# Atlantis Arisen/Chapter 28

CHAPTER XXVIII.
GLIMPSES OF THE INLAND EMPIRE.
The Northern Pacific, which transports you to Pasco or Wallula Junction, according to your destination, whether it be Spokane or Walla Walla, first has to elevate you two thousand eight hundred* and eighty-five feet to the great tunnel one thousand and ninety-five feet lower than the summit of Stampede Pass.
The scenery along Green River is wild in the extreme, making one "pity the sorrows of the poor old man"—who of course was a young one—who engineered the line of this road. To the terrible grandeur of the scenery are added here and there glimpses of a milder form of beauty, but the general impression given by the western slope of the mountains is that the ascent is very abrupt. After passing the great tunnel, the change in the appearance of the mountains is the same which we notice in passing through the gap of the Columbia,—the disappearance of the firs, the longer slopes of the ridges, and the substitution of pine timber for the fir, which gradually disappears.
The Stampede tunnel is two miles in length. It cost a great deal of brain-work, as well as manual labor and money. A portion of it is lined with cement, to prevent the disintegration of the earth above, by the action of the air. Few people, I fancy, in passing through it realize that they are one thousand feet underground.
Just north of the Stampede Pass the Yakima River has its source in three small lakes,—Kitchelas, Kalichass, and Cle-ee-lum, and the railroad follows down this stream to its entrance into the Columbia. The valley of the Yakima is rather a great basin than a valley, bounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west, ​
the Wenatehe Eiver on the north, and the Columbia River on the south and east, containing several smaller valleys on the west side, namely, the Wenass, Nachess, Atahnam, Pisco, Topunish, and Klickitat, with numerous small streams debouching into the Columbia.
The soil of the Yakima basin is a uniform light sandy loam, with more or less alkali in it. Near the mountains there is more clay and loam, which retains moisture much longer than the soil of the plains, and the river bottoms are largely alluvial deposits. The country comes under the general head of "arid land," although as a natural stock country it is unsurpassed, the cattle ranging upon it, instead of coming out in the spring with lank sides and rough coats, being as round and glossy as if kept up and curried.
This is the original home of the Yakima tribe of Indians, who still have a reservation containing about thirty-six townships on the west side of the basin, watered by the Atahnam and Topunish Rivers. These people kept large herds of horses before white men came among them, and now in addition keep herds of cattle. White settlers at first imitated them in the matter of neglecting agriculture for stock-raising, but the advent of railroads and the outcome of some experiments in farming have inaugurated very important changes. Irrigation is now the demand, and the problem which science and capital are attempting to solve. That it will be solved there can be no doubt.
The first place of any consequence which we come to after passing the mining towns of Cle-ee-lum and Roslyn is Ellensburg, in Kittitass County. It was first settled in 1867, by two families. The present population is five thousand. It was almost destroyed by fire July 4, 1889, one month after Seattle was burned, and one month before another city of Washington —Spokane—was destroyed by the same element. One million dollars was immediately expended in rebuilding the burnt district with brick and stone, and the trade of that year amounted to two million five hundred thousand dollars.
Ellensburg was not entirely a creation of the great railroad, but of the country whose resources have been developed by its people. These resources are both mineral and agricultural. ​
There are four irrigating canals in the Ellensburg district. One, the Teanaway Ditch Company's canal, is fifty miles in length, and can water seventy-five thousand acres of land. It is claimed that, without irrigation, forty bushels to the acre of wheat can be produced! It is in evidence that the Ellensburg Yalley produced, in 1887. one million bushels of wheat, without artificial moisture. Fruit, vegetables, hops, and hay do well without irrigation; but with it, they produce larger crops.
Ellensburg is the county-seat of Kittitass County. It is situated on Wilson Creek, a short distance from the Yakima Fiver, on a plain sloping south. The Cascades and Mount Rainier close in the western view; the water-shed between the Yakima and Wenatchee defines the valley on the northeast, and the hills of the Cowiche on the southwest, while the Yakima on the southeast is closed in by highlands forming a long, crooked, and narrow defile, shutting off all the landscape on the farther side. The town is regularly laid out, with wide streets, good sidewalks, and well-kept public grounds. There has been a large accession to the population since the completion of the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific.
Ellensburg controls the trade of a wide section, and is reaching out after that of the Okanogan mining region and the Big Bend country. Its business men built a steamboat in 1889 to run on the Columbia, between a point about thirty miles from Ellensburg and the mouth of the Okanogan River, and, although it was run at a loss the first year, voted a subsidy to keep it on the route the second year, a measure which is bringing its reward. All the freight from the West for the mines had heretofore been sent to Spokane Falls, and thence across the country by rail- and wagon-roads, making a long and expensive detour. The Ellensburg and Northern Railroad is being constructed to the Columbia River to connect with the steamer for the Okanogan mines.
Ellensburg has a good water-system, electric-light service, one street railway, a telephone exchange, two banks, three newspapers, a foundry and machine-shops, and other manufactures. There are six flouring-mills in the valley, three saw-mills, three sash- and door factories, with numerous well-stocked general merchandise establishments. A company has recently been ​
formed with a capital of one million dollars to develop the mineral wealth of the Kittitass and tributary country. Among other projects is one to build a smelter to reduce the ores of the Conconully Mines at the north, and another to organize an iron and steel manufacturing company. Limestone, sandstone, pumice, coal, gold, and other minerals, it is said, are only awaiting the action of associated capital to create a great deal of wealth.
The second town in the Yakima Basin is North Yakima. Why North Yakima? Only because when some people of their own accord had laid off a town two or three miles south of them, then came the Northern Pacific Kailroad Company, and in 1885 laid off a town of its own, on the most approved plan, north of them, and drew to itself the trade of the country of Yakima. This proceeding naturally was greatly irritating to the South Yakimas, who complained of the treatment of the railroad company. The company as a corporation could not be expected to have a soul, but it had a fair-to-middling kind of brain, and made a proposition to the residents of South Yakima to come over and dwell in the tents of the north town, or, in other words, to let the railroad company remove them, houses and inhabitants, on the railroad town site, where they were to be given lots for those they left behind, and made welcome. As the business of the place had already departed, the majority felt forced to accept the proposition, and the company accordingly had the south town removed, house by house, and set down on its town-site. This procedure increased the value of North Yakima real property. History is silent as to the financial and mental condition of real-estate dealers in the old town, but they probably threw themselves off a rock into the sea.
North Yakima is a flourishing town, situated near the confluence of the Nachess and Yakima Eivers. It is admirably laid out, with streets from eighty to one hundred feet in width, shaded by handsome trees, and irrigated by rivulets of pure water flowing next the sidewalks. The county-seat is located here, and its three thousand inhabitants pay taxes on an assessed valuation of one million dollars, which is about one-fourth of the actual value of the town property. It is equipped, like all the new towns of Washington, with water, fire, light, and street ​
3
railway service, and with a handsome public-school building, half a dozen churches, and several benevolent societies. A railroad to Portland is talked of, towards which one hundred thousand dollars bonus is pledged.
The principal interests of North Yakima are agricultural. Irrigation schemes are the topic of conversation. Two canals were completed in 1889; one from the Nachess River extending twelve miles towards town, with branches which open up thirty thousand acres of land, at a cost of sixty thousand dollars, and the other between the lower Yakima and the Columbia, which waters twenty-five thousand acres, and cost thirty thousand dollars. The Northern Pacific and Yakima Irrigation Company is surveying for another canal, to cost six hundred thousand dollars, and to have a length of one hundred and ten miles. A still greater scheme is on foot to expend about two million dollars in extended irrigation and in constructing dams in the mountains for the storage of water, which will be wanted when the eight hundred thousand acres, now reserved for the pleasure of the Indians, shall be thrown open to settlement.
The Moxee Farm, near North Yakima, is a tract owned by a company, that is experimenting with the soil and other conditions of the land. It derives large profits from alfalfa, hops, corn, tobacco, and fruits. Peaches bear profusely the second year after transplanting, and grapes do well. A. fair average crop of tobacco is one thousand pounds per acre, and nets six hundred dollars. Hops net one hundred dollars. Fruit and vegetables find a ready market at good prices. The company is also experimenting with cotton and tea. It owns fourteen miles of ditch, and can flood its fields if so disposed. Dairying and raising blooded stock is a part of the business of the Moxee Farm.
If one chooses to take a 'conveyance south about fifty miles from North Yakima, he will strike Goldendale, the county-seat of Klickitat County, lying south of the Indian Reservation. He will find the ride interesting, even if there is no pioneer present to relate to him incidents of the Yakima Indian War, when Fort Simcoe was erected by Major Garnett, who was afterwards a Confederate general in the civil wa ​r.
There is a range of hills called the Simcoe Mountains, which you cross, and find very pleasant, because wooded, after the dun and monotonous grass and sage-brush lands. The road takes us across the reservation, and shows us a good many fat cattle and lusty aborigines, but little improvement.
Goldendale is an agricultural town in a level valley among hills. It is a pretty and prosperous place, and looks forward to having railroad connection with Portland when the Hunt System is completed to that city. It is making proposals to secure the Soldiers' Home upon a tract of land near the town, and the place seems well adapted to the purpose, the plan being to erect cottages with gardens attached instead of one grand institution.
Trout Lake, and the ice caves mentioned in another chapter, are in Klickitat Count}^, to both of which a large number of visitors repair in summer. Mount Adams is only about thirtysix miles northwest of Goldendale, and is the point of sight of the people here, as Hood is of* Portland and The Dalles.
A new town, called North Dalles, has sprung up opposite the Oregon town, in Klickitat County, Washington. It is proposed to erect manufactories here, and it is said some are already secured. Manufactures on the Columbia, with free navigation of the great river, are what are required to give stability to that development which capital has inaugurated in other ways.
" Keep your eye on Pasco!" is the injunction which meets you in newspaper and hand-bill advertisements, making you curious to behold it, as if it were the What Is It. When you arrive, you look about you for something on which to keep your eye, which being blown full of sand refuses to risk more than the briefest glimpses thenceforward. There is a hotel, of brick, and some houses scattered about, built, I am told, by the Pasco Land Company, which has also in contemplation a large irrigating canal with which to make cultivable the wastes of sand and sage-brush owned by it. A Chinamen, it is said, has a small patch of ground behind his cabin which he sprinkles with a watering-pot, thereby being enabled to grow flowers and vegetables in luxuriant beauty and proportions. From this it is inferred that the irrigation of these wastes will redeem them ​
from their present sterility; but in the interim, keeping one's eyes on Pasco is a painful experience.
Merely as a location for a city, Pasco, or Ainsworth, which is a couple of miles beyond, at the crossing of Snake River, either, or both together, are fine town-sites. Mr. Yillard, it is said, has remarked that a large city must some day be built up at the junction of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. It is more than probable, and I hope is true, and that it will be called Ainsworth, to perpetuate the memory of the man, than whom no single individual has done so much to develop the Inland Empire.
Captain J. C. Ainsworth was a very young man for the place when he took command of a steamboat, as part owner, on the upper Mississippi River; but, meeting with a painful bereavement, this, with the reports arriving at that time of the riches of the California gold placers, gave him a distaste for his manner of life, and he was just in the mood to break away from it when his friend William C. Ralston, also a steamboat man in his youth, returned from the golden shore with such representations as put to flight all hesitation, and young Ainsworth became, as so many others have become, a "man of destiny." He spent a few months in California, in 1850, as deputy clerk of the court at Sacramento, being while there solicited to go to Oregon to take command of the first steamboat built on the Wallamet,—the " Lot Whitcomb,"—in which he bought an interest.
This was the beginning of a career which lasted from 1851 to 1879 of continued progress in the development of transportation by steamboat on the Oregon rivers, in which Captain Ainsworth bore an active part. In 1859 he succeeded in forming—what he had long been aiming to do—a company which he could control in a manner to help the country and benefit himself. This was the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, composed at first of the combined interests of several heretofore antagonistic companies or individuals, who were gradually bought off until the company consisted of a few men who could work together harmoniously, and of this company Captain Ainsworth was president for twenty years.
Chief officer though he was, he attended to every detail of the business. He exacted good service, and rewarded generously. The company made money, but it was put back into transporta ​tion facilities, and enterprises which changed Oregon from an impassable wilderness to a charming route for tourists. Tho United States military officer who was conducting an Indian campaign; the miner who was exploring for, or had found the precious metal; the stock-raiser who fattened his cattle on the bunch-grass plains, and brought them back to market them at home; the farmer who learned rather late the productive quality of the soil east of the mountains, as well as the immigrant and the traveller, all had reason to thank the Oregon Steam Navigation Company for the means which made it possible for them to carry on their undertakings with ease and safety,—made it possible not from motives of gain exclusively, but with intelligent foresight for the country, as well as the company.
No corporation that ever was in Oregon has done for it and for the country north of the Columbia what this Navigation Company did. Its career as a civilizer has been only equalled in Washington by the Northern Pacific Railroad, which succeeded to the ownership of the O. S. N. Company's property by purchase, a short time before Jay Cooke's failure, which came near losing the railroad company its lands on the Portland branch. Ainsworth had been made a director in the Northern Pacific, and was general manager of its affairs out here. When Cooke failed the branch from the Columbia to the Sound was not completed, and the men employed were deserting, when the old Navigation Company came to the rescue with its own funds, paid off the men, and completed the road to Tacoma. They were able afterwards to buy back again a majority of the O. S. N. stock, and made improvements in its property before selling out to Villard, and assisting him to organize the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, the control of which was relinquished to the Union Pacific. I hope I have shown why the name of Ainsworth should be preserved in the nomenclature of Oregon and Washington. While legislatures are naming new counties, why not remember this and others of the founders?
At Pasco the Walla Walla passengers are detached from the through train, and proceed to Wallula Junction, crossing the Snake River, which is very wide here, by a handsome bridge. A few miles more brings us to Hunt's Junction, which is just above Wallula Junction, and the new town of Wallula, which ​in general features resembles the old one, where the Hudson's Bay Company had its fort,—once called Fort Nez Perce, but more commonly Fort Walla Walla. It is now fallen into ruins. Could these tumbling old walls speak, strange, tragical, and humorous, often, would be the stories they would tell. Here McKinlay, to avert a massacre, sat on the keg of powder with a lighted match, and threatened to touch it off, if the sullen Walla Walla chief failed on the instant to cease from his insolent demands and lay down his arms. Here Peter Skeen Ogden related his amusing but not always very dainty adventures; and Tom McKay recalled the death of his father, when the northern Indians seized the Tonquin.
Here, also, in the palmy days of the O. S. N. Company, was a large floating wharf; and here was the terminus of Hr. Baker's railroad to Walla Walla. This road causes Dr. D. S. Baker, of Walla Walla, to be classed among the founders, he having built the first railroad in East Washington, from Walla Walla to the Columbia River, about 1876. It was a narrow-gauge, and treated its patrons to nothing more luxurious than a wooden seat in a box-car. But then it was not built so much for passenger service as for the transportation of wheat from the Walla Walla Valley to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company's boats. Wheat, in sacks, was piled up six feet high, for an eighth of a mile along the beach, just after harvest, and it was a pretty sight to watch the loading of the steamers for Portland. A good deal of mirthful comment was provoked by some of the doctor's devices, as, for instance, the use of old tin oil-cans to water the engine, the service not yet having reached the dignity of tanks and hose. It was effort and not money which made the founders worthy, and therefore we honor them, recognizing that
"The attempt Is all the wedge which splits its knotty way Betwixt the possible and the impossible."
This road was finally sold to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and made standard gauge. It is still the only direct route to Walla Walla from the Columbia River, although from Hunt's Junction that city may be reached by the devious ​
ways followed by the Hunt system, or, officially speaking, by the lines of the Oregon and Washington Territory Railroad Company. This system was intended to furnish transportation to the farming communities in the Walla Walla and Umatilla Valleys, and as such has been an important factor in the development of these fruitful regions. Together with the Snake River and the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, which has roads extending through the Palouse country, or Whitman County, this portion of East Washington is already quite well furnished with transportation,—that is, if the railroads had cars and locomotives enough on the ground at the proper time, which this year they did not have.
The distance from the Columbia River to Walla Walla City is thirty miles. The Walla Walla River flows, with short curves, directly west from Round Mountain, in the Blue Range, where it has its rise. Its main branch, the Touchet (pronounced Tooshay), rises on the opposite side of Round Mountain, and describes a semicircle, with the main river for its base, all the other branches describing lesser curves inside of this one, an arrangement by which this valley is well watered. These streams also flow near the surface level, making them easily available for irrigation.
The railroad follows the course of the river, and for about twenty miles the country is rolling, but at Dry Creek Crossing the aspect of the landscape suddenly changes, and a level basin, or plateau, bounded by the foot-hills of the Blue Mountains on the east, and stretching away into undulating prairie on every other side, strikes the eye as something new and charming after the mountains, canons, and bunch-grass hills passed during the day's ride.
This beautiful valley contains about eight thousand square miles of land unsurpassed for fruitfulness. Its elevation above sea-level is nine hundred and twenty-six feet, or six hundred and one feet above the Columbia at Wallula. Its climate is the warmest of any part of Washington, having a mean temperature of 54°. In July the mean is 73.8°, and in January it is 32.4°. The greatest amount of moisture falls in December and January, but its only dry month is July. Spring opens early, ​
and is more delightful than in any part of the State.—I had almost said of the United States,—and I speak whereof I know.
Some years ago. before the era of railroads, I chanced to travel leisurely through this Walla Walla country, and to go as far as Lewiston on the Idaho border. What a charming journey it was! The atmosphere was almost intoxicating with vitality. Overhead blue sky and sunshine All about waving grass and wild flowers. On every side larks pouring forth their liquid notes. Dodging about among the bunches of grass were prairiehens, grouse, and a long-necked bird, which I did not recognize, and which my driver said was a curlew.
" What is the use of so much neck?" I inquired.
" I don't know," was the Yankee response, "unless it is to eat out of a bottle."
Then I told him about the man who grew excessively fat eating mush and milk out of a jug with a knitting-needle.
Later, in the summer's close, I returned through the same region, and saw immigrants taking up these lands. There were small cabins of one or two rooms (for lumber is not so plentiful here as in the Puget Sound country) to shelter the families, and just across the road from the cabins were newly-broken fields, surrounded by sod-fences and ditches (no expense for fencing). The seed was put in on the newly-upturned earth, and left to do the best for itself that it could. Imagine the pleased surprise of these immigrants when they harvested twenty-five to forty bushels of wheat to the acre! It was not long before the cabins disappeared and comfortable farm-houses arose in the midst of golden grain-fields.
This plenty and prosperity were the joint result of soil and climate, and I need not analyze the one or the other. But as I have generalized rather than particularized when speaking of the productiveness of the soil of Washington, I will now introduce some statistics, obtained from the most reliable sources, concerning the Walla Walla Valley, which does not, like the Yakima Valley, require irrigation to produce crops.
The Census Bureau quotes Washington as yielding twentythree bushels of wheat to the acre, which is the largest average given for any State in the Union. The average of East Washington should be placed at thirty bushels of wheat per acre, but ​
many farms produce from forty to sixty bushels, and seventy-two bushels have been raised per acre. Oats go from seventy to ninety and one hundred bushels, barley from forty to eighty, and corn from twenty-five to forty bushels to the acre. This is not a corn-growing country, as Illinois is, because the nights are too cool, but farmers usually raise a few acres of it. Alfalfa, clover, and timothy yield heavy crops.—the first named yielding from two to four crops a }'ears.
Mr. Philip Kitz, formerly of Walla Walla, was the first to experiment with fruit-growing in this valley. When his orchard was three years old from the graft he reported as follows:
YIELD OF EACH TREE,
, VINE,
PLANT,
AND SHRUB.
1st year.
2d year.
3d year.
4th year.
Apples.
20 lbs.
50 lbs.
125 lbs.
250 lbs.
Peaches.
15 "
35 "
100 "
200 "
Pears . • ■ . ..
20 "
50 "
125 "
250 "
Plums.
20 "
50 "
125 "
250 "
Cherries.
5 "
15 "
50 "
100 "
From Offshoot.
1st year,
. 2d year.
3d year.
4th year.
Blackberries.
. 3 lbs.
8 lbs.
15 lbs.
35 lbs.
Raspberries.
. 3 "
10 "
20 "
40 "
Strawberries.
H "
2 "
2 "
Grapes (at 2 years) ....
. 3 "
10 "
25 "
75 "
Gooseberries (at 2 years) .
. 2 "
5 "
10 "
20 "
Currants (at 2 years) . . .
. 2 "
5 "
10 "
20 "
Pie-plants (at 2 years) . .
. 8 "
20 "
20 "
10 "
When the trees were seven yield, per acre, of his orchard:
Pounds.
years old he gave
the average
Pounds.
Apples.
40,000
Grapes.
. 40,000
Peaches.
30,000
Blackberries . . .
. 15,000
Pears.
40,000
Raspberries ....
. 15,000
Plums.
50,000
Gooseberries . . .
. 5,000
Cherries.
20,000
Currants.
. 10,000
The money results of fruit-raising may be learned from the books of a Walla Walla gardener, last year's crop from four acres being a ​s follows:
16,000 pounds strawberries, at 6 cents.$960
500 "raspberries, at 7 cents. 35
1,000 "blackberries, at 8 cents. 80
4,000 "cherries, at 7 cents. 280
7,500 "prunes, at 3 to 5 cents. 300
2,000 "apples, at 2 cents. 40
500 1 ' pears, at 3 cents. 15
Total. $1710
The average yield of vegetables per acre, in bushels, was:
Bushels.
Peas .40
Beans.36
Potatoes.500
Sweet potatoes .... 200
Bushels.
Turnips. 300
Carrots. 1,000
Parsnips .. 800
Cabbage, pounds . . 20,000
Vegetables will in one year pay one hundred per cent, on expenditures.
The various cereals and fruits of this valley are harvested as follows:
Wheat, from the 24th of June to 10th of July.
Oats, from 1st of July to 20th of July.
Barley, from 20th of June to 1st of July.
Itye, from 1st of July to 10th of July.
Corn, from 20th of August to 10th of September.
Strawberries, from 1st of May to 10th of June.
Raspberries, from 10th of June to 20th of July.
Blackberries, from 25th of June to 1st of August.
Gooseberries, from 20th of June to 1st of July.
Cherries, from 20th of May to 1st of July.
As an example of what talent, grit, and opportunity may sometimes accomplish, I quote the Blalock Farm, near the city of Walla Walla. Dr. N. G. Blalock, of Illinois, arrived here in October, 1872, having come overland with teams, bringing his family. He at once commenced earning money,—for he did not bring any,—both by the practice of medicine and the use of his teams, putting all his income that could be spared into land along the base of the Blue Mountains, and cultivating these acres, the outcome of which went into more land, until he owned five thousand, and in 1881 harvested ninety thousand bushels of wheat and barley. His practice is now so large that he has no time fo ​r farming!
But how would Dr. Blalock have gotten his five thousand acres except he had come at a time when land was cheap, or gotten ninety thousand bushels of grain to the seaboard, if he had raised all that, before the day of Dr. Baker's railroad? It is just an instance of the man and the hour coming together. Perhaps it was Dr. Blalock's action which caused Dr. Baker and other citizens to attempt a railroad.
The -most serious drawback—and every countr}' must have a drawback—to the perfect desirability of the Walla Walla Yalley for a residence is the lack of timber. The nearest lumber supply is in the Blue Mountains, about twenty miles distant, but lumber is also brought by railroad from Puget Sound and Portland. Fuel is supplied from the Blue Mountains in a novel manner,—namely, by a Y-shaped flume, which carries the wood from the mountains to within seven miles of town, where it is loaded on flat cars and taken to its destination, the "Blue Mountain Flume Company" formerly owning a narrow-gauge railway from the terminus of the flume to Walla Walla, which is now owned by the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company.
The wood consumed in the city and at Fort Walla Walla amounts to twenty-two thousand cords, only a little more than half of which comes from the Blue Mountains. It sells for six dollars to six dollars and fifty cents a cord. When the coalmines of the Cascades are sufficiently developed, coal will undoubtedly come into general use in the treeless regions; but for the present all the slab and refuse timber of the mills in the Cascades is carried by rail down into the valleys to be used as firewood.
Walla Walla City is not one of the new towns of Washington, and never had any real-estate excitement. The long occupation of the country by the Hudson Bay Company, some of whose servants remained here with their Indian relatives after white people of American blood were driven out, furnished a basis of settlement dating back to the second decade of the century. But it was not until 1858 that some American citizens established themselves on the site of the present city, under the protection of the United States fort, erected the previous year.
In 1859 it was decided among the settlers to lay out a town ​
site, half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, with its eastand-west streets one hundred feet wide, and its north-and-south streets eighty feet; and to leave off calling the settlement Steptoe City and name it Walla Walla, which was done. In 1862 the Territorial legislature incorporated the city, with an extent of eighty acres. It immediately became an important point, on account of the necessity of an outfitting place for miners then rushing to the Oro Fino and Florence Diggings, in what is now the State of Idaho, and from that time until, now it has been the centre of a large trade, supported first by the mining interests of the upper country, and more recently by the agricultural interests of the valley.
A word about the name of Walla Walla, which I observe is frequently translated to mean the "valley of waters." I had it from the lips of the famous Nez Perce chief, Lawyer, that wallawalla meant the confluence of two rivers, and, being used to designate the junction of the river which waters the valley with the Columbia, became used by Indians and white people to designate the natives who lived about the mouth and the fur company's fort at that place. From this the white men spoke of the river, and then of the river-valley, as the Walla Walla and "the Walla Walla country."- It is not the custom of the Indians to name rivers arbitrarily as we do, but to speak of certain localities by some descriptive word, and to call the tribe or family living there by that name.
The designation chosen for Walla Walla by her inhabitants is " Garden City," and well does she merit it, for trees and flowers fairly obstruct the view. There are few pretentious buildings of any character, the business houses being usually no more than two stories, and the residences simple cottages and villas. In the outskirts are a continually increasing number of the latter, surrounded by beautiful grounds.
The city has a handsome court-house, this being the countyseat; a large and costly public school; a collegiate institution,— Whitman College; several banks; three daily papers, the most important of which is the Union, published ever since 1869; a free library and club-room; a hospital; free postal delivery; water-works; gas lighting; churches of all denominations, and, in short, just what one would expect to find in an Eastern town ​
of seven thousand inhabitants, besides a board of trade and a business worth eleven million dollars annually. The land-office for this district is located here. So is the State penitentiary.
The flour industry of the city and county amounts to two hundred and seventy thousand barrels annually; the oldest miller in East Washington being Mr. H. P. Isaacs, who erected in 1862 a mill, which has been twice rebuilt to keep pace with the improvements which he found desirable. The very best of roller flour is manufactured here, which finds a market in Liverpool and San Francisco.
Walla Walla, besides its grain and flour trade, jobs one million dollars' worth of general merchandise throughout the valley. One firm, H. Dusenberry & Co., which has been here since 1858, furnishes a number of establishments in outlying towns, and has connections with San Francisco. No, Walla Walla is not a new town, nor has it ever been said of it that it is a marvel of rapid growth; but I think I like it all the better that its growth is natural and hardy. Whatever u moss" it has upon it now will fall off with a few more years' increase.
The drives about the city are excellent. The chief point of attraction to visitors is the garrison, just outside of the city limits. The post was established, as I have said, in 1856, by Colonel Steptoe, at a point now within the present corporation, but removed in the following year to the slight eminence which it now occupies, and improvements were then begun. I have been informed that the first wheat sown in the Walla Walla Yalley was sown in this year by the troops at the fort, under the direction of Quartermaster-General E. G. Kirkham. If we except the grain grown by the mission superintendent in the '40's, this is probably true. Both gentlemen took it for granted that only the bottom-lands were fit for agriculture, devoting the valley in general to stock-raising, and. it was some years before it was found that the uplands were prime wheat lands.
The post was abandoned in 1866, and re-occupied in 1873, since which date there has been a strong force kept here, and it is a handsome and comfortable place of residence for the officers and soldiers here stationed. It cuts no little figure, besides, in the trade of the town, there being expended by the military each year about four hundred thousand dollars. ​
Another place of interest, although associated only with painful ideas, is the site of the Waiilatpu mission, about seven miles west of the city, where, in 1847, perished Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, Presbyterian missionaries, and about a dozen others, at the hands of the Cayuse Indians. One common mound marks the spot where they were hastily buried by volunteer troops from Wallamet Yallcy after the flesh had been torn from their bones by wolves. A movement is on foot to erect a monument to the memory of Dr. Whitman. The most suitable monument, it seems to me, would be an endowment for the college which bears his name, with a tablet inscribed to him set in its wall.
Of the towns in the Walla Walla, Waitsburg is one of the prettiest. It is in the valley of the Touchet, where it is joined by the Coppei, in the midst of beauty and fertility. The place was first settled by Mr. S. M. Wait about 1864, who built a flouring-mill, then very much needed by the settlers, from which he cleared five thousand dollars in two months after it was running. Soon tradesmen of various kinds settled about him, and a town grew up which does honor to its founder. Mr. Wait was one of the first to experiment with grain on the uplands.
Waitsburg has a population of one thousand, who maintain good schools, support a daily newspaper, and enjoy life in this garden of plenty, which is also a model of good taste.
Another pretty town is Dayton. Like Waitsburg, it lies in a valley, and is embowered in trees, while it is surrounded by wheat-fields which would seem continuous but for here and there a line of poplars pointing out where a farm-house is concealed. The swift, cool Touchet flows through the town, and turns the wheels of two flouring-mills, and is joined by a smaller stream with a French name Petite, anglicized into Pattit.
Page 363.
Between the Touchet and the Snake Rivers, in Walla Walla County, is a strip of country twenty miles in breadth by fifty in length, lying on the top of a bench of the high hills south of the Snake, of which thirty by ten miles is a flat, called Eureka, of rich, loamy soil, constituting a region unsurpassed for fruitfulness, and through it the Hunt railroad is run. In this favored grain-land has sprung up recently the town of Fairfield, which promises to be able soon to compete with any of the older towns in the county in growth and prosperity.
From these brief observations on this part of the Inland Empire it will, perhaps, be possible to catch some general view of it and those features which contrast so strongly with the Puget Sound region. It is at the same time an admirable counterpart, each being necessary to the completeness of the other.
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT ABOUT SPOKANE?
The route of the Northern Pacific to Spokane from Walla Walla is a tortuous one, and for a large part of the distance an uninteresting one. It is haying-time, the weather is warm, and travel dusty. The road winds among hills after the manner of water seeking its level. Prescott, named after an officer of the company, is a pretty place between hills, the approach to it being along the Touchet River bordered by thickets of mockorange. From here to the Snake River there is little to attract the eye. The Palouse country north of the Snake appeared more thrifty. Along the streams were dense groves of poplar, birch, and willow, and thickets of wild roses. Endicott is in a good farming region, and well built for a small, new settlement. I observed several tree plantations along the route through Whitman County. About Colfax the hills are dotted with pines. I had a glimpse of Steptoe's Butte, where that officer was badly beaten by the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indians in 1858. On that butte he buried most of his command and