the pretty green place and the willows by filing a preemption claim. Somehow it seemed a good thing to do, so he made the filing (1883) which was later changed to a homestead. But when the surveys were made, we learned, much to our disappointment that the line was farther south, cutting off the green picnic grounds entirely but passing close to the willows.

That Fall, father built the first part of the new home and the rest of the family made a long deferred visit to mother's people in Chicago, going on one of the first through trains over the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The coming of the railroad is of the utmost importance to the pioneer. It was supposed to make towns, sometimes cities as the track was laid. In the Winter of '83-'84 work was started on what was then termed the Cascade branch of the Northern Pacific. By Spring, a well had been dug, tank built, inclines started and the track laid as far as Kiona. On the green picnic grounds, a bustling railroad camp was established.

One May day in '84, with our household goods, we made the trip from our home near the mill to the new home, the first in Kennewick. We went on the ferry-The Rattler by name and by nature. It was not a very dependable craft, for it sometimes, yea often, decided in the middle of the river to stop work and float a bit instead of following the simple path of duty. But it hauled the lumber for our modest home and then took us to it without accident.

(58)

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Our home was near the north line of the land but was not as near the river as we wished it were. However, it was near enough so we could spend a good part of the time there, and I could often visit the contractor's young daughter who was at the camp. She and I had much pleasure in helping our- selves bountifully from the immense pickle barrel though it required a long reach on my part at least.

More than average ability and skill was necessary in those days, to make a little house into a home, but our mother proved equal to the life and work of the pioneer. No telephone for her to use in ordering the day's supplies, not even a grocery or butcher shop at first and the mail order catalogues were only in their infancy. She had to get things in quantity when and where she could, and much,-so very much depended on her own two capable hands. Trains were not running till late in '84 and everything, including mail, was brought from Ainsworth by boat or ferried across the river and hauled on wagons over sandy roads. That year, '84, the track reached the site of Yakima, and our camp was replaced by a little railroad town, now large enough to name. It was desired to name it after Chenoweth, an early trapper, but as pronounced by the Indians it sounded like Kennewick, and Kennewick the town was named. A postoffice was started, the school district organized with fifty-four children, and both have been continued throughout the entire interval.

FIRST BUSINESS BUILDING

The first building for business purposes was erected by Joseph Dimond, who had a stock of general merchandise. It was quickly followed by hotel, restaurant, saloon, grocery, etc., till we had a typical main street of the western town in its first stages. A number of railroad men made this their home, for it was practically the end of the division. Trains were transferred on the boat Frederick Billings and many a happy time did we have on it with genial Cap- tain Gray and his family.

Besides the station and tank, the railroad company had a round house, turn table, coal bunkers and stock yards all between the Northern Pacific track of today and the river.

The stockyards were another source of interest to us children. Here were gathered in Spring and in Fall, herds of cattle and of horses. Not only did we like to watch the cowboys, even as children now enjoy them at our fairs and movies, but sometimes we were happy recipients of a colt or a calf, too weak or young to be taken farther. He was prized not only as a pet but also for his future worth or service which, in our case was never realized, for not one outgrew either his weakness or his youth; they were fed not wisely, but too well.

Our school was the typical school of the pioneer-home-made desks and benches where several sat together, equipment of the rudest, though for the most part lacking entirely. The building, which was on our land, was provided by donations of both material and labor. We always had a competent instruc- tor. Our first teacher was Mrs. Haak from Portland. T. B. Thompson, a graduate of a New York state normal, who was in the West for his health,

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taught us two or three terms. He was followed by Miss Josie Miller, a grad- uate of the San Jose Normal. Our terms were short but we must have done good work for on entering graded schools, we were not behind those of the same age. We had a joy in our school life not always apparent today.

Religious services were few and far between. Neither minister, doctor nor lawyer dwelt in our midst. We sometimes had Sunday school but it was hard to find workers and I remember at least one occasion when the benedic- tion was pronounced by a small girl.

Sickness and sorrow were indeed hard to bear under those conditions, yet at such times, families were exceedingly helpful to and sympathetic with each other. The home missionary was here, it is true, but the field was so large, travel so slow and settlements so far apart, he was a long time reaching us -- but he came. The Methodist and Congregational denominations were the first to effect any permanent organization. Most of our early settlers remember the first visits of Dr. Samuel Greene in the late '80's. In his twenty-three years' service as state superintendent of Congregational Sunday Schools, he did much for our state and especially for the work in Kennewick.

This first Kennewick, the little railroad town, lasted only till the bridge was completed ('87 I believe) then Pasco became the division point. Most of the people moved to other new towns, some taking their buildings with them. Only a few remained. When we had lived five years on the homestead we, too, moved, going to Seattle and later to Ellensburg, where we remained till 1892.

It seemed as if Kennewick had had its day and also that a railroad, by itself, does not make a city or even a town.

MEADOW LARK'S SONG LINGERS

Those old days have a charm of their own, perhaps because they are the days of my childhood. The adult mind might dwell on their lonesomeness, the barrenness, the awful stillness broken by the hoot owl and the coyote, but the child-mind remembers the meadow lark's song, the wild flowers, the sports of the river-swimming, boating and fishing in Summer; ice cutting and skating in Winter. Most of the men working on the transfer boat were fine skaters, and the children who could not skate found keen delight in being pushed over the ice in chairs by them. A roaring fire of driftwood, on the bank, gave warmth and light. Surely, those were delightful Winter evenings. At first the rail- road company cut ice here and stored it elsewhere. Most of the settlers also put up ice, so we could have it for the hot Summer months. Even the sage- brush was made to give us pleasure for many a big bonfire did we have, usually in the evening. Those days were not gray days for the children and it may be that the desert developed their resourcefulness more than the town would.

If anyone thought of this vast area as an agricultural section, he was very quiet about it and it is doubtful if the most imaginative of our earliest settlers could have pictured Kennewick as it is today. Near our house, we planted shade trees and apple trees (which we children were hired to water with pails) and each succeeding Spring we planted garden. With squirrels and rabbits so numerous, the harvest was small. Only one of the shade trees is now alive to mark the spot.

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Not until 1892 did irrigation become the principal theme of conversation. That year, the Yakima Irrigating and Improvement Company, which was made up of New York men and capital, turned water on our desert and we began to dream of a future for the almost deserted town. Again it took on new life and began to thrive. This time the people came to build homes and develop the country. The townsite was platted and was farther back from the river than the first town. Besides the usual general merchandise store, hotels, drug- store, saloon, etc., we boasted a weekly newspaper ("The Columbian"), a new schoolhouse, and a church organization with a resident pastor. But the financial conditions of '94 compelled a withdrawal of Eastern money, the formation of an irrigation district and finally a return to former conditions. By 1899 the town was again all but deserted, but it had been demonstrated that we had wonderful resources for agricultural production. No longer was our country only a desert fit for the wild beasts and birds ; no longer was it to be considered a barren waste. Only man's ingenuity and energy were necessary to make it "a land flowing with milk and honey." Never again would the desert be con- tent till it had its chance. So, while the town was almost depopulated, hope was left.

In 1902, the Northern Pacific Irrigation Company bought the ditch and Kennewick for the third time made a start. So wonderful has been its growth, and so fine and abundant are its products that it is the pride of that section of the state. This is not a temporary growth, neither is it an experiment. Its future is an assured fact for it is builded on the resources of a wonderfully productive country.

Standing on the old picnic grounds looking south, the view is changed indeed. No longer the pristine desert meets our gaze. Instead, we behold a modern town with its network of wires, power station, its three railroads, ware- houses, mill, a live business street, homes shaded by beautiful trees and sur- rounded by lawns and flowers, church spires and large brick schools, orchards and green fields almost continuous to the farthest hill. Truly, the desert has been made to rejoice and blossom as the rose.

Angust 6, 1918.

DAISY BEACHI EMIGH.

One of the best known and most enthusiastic of students of Indian life is L. V. McWhorter, of Yakima. He is one of our Advisory Board, and he has provided for the work a valuable sketch of certain Indians.

TWO NOTED CONTEMPORARY YAKIMA CHIEFS (Contributed by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter.)

Of the several prominent later day Yakimas, none stood more eminent than did IT'e-yal-lup Wa-ya-cika, and Sluskin We-ow-ikt. These men, although rep- resenting two distinctive elements in the domestic and political life of the Indian-the progressive and the non-progressive-were the embodiment of honest integrity and fair dealing. Associated in tribal affairs, they did not always work in harmony, but it is best that the narrative of each be given separately.

Copyrighted

CHIEF WE-YAL-LUP WA.YA.CIKA From Me Whorter's " The Crime Against the Yakimas"

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Weyallup Wayacika, who died December 17, 1915, was born in the Selah, of lowly parentage, poor and obscure. The year of his birth is uncertain, but he was a lad of understanding when the Yakima war of 1855-56 broke out. It was at the village at the Selah Gap where he saw Chief Moses and Qualchen mounted on a single horse, after the Indian custom, ride about the tepees announcing to the tribesmen the advent of hostilities and urging the young men to take the warpath against the invaders. He saw the termination of this war, the defeat of the Yakimas and the establishment of peace. Of an observing mind, young Weyallup early learned the futility of contending against the white man ; saw that the only salvation of the Yakimas was a change of life fitting the new conditions thrust upon them.

Before maturity, Weyallup found himself without a home and was taken into the teepee of Ne-sou-tus and Ti-sun-ya, whose daughter, Yah-pah-mox, was the recognized belle of her tribe. Weyallup soon won the heart of this really handsome girl, gave his only horse to the parents and went away with her in marriage. Before that time, according to his own narrative to me, Weyallup was wild, "having learned this evil from the white people," but under the in- fluence of the gentle Yahpahmox, he settled down to work and rapidly accumu- lated a competency and lived in comfort. Indian like, he loved a good horse and even up to his death kept a few splendid racers.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 107

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