# Leaves of Knowledge/Chapter 7

WALLA WALLA AND SOUTH-EASTERN WASHINGTON
CHAPTER VII.
Walla Walla and Southeastern Washington.
The people of Walla Walla and surrounding country revere the name of that brave and fearless missionary, Whitman, who saved the whole country, then known as Oregon, to the American government. Mr. Whitman crossed the Rocky Mountains and the then uninhabited western plains, on horseback, his sole companion being an Indian guide who could not stand the chilly blasts of winter, and with frozen feet, had to be left behind on reaching the first settlement, while the hero pressed on with his tired horse alone during the entire winter, and eventually reached the nation's capital at Washington, D. C., and explained to the President and his cabinet, the extensive ​resources of that vast western territory. After accomplishing his mission, he returned, only to be massacred, he and his family, by the Indians. A large, high pillar marks the place of his sad ending. Within the city limits Whitman College stands to his everlasting memory.
One of the oldest government forts in the west is still occupied here. Here is the state penitentiary, where the occupants are kept busy making wheat sacks from hemp shipped from Manilla, Philippine Islands.
I will say, it is no wonder this place was selected and trading posts established long before there was any established ownership to this part of the country, as it is nature's paradise. I have visited this city at all seasons of the year and it always blends with the same beautiful splendor. Here it is that the ​champion soils of the world are to be found, while with a soil of such richness and fertility, and a climate so ideally adapted to the cultivation of grain and fruit, it is only natural that the harvests should be excellent.
College Place, two and a half miles distant, is such a pretty spot, and here is found the course of instruction for the Advents. Milton, on the Oregon side, is also a wheat and fruit country. Waitsburg and Dayton, Washington, are two prosperous towns. In addition to their large wheat crops, abundance of barley and rye is grown, and nowhere is the soil found so uniformly fertile as through this vast stretch of country; and nowhere on earth, it is certain, can wheat be raised more profitably. Nature has thus evidently marked out the same conditions at the town of Pomeroy. At Starbuck, a division ​point for the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, I had dinner, and then moved on to Colfax, the capital of Whitman County, situated in the rich wheat section of the Palouse country. There are lumber industries carried on here, and extensive flour mills, and while the climate is in every respect all that could be desired for the growth of both winter and summer wheat, the fertility of the soil is such as to make it incomparable. The entire country and its citizens are continually busy sowing and harvesting their wheat, storing it in large warehouses, whence it is shipped to the Pacific Coast markets and from there to Asiatic and European countries. I leave Colfax for Spokane, and from there go over the Great Northern to Kalispell, Montana, stopping on the way a few days at Troy, a division point of the railroad. There are ​several quartz mines in this vicinity. A delightful vacation could be spent here hunting and fishing and visiting the beautiful Kootenai Falls.