USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 46
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 46
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 46
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"I also think it will develop a sugar beet district, the same as has been done in the Yakima Valley. Climatic conditions are excellent for the industry.'
"The territory is tapped by four transcontinental railroads and the Colum- bia River, which is open to the sea. From a transportation standpoint I know of no district in the United States as fortunate as this.
"While 1 estimate the cost at $250,000,000, basing it on $100 an acre tor 2,500,000 acres, I believe in fixing this figure at a high rather than a low rate.
"The time as to when the work would be completed is problematical, but after completing the canal to the first headlands, those lands could be placed on the market to home builders and colonization work continued as the canal is extended.
LEGISLATION IS REQUIRED
"There is certain legislation required, which would cause some delay, but if the state should decide to purchase the land, legislation could be passed .at the coming session. In its purchase a bond issue would be required and it would probably not be possible to complete this in less than two years as it would have to be authorized by a vote of the people at a regular election.
"In the meantime there are many other lines in which development work can begin immediately and these ought to be taken up, whether governmental or private, so we can furnish work to our returning soldiers and those who have been engaged in war activities.
GROW PEACHES, PEARS, APPLES
"The lands proposed to be irrigated would be excellent for the growing of peaches, pears and apples, which are recognized as the leading fruit crops in the present irrigated districts. Excellent potatoes could be raised. A large acreage would be suitable for wheat with no probability of crop failures such as are caused by drouth.
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"We are gradually obtaining more canneries, which are of importance in the development of the country, to take care of the fruit and vegetable products, and I consider that the sugar beet industry would increase to large proportions rapidly, thus bringing in more sugar factories.
PROSPECTS BETTER THAN EVER
"The prospects for agricultural development are probably better than ever before. If we accept the opportunities we have we will come out of this a greater state and a better people.
"There is plenty of this land that is just as good as any of that in the Yakima Valley, where the crop for last year was valued at $30,000,000, yet today much of this eastern Washington land is practically valueless.
"It is my belief that there are plenty of opportunities for a man to earn a living if he cares to work for it. We can do no better work than that toward building up our state and encouraging the idea of thrift in our people.
WOULD ACCOMMODATE 50,000 FAMILIES
"At least 50,000 families could be accommodated on the lands mentioned in the project. However, I consider that a conservative figure, which allows fifty acres to each family, taking 2,500,000 acres as a basis. Many families on irrigated tracts have from twenty to forty acres. For stockraising purposes and wheat lands I consider that some may handle as much as eighty acres."
Yet another local extract denotes the progress of plans in the vital subject of irrigation .:
"Walla Walla Bulletin," December 15, 1918:
SUMMERS AND JONES ARE WORKING FOR MORE IRRIGATION
FORMER AIRS VIEWS ON SUBJECT AND LATTER WRITES WHAT HE IS NOW DOING AT WASHINGTON
Irrigation projects being one of the chief factors in the proposed "recon- struction" program, the subject has brought forth many ideas and propositions, several of which have devolved into inquiries as to what might be accomplished along this line by Congressman-elect Dr. John W. Summers.
About five weeks ago Doctor Summers went to Pasco and called a con- ference of business men there who were most interested in the subject of irri- gation. Following that conference he visited the Five-Mile Rapids and made a personal investigation of that project. He was then called to the Pasco good roads meeting for another conference on irrigation, which was also attended by Governor Lister and Director Tiffany of the Yakima irrigation projects. As a result of these conferences and the information obtained from several other prominent reclamation authorities, Doctor Summers has issued the following statement as to his views on the subject :
"Persistency of the towns of the Yakima Valley in constantly pushing their irrigation plans has extended to Pasco and might well be emulated by Walla Walla and other communities.
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"At different times during the war the powers that be announced that re- clamation work in the Yakima Valley must cease during the war. Almost invariably public meetings were held and a united effort and usually a success- ful effort was made to show the national authorities that their reclamation work should be pushed even more speedily as a 'win the war,' 'food production' meas- ure. Those communities are made up of the right sort of stick-to-it-never-say- quit mettle.
"They put up a united well planned campaign and usually succeeded. Con- fidence, determination, success characterize their efforts.
PASCO LEADS THE WAY
"Pasco has caught this spirit in her efforts to develop the Lower Snake River irrigation project at Five-Mile Rapids.
"Your readers may not know that the Commercial Club of Pasco about three years ago employed at an expense of about $1,000, Mr. E. G. Hobson, a civil engineer, who had had thirty years' experience with the state of Massa- chusetts, the city of New York, and the United States Reclamation Service to report on this Five-Mile Rapids project. Mr. Hobson availed himself of the United States Reclamation report on the Palouse project, a report on the Pasco irrigation pumping project, the United States Geological Survey of the Snake River water flow, data furnished by the O. W. R. & N. Company and others.
"As a result of these investigations a forty-foot dam across the Snake River five miles above its mouth is proposed.
NAVIGATION AND IRRIGATION
"A navigable channel with locks would also be provided which would raise the low water level well over Five-Mile and Fish-Hook Rapids and would open the Snake for navigation as far as Lewiston, Idaho, every day in the year. "Mr. Hobson's report was made for the Pasco Commercial Club and pro- posed to irrigate 62,500 acres in Franklin County adjacent to Pasco. However, his figures reveal that there would also be an ample water supply at all times to irrigate 60,000 acres in the west end of Walla Walla County.
WOULD COST SIX MILLIONS
"As figured in 1915 the total cost of dam, pumping plants, force mains, concrete laterals and navigation improvements would be approximately six million dollars, of which $500,000 could be properly charged to navigation im- provements and would not be charged against the land.
"An additional expenditure would also make possible the development and sale of $150,000 of cheap electric power annually. This power could be trans- mitted to every town in southeastern Washington.
COULD IRRIGATE EUREKA FLAT
"If deemed advisable, this power could be used in putting water, during the Winter and Spring months, on a hundred thousand acres on Eureka Flat.
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"This plan of making a double use of the water and the power generated would spread the cost of construction over a very large area and would lighten the burden for all.
So far as I know, this double utility plan for the use of this water and power lias not been considered, but it seems to me it is worthy of full investi- gation by our Commercial Club or by our Eureka Flat farmers.
"The success or failure of this entire project depends on whether or not a substantial rock bottom can be found on which to build the dam. All engineers whose opinion I have obtained believe the outcropping of basaltic rock at that point makes it practically certain that the foundation is ample for a forty-foot dam. However, no one can answer this question definitely until the government appropriation is obtained and the dam site has been thoroughly drilled.
SNAKE RIVER PROJECT HAS MANY ADVANTAGES
"It seems to me this project should appeal to Walla Walla and Franklin counties above all other projects because it makes irrigation of these lands a possibility within a few years' time; it makes possible a saving of 50 per cent. on our electric bills and gives us river transportation from Lewiston to Portland all the year round. At the risk"of criticism from my railroad friends I am going to say all-the-year river transportation would increase the price of every bushel of wheat grown in the Inland Empire three cents a bushel and that it would do as much or more for every box of apples.
"The fact that transportation facilities for Oregon and Idaho would be greatly enhanced should make the Five-Mile Rapids project appeal also to the congressional delegation from these two states.
"The growing of alfalfa, dairying, berry and grape culture and probably most profitable of all the growing of sugar beets would be carried on exten- sively, and we could then look with confidence for one or more million dollar sugar beet factories in this territory. Our crop production would be increased six to ten million dollars annually.
"Mr. Tiffany, project manager of the reclamation service in the Yakima Valley, expects to spend a very large sum in that valley during 1919, and his plans call for the expenditure of $30,000,000 during the next six years.
"The various Yakima projects, including the high line, have been fully investigated and should be pushed through to early completion. If our Snake River project is economically sound, as all preliminary reports indicate, it also should be pushed to the limit. Several thousand men would be employed on this project alone.
"The benefits accruing from this Snake River undertaking would be so general, and so widespread over southeast Washington that it would seem we might all join hands and work unitedly for this really worth-while project.
SUMMERS FAVORS OTHER PROJECTS ALSO
"I should not favor the Yakima Valley and the Snake River projects only. Priest Rapids, Quincy Flats, Horse Heaven and other projects should be inves-
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tigated thoroughly and if found to be feasible and economically sound their development should be undertaken at once in order to safeguard our labor when ten million men are released from the army, from munition plants, ship yards and other war industries. The speedy development of these lands should be undertaken at this time in order that we may the sooner provide land settle- ment opportunities for our returned soldiers and other worthy settlers and thus contribute our full share to the food production, to the commerce, and in fact to the solution of the reconstruction problems of the world."
SENATOR JONES BACK OF IRRIGATION PLAN
"United States Senator Wesley L. Jones is urging the people to do their duty in the matter of irrigation and reclamation projects, thereby reversing the usual custom, which presents the public as importuning the legislator. In a letter to Robert Jahnke, president of the First National Bank of Pasco, the Senator says, in part :
My Dear Mr. Jahnke:
Referring further to your favor of November 15th, in regard to the reclamation of arid lands in our state, and especially concerning the lower Snake River project, I beg to say that I have conferred with Mr. Davis, director of the reclamation service, regarding the matter.
They have gone no further into the project than the preliminary reports made by Mr. Hobson and others. They have submitted estimates to Congress calling for $100,000 for investigations in connection with regular and ordinary irrigation development and they also have submitted an estimate of a million dollars for investigations in the western states and elsewhere in connection with after-the-war development and, under this if they deem it wise, they can thoroughly investigate this project.
I shall do my best to secure ample funds for these investigations and when the appropriation is made I shall be glad to urge the careful consideration of this proposition by those having such investigations in charge.
I would suggest that your people get all the data possible into shape and a full statement of the reasons why this project should be investigated and undertaken so that the same may be submitted as soon as the appropriation is made, if not before.
I assure you it will be a pleasure to me to do all and everything in my power to have this brought to the attention of the proper authorities. Call on me whenever I can be of any possible assistance.
Very respectfully yours,
WESLEY L. JONES."
CHAPTER V
FOUNDING AND MUNICIPAL GROWTH OF NORTH YAKIMA
MOVING THE CITY-ABSTRACT OF N. P. R. R. LANDS FOR TOWNSITE OF NORTH YAKIMA-TRUSTEE PROPERTY, NORTH YAKIMA-PRESENT RESIDENTS WHO MOVED A TOUGH PLACE AT FIRST-THE CITY CHARTER-POWERS OF THE CORPORATION-GOVERNMENT-ELECTION-THE MAYOR, HIS POWERS AND DUTIES-ORDINANCES-MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS-SOME STEPS IN MUNICI- PAL LIFE-MANY PIONEER BUILDINGS LEFT AFTER TWENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY-TO KEEP OPEN HOUSE-FIRST DRUG STORE-TWO FACTIONS- AN ACT TO REMOVE COUNTY SEAT FROM YAKIMA CITY TO NORTH YAKIMA- ADVERTISEMENTS FROM "HERALD"-"TO THE READING PUBLIC"-INVITATION PARTY-NORTH YAKIMA, ITS RAPID GROWTH AND ITS RESOURCES: FROM THE PORTLAND "OREGONIAN"
One of the preceding chapters has given in detail the story of settlement. The different centers, Moxee, Yakima City, Parker Bottom, Ahtanum, Selah, Naches, Wenas, Ellensburg and vicinity, a few isolated locations in the lower valley-had each a story of its own. It was evident, as it always is in the development of a new country, that certain points would by a sort of natural commercial selection come to be the location of the cities and towns. Usually any keen observer can almost infallibly discover the location of coming com- mercial centers. It is interesting to note that the fur traders, missionaries and first immigrants generally "sized up" the future well enough to establish them- selves upon the locations destined to be the city sites.
Natural conditions are the predominating factors in drawing capital to invest and labor to seek employment and the construction arts to find a place to exercise their inventive powers, to one certain place more than another. Not often in history has a great city been created out of hand by imperial ukase, as in the case of St. Petersburg (Petrograd). Yet in founding cities there has almost always been some strong and, sometimes a determining, human equation.
To this and the resulting uncertainty, speculation (simply one of the many forms of gambling) owes its basis.
It moreover frequently happens that the geography of a given region offers a wide expanse in which natural conditions are essentially uniform. In such cases it will frequently occur that "booming," or special enterprise, or sometimes seemingly mere chance or luck will fix one immediate spot in preference to others with apparently equal or even greater advantages. The West had fur- nished almost countless examples of such strifes of locations. Fascinating his-
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tory might be composed, undertaking to exhibit the course of events by which New York rather than Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore, became the great city of the eastern seaboard, or why Chicago, rather than St. Louis or Cincin- nati, or Milwaukee, became the metropolis of the Middle West.
In some cases it is obvious at a glance that some given spot is predestined to be the foremost center of a given region. It is evident that San Francisco had to be the chief city of California. Any other result would have been abnor- mal. But it is obscure why Los Angeles should have become, by any natural condition, the second city and indeed in some respects the first. We must attribute it to the human equation. Nature made San Francisco. There could not help being a city there. Man made Los Angeles by voluntary determination.
Obviously a great city would grow at some point on tide water on the Columbia River, but just why the point should have been on the little Willa- mette instead of on the broad flood of the Columbia, at Astoria or Rainier or St. Helens, baffles commercial philosophy and throws us back upon the human equation or mere chance.
In like manner a great world center was predestined on Puget Sound, but why it should have settled on the rough shores of Elliott Bay in preference to the far smoother surface ten miles north, or the seemingly more inviting harbors where Everett or Tacoma or Bellingham are now established, does not find a commercial or industrial reason and must be attributed to the human equation. Some man or group of men juggled with the normal logic of development, and Seattle became the product. There was bound to be a big city somewhere in eastern Washington, but it is a little obscure yet, even to the people who built the beautiful metropolis at the falls of the Spokane, why the center should not have been either at the junction of the Snake and Clearwater or at the junction of the Snake and Columbia. Spokane was created out of hand, almost as if by imperial ukase, or rather by the voluntary determination of a group of wide- awake railroad and business men.
We find somewhat the same play of forces in the metropolis of the great valley whose story we are trying to tell in this volume.
It is quite clear even from the most superficial examination that there were bound to be four or five leading centers in the Yakima Valley. There must be one in the Kittitas, and it was nearly a necessity that Ellensburg be it.
There must be one somewhere near the mouth of the Yakima and it was pretty nearly a plain case of destiny that Kennewick fulfill that function.
There had to be at least two points in the central Valley, but here there was a wide field open to the human equation. A chief point evidently must be somewhere in the area where the chief tributaries, the Naches, the Ahtanum, the Toppenish, the Simcoe, descend from the mountains with their life-giving sup- plies for the broadened desert and join the main river. Quite possibly, if the reservation had not been established, the leading center would have been at the point near Mabton, where that beautiful lake-like expanse of the river, ex- tending up and down a number of miles, would afford all sorts of aquatic at- tractions to the inhabitants of a city, and where the curiously carved slopes of Snipes' Mountain might have offered even more inducement to inventive and industrial energy than the "Nob Hill" of the present metropolis.
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HISTORY OF YAKIMA VALLEY
But it was not so to be. A series of events in which the human equation played a great part determined that the chief city should be north of Pohotecute, and still further that it should be at North Yakima instead of Yakima City.
MOVING THE CITY
Probably nothing has been talked about so much, first and last, in Yakima during the past thirty-three years as moving the city from the location on the farm of Joseph and Charles Schanno to the point known till the session of the legislature of 1917 as North Yakima. The "City," as the pioneers affectionately termed it, seemed to be a desirable location for the town. The first stores were established there. The first irrigation canals led there. The first hotel in the valley was there. The first churches and schools were there. The two locations, being but four miles apart, had essentially the same conditions, and hence the question of moving was purely one of local or personal advantage.
The undertaking of moving from the "Old Town" to North Yakima fol- lowed the advent of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1884. The question of changing the location of the townsite became complicated with that of the for- feiture of the land grant by reason of failure to complete the railway within the specified time.
It was still further complicated with the general question of railroad poli- tics, at that time exciting such tremendous interest through the country. Of these conditions we have spoken in preceding chapters.
Of the motives which led the railroad company, or men concerned with them, to make this radical change in what seemed the normal course of events, a writer can not make sweeping assertions. Human motives are very compli- cated, and we can not safely dogmatize in attributing one exclusive motive to any man. Judge Edward Whitson, one of the most honored of the builders, and one who began his career in Yakima City, is quoted in the History of Cen- tral Washington as maintaining that the action of the railroad company was guided by an upright and enlightened public policy. He asserted that there were good and sufficient reasons for establishment of a new town. "First," he is quoted as saying, "there were three or four townsites at Yakima City and numerous additions without uniformity; second, the townsite proprietors re- fused to give the railroad company the necessary grounds and other facilities, asking heavy damages ; third, the old town had not convenient water and power supply ; in short, the company recognized the immense natural resources of the territory, and desired for its metropolis a city with uniform streets, with shade trees, ditches, power, etc. It decided that conditions in the old town were against this comprehensive plan, hence that a new town was a necessity."
On the other hand some of the leading men of Yakima at this time believe that selfish greed and a thirst for dictatorial power inspired the policy of the company in using its whole force in uprooting one town and planting another. One of Yakima's best citizens, a man who was located in the old town and moved to the new, has told the author within a year that in his opinion there would be twice the population if the transfer had never been made. His view was that the action of the railroad company interrupted the normal course of
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growth, planted the seeds of jealousy and ill-feeling, engendered suspicion in the minds of prospective new comers, and gave Yakima a bad name at home and abroad.
We probably must confess that in this whole matter of the relations of railroad managers to the people of the region which they serve (or which they compel to serve them) there is a good deal to be said on both sides-and let it go at that.
The first train on the Northern Pacific Railroad reached Yakima City on December 24, 1884. In the "Ellensburgh Standard" of January 17, 1885, are extracts rom a private letter from Yakima City to the effect that no work was in progress in the old town and but little in the new. The letter stated that New Yakima consisted of Littles and Scharer's two-story restaurant with a lean-to saloon; a small building adjoining; then Tucker and Cumming's livery stable, thirty by thirty, and then another saloon.
Adjoining the restaurant on the other side was Shull's boardinghouse tent with sixteen guests. Across the track were the company buildings-a small office and a very good restaurant. The letter further stated that the company had shipped a lot of lumber to New Yakima, said to be for depot purposes ; that the side tracks at Union Gap and Old Yakima had been taken up and pretty much everything moved to the new town.
On February 4, 1885, a decisive step was taken. A plat of the new town was filed for record. It seems to have been on part of a desert entry belonging to Capt. W. D. Inverarity. In the belief that many of our readers would be interested in the original conveyances of land from the railroad company, we are incorporating here a copy of an abstract of title, for the use of which we are indebted to Mr. Fred Parker.
ABSTRACT OF NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD LANDS SET ASIDE FOR THE TOWNSITE OF NORTH YAKIMA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY
The Northern Pacific Railroad Company hereby certifies that it is the owner of the following named parcels of land, towit :
The east half of southeast quarter (E1/2 of SE14) of section thirteen (13) in township thirteen (13) north of range eighteen (18) and the southwest quarter of northwest quarter (SW14 of NW14) the southwest quarter of northeast quarter (SW14 of NE14) and the south half (S1/2) of section nine- teen (19) township thirteen (13) north of range nineteen (19) and east of Willamette Meridian in Yakima County in Washington Territory; that it has caused portions of the same, together with portions of the east half of the north- east quarter (E1/2 NE1/4) the east half of southeast quarter (E12 SE14) and southwest quarter of northeast quarter (SW1/4 NE1/4) of section twenty-four (24) in township thirteen (13) north of range eighteen (13) and the south half of the northwest quarter (S1/2 NW1/4) and southwest quarter (SW14) of sec- tion eighteen (18) and the north half of northwest quarter (N1/2 of NW1/4) and all the southeast quarter of northwest quarter (SE14 of NW1/4) of section nineteen (19) in township thirteen (13) north of range nineteen (19) all east of the Willamette Meridian, to be surveyed as the town of North Yakima and
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