CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VTHE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY IN OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY TO THE PERIOD OF COUNTY DIVISION AND AFTERWARDS IN THE PRESENT WALLA WALLAWe have given in the first chapter of this volume a view of the physical features, geological formation, and climate of this region. It was obvious from that description that the Walla Walla country, like most of Eastern Washington, Northeastern Oregon, and even Northwestern Idaho, would be thought of at first inspection as a stock country. The army of early immigrants that passed through on their way to the Willamette Valley saw the upper country only at the end of the long, hot, dry summers, when everything was parched and wilted. It did not seem to them that any part would be adapted to agriculture except the small creek bottoms. They could, however, see in the oceans of bunch grass, withered though it was by drought, ample indications that stock to almost limitless extent could find subsistence.Hence with the opening of the country in 1859 the first thought of incoming settlers was to find locations along the creeks where a few acres for garden and home purposes might be found, and then a wide expanse of grazing land adjoining where the real business might be conducted. The first locations from 1859 and until about 1870 denote the dominance of that idea. We have already noted the beginnings of stock raising during the Hudson's Bay Company regime and the period of the Whitman mission. We have seen that Messrs. Brooke, Bumford and Noble started the same industry at Waiilatpu in 1851 and later on the Touchet and maintained it until expelled by Indians in 1855. H. M. Chase laid the foundations of the same on the Umatilla in 1851 in conjunction with W. C. McKay, and later upon the Touchet near where Dayton is now located. J. C. Smith on Dry Creek in 1857 had the same plans.The incoming of settlers in 1859 and 1860 and the location of the Fort induced a mercantile class to gather in the vicinity of that market. When gold discoveries set every one agog with excitement, the first effect was to create a line of business almost entirely adapted to supply miners' needs. The second effect speedily following was to lead thoughtful men to consider the region as a suitable location for producing first hand the objects of demand. Stock was foremost among those demands. The Indians already had immense droves of "cayuse" horses, and considerable herds of cattle. Many cattle were driven in in 1861. The hard winter of 1861-2 caused severe loss to cattle raisers, but so well were the losses repaired that it was reported in 1863 that there were in the valley, including the Touchet region, 1,455 horses, 438 mules, 1,864 sheep, 3,957 cattle, and 712 hogs. According to theStatesman15,000 pounds of wool were shipped out in that year. Sheep increased with extraordinaryrapidity. The valley became a winter feeding ground and the sheep were driven in from the entire Inland Empire. TheStatesmanasserts that in the winter of 1855-6 there were 200,000 head in the valley. They were worth at that time only a dollar a head. From that time on the stock business in its various branches became more definitely organized and shipments to the East and to California went on apace. It was not, however, for some years that the importation of blooded stock for scientific betterment was carried on to any considerable degree. It would be impossible within our limits to give any complete view of the leading promoters in the different lines. Practically every settler in the country had some stock. Those who may be said to have been leaders during the decade of the '60s in introducing stock into the various pivotal points of the old county may be grouped under some half dozen territories, which have later become the centers of farming sections and in several instances the sites of the existing towns.This list cannot in the nature of the case be exhaustive, for, as already noted, every settler had more or less stock. In naming some rather than others, we would not wish to be making any invidious comparisons, but rather selecting a few in each pivotal place, who came in earliest and had the greatest continuity of residence and the most constructive connection with the business. Naturally first in order may be named the vicinity of Walla Walla City as it has become, and the region adjoining it on the south into Oregon.Perhaps typical of the larger stockmen of the earliest period were Jesse Drumheller and Daniel M. Drumheller. The former of the brothers came first to Walla Walla from The Dalles with the United States troops in the War of 1855-6, as manager of transportation. When the wars were ended he settled on the place now owned by Charles Whitney. Subsequently he made his home for many years on the place west of town known to all inhabitants of the region. The younger brother came to the region in 1861 and located at what is still known as Hudson's Bay, and from that time on the two were among the foremost in driving stock in from the Willamette Valley and in extending their ranges in all directions. Like so many others they were wiped out in the hard winter of 1861-2, but nothing daunted, recognizing the superior adaptability of the region they renewed their drives and within a few years had stock, at first horses and cattle and then sheep, ranging from Couse Creek in Umatilla County to the Snake River. One of their greatest ranges was just north of the present Freewater and westward to the present Umapine and Hudson's Bay. Besides the Drumhellers some of the most prominent stockmen in that region ranging along the state line were John Bigham, W. S. Goodman, the Fruits, Girards, Shumways, Ingalls, and Fords. Nineveh Ford was one of the most noted of early Oregon pioneers and coming in that early day into the upper country became one of the permanent builders of Umatilla County. The Berry and Cummings families were a little farther north. Among the leaders in introducing a high grade of horses and cattle and later on in farming on a large scale, as well as connected with every public interest of importance, were the Resers, of whom the second and third generations are present-day leaders in all phases of the life of their communities. Their places were in the fertile foothill belt southeast of Walla Walla. In the same general section were many others whose main dependence at first was cattle, but who entered into the raising of grainearlier than those in other sections, by reason of the manifest advantages in soil and rainfall. Among such may be named Daniel Stewart, Christian Meier, Stephen Maxson, Thomas McCoy, S. W. Swezea, Orley Hull, Philip Yenney, Brewster Ferrel, James M. Dewar, the McGuires, Sheltons, Copelands, Barnetts, and Fergusons. Two of the prominent business men living in town might be mentioned as interested in stock raising and doing much to promote it, Dr. D. S. Baker and John Green. Among the most prominent pioneers in the section on Mill Creek, who afterwards were leaders in grain raising, but like all others turned their first attention to stock, were Robert Kennedy, W. S. Gilliam, James Cornwell, J. M. Lamb, Joseph Harbert, E. G. Riffle, W. J. Cantonwine, David Wooten, Thomas Gilkerson, J. Kibler and a little later several leading families, those of Evans, Thomas, Kershaw, Lyons, and Aldrich.Another great section of the cattle ranges was on Dry Creek and northward over the hills to and beyond the Touchet. Among the earliest settlers in that region whose first business was stock raising, but who afterward became pioneers a second time by entering into grain raising were Jonathan Pettyjohn, W. W. Walter, John Marion, J. C. Smith, S. H. Erwin, A. A. Blanchard and the Lamars. At a somewhat later date, but among the most important of all the cattle men of the valley, now known and honored by all in his advanced age, is Francis Lowden, whose ranges were in the middle and lower valley, and whose son, Francis, Jr., has become one of the leading meat market men in the Inland Empire. Mr. Lowden imported the first high-grade cattle, Shorthorns, and that was in 1864. Another growing center, at first for stock, then for farming, then for fruit, and finally for towns, was the upper Touchet, of which Waitsburg, Dayton, and Huntsville have become centers. As we have stated earlier, some of the first locations were made on the Touchet. The first settler at the junction of the Touchet and Coppei was Robert Kennedy in 1859, but the next year he moved to his permanent place near Walla Walla. During 1859 and the few years following there were located, at first engaged in cattle raising, but soon to branch out into farming, A. T. Lloyd, J. C. Lloyd, A. G. Lloyd, G. W. Loundagin, George Pollard, James Woodruff, Isaac Levens, Joseph Starr, Luke Henshaw, Martin Hober, Jefferson Paine, Philip Cox, W. P. Bruce and Dennis Willard.Farther up the Touchet, going on to the Patit and beyond in the vicinity of the present Dayton, Henri M. Chase and P. M. La Fontain had located before the great Indian wars, as already related. In the second stage of settlement, beginning in 1859, F. D. Schneble and Richard Learn upon the present location of Dayton, and near by Elisha Ping, J. C. Wells, Thomas and Israel Davis, S. L. Gilbreath (Mrs. Gilbreath was the first white woman to live in Columbia County), Jesse N. Day, Joseph Ruark, Joseph Boise, G. W. Miller, John and James Fudge, and John and Garrett Long, may be regarded as most distinctively the pioneers in the stock business, proceeding on within a few years to the usual evolution into farming and other branches of growing communities.The region of what is now Garfield and Asotin counties had an early history similar to that of the Walla Walla, Mill Creek, Touchet, Coppei, and Patit regions, though not so complete. Settlers entered during that same stage of the '60s and sought stations on the creeks from which desirable cattle ranges extended. One of the earliest of all settlers of the old Walla Walla County was Louis Raboin at the point on the Tucanon now known as Marengo. Raboin might justlybe called a pioneer of the pioneers, not only in stock raising, but in everything. Governor I. I. Stevens, in his report of railroad explorations, mentions him as located with his Indian wife and six children on the Tucanon, and the possessor of fifty horses and many cattle, and as having four acres of land in which potatoes and wheat were growing. The governor calls him Louis "Moragne'." According to Gilbert that name, from which Marengo was derived, had a curious origin. It seems that Raboin had been, like almost all the early French settlers of the Inland Empire, engaged in the trapping business. He was of a lively, active disposition and known by his comrades as "Maringouin" (mosquito). This cognomen became corrupted by the English-speaking people and finally became "Marengo."Incoming settlers, seeking water courses for homes and bunch-grass hills and prairies for stock ranges after the usual fashion, were not long in discovering the best locations on the Pataha, Tucanon, Alpowa, and Asotin, and small spring branches, and cabins and cattle began to diversify that broad expanse through which Lewis and Clark had wandered in 1806, and with which Bonneville and other fur hunters of the '30s were delighted.It was fully equal to the Touchet, Walla Walla, and Umatilla, with their tributaries toward the west. The advance guard upon the Pataha and the vicinity where Pomeroy now stands were Thomas Riley, James Rafferty, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, J. M. Pomeroy, from whom the town was named, Daniel McGreevy, and the brothers James and Walter Rigsby, Joseph S. Milan, Henry Owsley, Charles Ward, and Newton Estes.Among the streams on which early settlements were made was the Alpowa, the pleasant sounding name of which signified in Nez Percé "Spring Creek." H. M. Spalding, the missionary, made a station there among the natives of the band of Red Wolf and in 1837 or 1838 planted apple seeds from which some trees still exist. Timothy, famous in the Steptoe campaign, in which he saved the command from destruction and was afterwards rewarded after the usual fashion of the white race in dealing with Indians by being deprived of a country, was located on the Alpowa. His daughter was the wife of John Silcott of Lewiston, one of the most noted of early settlers.Asotin Creek, with its tributaries, at the eastern limit of the region of which this history treats, is another section with a distinctive life of its own. It is one of the most beautiful and productive sections of this entire area, but being a little to one side of the sweep of travel and settlement, having no railroads to this day, was later of settlement than the other sections. Jerry McGuire is named as the first permanent settler on the Asotin, though there were several transients whom we will name later.We will emphasize again that we are not trying here to name all the settlers of these sections, but rather those who from continuity of residence and subsequent connections become most illustrative of that first stage of settlement.CABIN BUILT BY M. PETTIJOHN IN 1858Jonathan Pettijohn is the man shown in the picture.A great impetus was given to the systematic development of the various branches of the stock business by the entrance of certain firms of dealers during the decade of the '70s. In Colonel Gilbert's history of Walla Walla and other counties he presents valuable data secured from the foremost of these dealers, as also one of the foremost of all the citizens of Walla Walla, William K. Kirkman. After having been engaged in Idaho and California in the cattle business, in the course of which time he operated more or less in and out of Walla Walla, Mr. Kirkman took up his permanent residence here in 1871. He formed a partnership with John Dooley and from that time until the lamented death of the two members of the firm they were one of the great forces in the organization of the industry of marketing both livestock and dressed meat. From the valuable data secured by Colonel Gilbert from Mr. Kirkman and from Mr. M. Ryan, Jr., another prominent dealer, we gather the estimate of 259,500 cattle driven out of the Inland Empire during the period from 1875 to 1880. Prices were variable, ranging from $9 to $25 per head, usually $10. W. H. Kirkman, son of W. K., relates this interesting incident. He was, as a boy, riding with his father on the range, when they encountered a number of extra fine fat cattle, and the father, looking over them with delight said, "Look there, my boy, every one of them is a $20 gold piece!" It might be added that those same cattle now would be worth $100 apiece. It is surprising to see from the exhibit given in the figures the large number of dealers operating in the country at that time. There were no less than forty-five firms or individuals engaged in shipping, mainly to Eastern markets, though a considerable amount went to California, Portland, or Puget Sound.It is of interest to see the enumeration by the assessor of the quantity of stock given at two different dates following 1863, for which the figures have already been given. In 1870 the assessment rolls show the following: Horses, 5,787; mules, 1,727; cattle, 14,114; sheep, 8,767; hogs, 5,067. In 1875 a great change occurred of which we shall speak at length, that is the division of the county, by which Walla Walla County was reduced to its present limits. We may, therefore, take that year as the proper one for final figures on the old county. The year 1875, according to the assessor, had the following livestock population: Horses, 8,862; mules, 401; cattle, 17,756 (there were 22,960 the previous year); sheep, 32,986; hogs, 8,150.We find various local items strewn through the files of theStatesmandealing with stock which are worthy of preservation. In issue of January 10, 1862, mention is made of a steer handled by Lazarus and brother, which weighed, dressed, 1,700 pounds.A few weeks later it is stated that a cow and calf were sold for $100. That will be remembered as the winter of the extreme cold weather. There are numerous items speaking of suffering and loss of stock. It was well nigh exterminated in some quarters. But it did not take long to change appearances, at least in the cattle that lived through the winter, for an item in the number of June 14 speaks of the fattest cattle and best beef that the editor had ever seen, and of the fact that large herds of cattle were going to the mining regions of Salmon River and South Fork. It is estimated in the issue of October 25, 1862, that 40,000 head of cattle had been brought into the East-of-the-mountain country during the year.PIONEER RACE TRACKIt appears that during the summer of 1862 a race track was laid out by Mr. Porter at a point on the Wallula Road three miles west of town, known as the Pioneer Race Course. A race is reported in theStatesmanof September 27, in which a roan mare won a purse of $100 from a cream horse. That perhaps may be considered the beginning of the Walla Walla Fair.The sheep business seems to have moved on apace during those early years, for in the paper of May 23, 1803, we learn that A. Frank & Co. had just shipped 10,000 pounds of wool to Portland, and expected to ship 7,000 more in a short time. Among the most prominent sheep men whose operations have covered a field in many directions from Walla Walla is Nathaniel Webb, one of the honored pioneers. In recent times, operating especially in the Snake River region, leading sheep raisers have been Davin Brothers, Adrian Magallon, and Leon Jaussaud, all Frenchmen.THE FARMING INDUSTRYFrom stock we turn to farming as the next great fundamental industry to take shape. We have already noted the fact that there was little comprehension of the great upland region, rolling prairies and swelling hills, as adapted to raising grain. Yet we know that Doctor Whitman had demonstrated the practicability of producing all standard crops during the ten years of his residence at Waiilatpu. Joseph Drayton of the Wilkes Expedition speaks with surprise of his observations there in 1841, seeing "wheat in the field seven feet high and nearly ripe, and corn nine feet in the tassel." He also saw vegetables and melons in great variety. The Hudson's Bay people had fine gardens near Wallula, at the time of the arrival of the Whitmans in 1836, and later on at the Touchet and on Hudson's Bay, as it is now known, southeast of Walla Walla. They had abundant provision also for dairy and poultry purposes.Hence farming and gardening and fruit raising had been abundantly tested in the more favorably situated locations long prior to the founding of Walla Walla. With the establishment of the Fort at its present location, Capt. W. R. Kirkwood laid out a garden, the success of which showed the utility of that location. The next year Charles Russell, then the wagon master at the fort, tested the land north of the post, afterwards owned by Mr. Drumheller, with eighty acres of barley, securing a yield of fifty bushels to the acre. He raised 100 acres of oats on the place which he afterwards took up on Russell Creek. The location must have been on the land now owned by O. M. Richmond, and there is remarkable evidence of the productiveness of that land in that it has produced nearly every year to the present. It is worth relating that after Mr. Russell had sowed the oats the Indians were so threatening that he abandoned the place, and cattle ate the growing grain so closely that there seemed no hope of a crop. But in June, the Indians having withdrawn, Mr. Russell went out and fenced the field, the oats sprung up anew and yielded fifty bushels to the acre. In the same year of 1858, Walter Davis seeded 150 acres to oats at a place on Dry Creek. The Indians warned him to leave, but a squad of soldiers went out and cut the oats for hay. In 1860 Stephen Maxson raised a fine crop of wheat on the place on Russell Creek still owned by his descendants.Perhaps the operations of Messrs. Russell, Davis, and Maxson may be considered the initiation of the grain production in the Inland Empire. Probably there would have been but a slow development had not the discovery of gold stimulated the demand for all sorts of agricultural products.In 1863 a few experiments on the higher land began. Milton Evans has told the author that in that year he tried a small piece of wheat a few miles northeastof Walla Walla, but that it was a complete failure, and hence the impression already common was confirmed that the upland was useless, except for grazing. In 1867, however, John Montague raised a crop of oats, over fifty bushels to the acre, on land apparently afterwards part of the Delaney place northeast of town. Even that was not generally accepted as any proof of the use of the uplands. Some of the old-timers have said to the author that they seemed determined that grain should not grow on those lands.But with the rapid influx of settlers and the flattering returns from the trade in provisions with the mines, the more desirable places in the foothill belt, and then on the benches and plains and then on the hills, were taken up, and by 1875 it was generally understood that a great wheat belt extended along the flanks of the Blue Mountains all the way from Pendleton to Lewiston, with a somewhat variable width upon the plains. Not until another decade was it understood that the grain belt covered the major part of what now composes the four counties of our story.We find in the valuable history of Colonel Gilbert, to which we have made frequent reference, so good a summary of certain essential data in respect to the development to date of publication in 1882 of that great fundamental business of wheat raising, in which are included also certain allied data of importance, that we insert it at this point in our narrative."An agricultural society was organized in July of this year, 1866, by an assemblage of citizens at the courthouse, on the 9th of that month, when laws and regulations were adopted, and the following officers chosen: H. P. Isaacs, president; A. Cox and W. H. Newell, vice presidents; J. D. Cook, treasurer; E. E. Rees, secretary; and Charles Russell, T. G. Lee, A. A. Blanchard, executive committee. For the fair to be held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of the ensuing October, the last three gentlemen became managers and the following executive committee: H. P. Isaacs, J. D. Cook, J. H. Blewett and W. H. Newell.In 1867 the grain yield of the Blue Mountain region exceeded the demand, and prices that had been falling for several years left that crop a drug. It was sought to prevent an entire stagnation of agricultural industries, by shipping the surplus down the Columbia River to the seaboard. Freights on flour at that time were: From Wallula per ton to Lewiston, $15; to The Dalles, $6; to Portland, $6; and the following amounts were shipped:To Portland, between May 27 and June 13, 4,156 barrels; to The Dalles, between April 19 and June 2, 578 barrels; to Lewiston, between April 18 and May 14, 577 barrels; total to June 13 by O. S. N. Company, 5,311 barrels.The same year Frank & Wertheimer shipped from Walla Walla 15,000 bushels of wheat down the Columbia, thus starting the great outflow of bread products from the interior.In 1868 Philip Ritz shipped fifty barrels of flour from the Phoenix mills in Walla Walla to New York, with the following result: (It was the first of Washington Territory products seen in the East.)First cost of flour, $187.50; sacks for same, $27.00; transportation to San Francisco, $100.00; freight thence to New York, $107.80; total cost in gold, $422.30; profit realized on the transaction, $77.46, or $1.55 per barrel.Wheat had fallen to 40 cents per bushel in Walla Walla because of the following scale of expenses of shipping to San Francisco:Freight per ton to Wallula, $6.00; thence to Portland, $6.00; thence to San Francisco, $7.00; drayage, $1.50; commission, $2.00, $3.50; primage and leakage, $1.00; bagging, $4.50, $5.50; total expense to San Francisco, $28.00.In 1869 there was a short crop, due to the drought and want of encouragement for farmers to raise grain. June 14, a storm occurred of tropical fierceness, during which a waterspout burst in the mountains, and sent a flood down Cottonwood Cañon that washed away houses in the valley. In consequence of the short crop, wheat rose to 80 cents per bushel in Walla Walla, and flour to $5.50 per barrel. In November hay brought $17 per ton, oats and barley 2 cents per pound, and butter 37½ cents.Having traced agricultural development from its start and through its years of encouragement, till quantity exceeding the home demand had rendered it a profitless industry in 1868 and 1869, let us glance at the causes leading to a revival of inducements for tilling the soil in the Walla Walla country. It should be borne in mind that the farmers in the valley and along creeks nearer the mines than this locality, were supplying the principal mountain demand, and the only hope left was to send produce to tide water and thus to the world's market. What it cost to do this had been tried with practical failure as a result. This shipping to the seaboard was an experimental enterprise, and there was not sufficient assurance of its paying to justify farmers in producing quantities for that purpose, consequently not freight enough of this kind to warrant the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in putting extra steamers or facilities on the river to encourage it. The outlook was, therefore, gloomy. This was a state of things which caused an agitation of the railway question, resulting in the construction of what is more familiarly known as Baker's Railroad, connecting Walla Walla with navigable waters. The building of this road encouraged the farmers to raise a surplus, it encouraged the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to increase the facilities for grain shipment, it caused a reduction of freight tariffs all along the line and made it possible for a farmer to cultivate the soil at a profit. Something of an idea of the result may be gathered from an inspection of the following exhibit of increase from year to year, of freights shipped on Baker's Road to Wallula en route for Portland. Between 1870 and 1874, down freights shipped yearly at Wallula did not exceed 2,500 tons. In 1874 Baker's Road had been completed to the Touchet, and carried freight from that point to Wallula at $1.50 per ton. In 1875 it was completed to Frenchtown and charged $2.50. Walla Walla rates averaged $4.50.Freight tonnage from Touchet in 1874 to Wallula aggregated 4,021 tons; in back freight, 1,126 tons; from Frenchtown in 1875 to Wallula, 9,155 tons; back freight, 2,192 tons; from Walla Walla in 1876 to Wallula, 15,266; back freight, 4,043; from Walla Walla in 1877 to Wallula, 28,806 tons; back freight, 8,368 tons; from Walla Walla in 1878 to Wallula, 35,014 tons; back freight, 10,454." Such are Colonel Gilbert's statements.The estimated wheat production in the entire upper country in 1866 was half a million bushels, of which half was credited to the Walla Walla Valley. From that time on to the present there has been a steady development of wheat raising throughout the region south of Snake River, as well as north and throughout the Inland Empire.WHEAT HARVESTING IN WALLA WALLA COUNTYThirty-two horses. Combined harvesting and threshing. Ground too hilly for tractors.In the decade of the '70s there came to Walla Walla a man destined to leave upon the entire region the impress of one of the most remarkable characters in far vision, noble aims, and philanthropic disposition that ever lived within the State of Washington. We refer to Dr. N. G. Blalock. Eminent in his profession, his ceaseless industry and progressive aims did more perhaps than any other single life to broaden and advance all phases of the section in which he lived and wrought. He was the pioneer in wheat raising on large scale, as well as in many other lines of activity and experiment. Making, though not retaining, several fortunes, his life work was to mark out the way for others less venturesome, to follow to success not alone in the acquirement of wealth, but in the nobler and more enduring products of education, philanthropy, patriotism, public service, and genuine piety. Coming to Walla Walla in 1872 and entering at once upon an extensive medical practice, Doctor Blalock had a vision of the future as well as the capacity to utilize at once the varied opportunities offered by the soil, the climate, and the location. He saw the splendid wild acres of land by the thousands lying in all directions and determined to make a thorough test of its adaptability to raise wheat on a large scale. He made a bargain for a tract of 2,200 acres six miles south of Walla Walla for a price of ten bushels of wheat per acre, to be paid from the first crop. The expense of breaking so large a body of land was great, but the first crop yielded thirty-one bushels per acre, a sufficient demonstration of the capacity of the land.In 1881 the crop on the tract averaged thirty-five and one-fourth bushels, while 1,000 acres of it yielded 51,000 bushels. The acreage and the yield, very carefully ascertained, was reported to the Government and stood then, and probably does yet, as the largest yield from that amount of land ever reported. Even more remarkable yields, but on smaller areas, have been known. Milton Aldrich produced on his Dry Creek ranch, on 400 acres, an average of sixty-six bushels of wheat and the next year there was a volunteer crop of forty bushels. Recently in the same vicinity Arthur Cornwell obtained an average of seventy-three bushels per acre. A hundred and ten bushels of barley per acre have been grown on the Gilkerson ranch on Mill Creek.An item of historic interest may be found in an estimate of cost made for a special number of theUnionduring the first years of the industry by Joseph Harbert, one of the most prominent pioneers and successful farmers in the valley. The crop was on 400 acres, which yielded 10,000 bushels of blue-stem wheat. At fifty cents per bushel for the crop, this will be seen to represent a profit of about two thousand three hundred dollars from land worth $12,000, or nearly twenty per cent. from which, however, should come wages of management.The land was summer fallowed in 1894 and valued at thirty dollars per acre. The estimate is in a locality where water and material to work with are reasonably convenient. The land is not very hilly and comparatively easy to work. The report is as follows:Itemized ExpensesCropMos.In. Pd.Inst.TotalPlanting, 90c per acre$ 360.0020$ 60.00$ 420.00Harrowing, 11c per acre44.00. .7.8351.83Plowing, second time, June, 1894360.001854.00414.00Harrowing before sowing44.00165.8749.87500 bu. seed wheat, highest market price250.00. .. . . .250.00Cleaning seed wheat9.00151.1210.12125 lbs. vitriol at 6c7.50. ..948.44Using vitriol on wheat8.00. .1.009.00Sowing, October, 1894, 15c per acre60.00147.0067.00Harrowing after sowing, 11c44.00. .5.1449.14Cutting, $1.00 per acre400.00413.33413.334,400 sacks, $49.00 per M215.60. .7.18222.78Thirty pounds of twine, 33⅓c10.00. ..3310.33Threshing 10,000 bushels, 4½c450.00. .15.00465.00Hauling to railroad, 2½c per sack110.00. .3.66113.66Warehouse charges to Jan. 1, 1896120.00. .. . . .120.00——————————Total cost$2,492.10. .$182.40$2,674.50It may be added that estimates of cost by a number of prominent farmers in the period of 1890 and thereabouts, indicated that the expense of sowing, seeding, harvesting, and putting into the warehouse, ran from twenty-one to forty cents a bushel, varying according to locality, yield, and other conditions.At a usual price of fifty or sixty cents a bushel, there was not a large margin above the interest on investment, maintenance of stock, machinery, improvements, and taxes. Nevertheless the farmers of this section felt every encouragement to continue, unless it were in the evil harvest year of 1893-4, when the price ran about twenty-five to thirty-five cents a bushel, and when rains, floods, strikes, and general calamity threatened to engulf, and did actually engulf some of the best farms. It is a historical fact that had it not been for the liberality of the banks in the four counties south of Snake River, which held obligations from a large number of the best-known farmers, there would have been widespread disaster. Thanks to the banks, as well as to the persistence and fortitude of the farmers and the solid resources of the country, these counties emerged from those years of depression with less injury and repaired their losses more quickly than any other section of the entire Northwest, or perhaps of the whole country.It may be added in connection with cost of wheat raising, that within the years since the opening of the present century there has been an enormous outlay by farmers in all kinds of farm machinery, the combines having become the usual means of harvesting, and traction engines for the combines and to some degree for plowing having superseded horse power. But cost of labor and general rise of prices have pushed up expenses, until now the most of farmers would estimate the cost of a bushel of wheat at fifty cents or more, some say even a dollar. As an offset to this there has come a great advance in price, insomuch that the farmers of Walla Walla and its sister counties have become the lords of the land. One of the most pleasing results of this new order of things is that the farmers, being almost entirely free from debt, have begun to build comfortable and even elegant homes, both on the farms and in the cities and to surround themselves with the conveniences of life, as automobiles, and to spend money in travel and luxuries which make some of the old-timers, accustomed to the deprivations of pioneer days, open their eyes with wonder, and possibly even disapproval. It is not observable,however, that the young folks on the farms have any backwardness in utilizing the good things of life which are the logical consummation of the foresight and industry of parents and grandparents. It is probable that no people in the United States have more reliable and steady incomes and greater sources for all the needs and enjoyments of life than do the farmers of old Walla Walla County.The experience of other sections was similar to that of the region immediately around Walla Walla. The first thought was of stock ranges, with such small patches of farming land adjacent to the creeks as might supply the family needs. It is stated that Elisha Ping and G. W. Miller raised crops of wheat and oats on the present site of Dayton in 1860. For the oats they received seven cents a pound and for the wheat two dollars a bushel. The location of the subsequent Dayton became a regular station on the stage line from Walla Walla to Lewiston, and that fact led J. M. Pomeroy, a little later the founder of the town named for him, to raise a crop of barley for horse feed. That was in 1863. As time passed on, and especially after the founding of flouring mills by S. M. Wait, there came a general movement to raise grain crops on the hills and plains and it was discovered, as a little earlier around Walla Walla, that the entire region was the very home land for grain. Within a few years it was found that barley of especially fine quality and heavy yield was one of the best crops, and Columbia County has become the center of barley production. Almost the entire county, with the exception of the timbered mountain belt, has become a grain field. Within recent years the region around and particularly east of Dayton has become the leading center of corn production.Garfield and Asotin counties repeated the experience of Walla Walla and Columbia; first stock ranges, then a few acres along the creeks as an experiment, soon the breaking up of the rich sod on the high plains and flats; and within a few years, a perfect ocean of waving grain over the greater part of the area. The first settlers already named in the section of this chapter on stock raising were the pioneers also in the wheat business, as the Rigsby brothers, J. M. Pomeroy, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, and others. Garfield and Asotin counties are in general more elevated than Walla Walla and Columbia, and their frontage on Snake River is more abrupt. This has given rise, first to a margin of ideal fruit and garden land between the river and the bluffs, which in case of Asotin is of considerable breadth, and in case of both of them has raised the question of conveying grain from the high plateaus to the river. In some places this has given rise to contrivances which are a great curiosity to strangers, the "grain-chutes" and "bucket lines," as devices to lower the grain from warehouses on the precipitous bank, sometimes eighteen hundred feet above the steamer landing. There is not yet a railroad on the south bank of Snake River, and water transportation is the only available means of getting the vast quantities of grain from those high prairies near the river to market.Items appear in the various issues of theStatesmanduring the first years of its existence in regard to grain raising which possess great historical interest. An editorial appears in the issue of February 1, 1862, urging farmers to go into grain raising extensively and declaring that all the indications point to a demand from the mines for all kinds of farm products.An advertisement for supplies at the Fort on July 19 calls for 375 tons ofoats, 100 tons of oat straw, and 1,200 cords of wood. Mention is also made in the paper of the farm of J. W. Shoemaker a short distance below the garrison, where grain to the value of $3,000, and garden produce to the value of $1,500, was raised.FLOUR MILLINGOne of the most important features of industry allied to grain production was flour milling. The first flour mill was erected in 1859 by A. H. Reynolds in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. T. Dent, the latter being a brother of Mrs. U. S. Grant. It was located on the land then owned by Jesse Drumheller, now part of the Whitney place. In the issue of March 29, 1862, is an advertisement of the Pasca Mills by Sims and Mix, which must have been the same mill built by Mr. Reynolds. In 1862 Mr. Reynolds built another mill, known as the Star Mill, on the Yellowhawk, near the present residence of his son, H. A. Reynolds. This was subsequently acquired by W. H. Gilbert. Mention is made in theStatesmanof August 2, 1862, of the flour mill of J. C. Isaacs. Apparently this is a confusion in name of the brothers, as the author is credibly informed that the mill opened at that time was the Excelsior mill built by H. P. Isaacs, subsequently the leading mill man of the Walla Walla country and one of the leaders in all forms of enterprise. The name Excelsior was later replaced by North Pacific. It was located on the mill race, whose remains still cross Division Street and was actively employed until about 1895. There is an advertisement in theStatesmanof March 21, 1863, to the effect that Graham flour and corn meal were being turned out at Mr. Reynolds' mill. In the number of March 31, 1865, is the announcement that Kyger and Reese, who were among the most extensive general merchants in Walla Walla, had leased the water power and site of E. H. Barron just below town on Mill Creek and were making ready to install a first-class mill, having three run of four-foot burrs and a capacity of 150 barrels a day. The firm were also establishing a distillery. It would seem that the latter manufactory was in larger demand than the former, for it was completed sooner. The mill, however, began grinding in October of that year. That mill became the property of Andrew McCalley in 1873, and after his death in 1891 was maintained by his sons until the property was lost by fire in 1897. One of the most important mills of the valley was that built by Messrs. Ritz and Schnebly about a quarter of a mile below the McCalley mill, known first as the Agate and then as the Eureka, conducted for some time by W. C. Painter, then sold to Welch and Schwabacher, and in turn disposed of by them in 1880 to Dement Brothers, and managed up to the present time by F. S. Dement. The mill is now known as Dement Brothers' mill and is one of the most extensive in the Inland Empire, making a specialty of choice breakfast cereals and through them as well as its high-grade flour carrying the name of Walla Walla, Wash., around the globe.The mills on the Touchet speedily followed those on Mill Creek. S. M. Wait, from whom the beautiful little city at the junction of the Touchet and the Coppei took its name, was the pioneer mill man as well as the founder of the town. TheStatesmanof June 2, 1865, mentions the fact that Mr. Wait's mill was just open and that it was one of the best equipped in the country and produced a grade of flour equal to the best from Oregon. A town soon began to grow at the location of the mill. Mr. Wait sold the mill to Preston Brothers and the stock to Paine Brothers and Moore of Walla Walla. The latter firm acquired an interest in the mill, but subsequently disposed of all their holdings to Preston Brothers, under whom the mill became one of the largest mill properties in the Northwest, being connected with large mills at Athena, Ore., and elsewhere, and under the more recent management of Messrs. Shaffer, Harper, and Leonard, conducting one of the most extensive milling lines in the country.NORTH PACIFIC MILLS (ISAAC'S MILL) WALLA WALLAFirst rolling mill on the Pacific coast. Erected in 1862. Capacity two hundred and fifty barrels. Many mills were erected before this, but this was the first to introduce rollers instead of the old mill stone.Mr. Wait inaugurated also the milling business in what is now Columbia County. Going to that region in 1871 where Jesse N. Day, from whom Dayton was named, had been endeavoring since 1864 to launch a town with but scanty success, Mr. Wait proposed to build a mill, provided inducements were offered. Mr. Day accordingly agreed to give five acres of land as a site, with a block of land for residences, and upon that Mr. Wait and William Metzger proceeded to launch the milling business at Dayton. In building that mill, with a brick building for a store and a planing mill, Messrs. Wait and Metzger laid out about $25,000, a large amount for those days. At the same time the Dayton Woolen Mill was undertaken, A. H. Reynolds being chief owner, F. S. Frary the secretary and manager and Mr. Wait the president of the company. The woolen mill had a land site of seven acres donated by John Mustard and a building was erected at a cost of $40,000. The new town of Dayton was booming in consequence of these investments. The flour mill proved a great success and with various changes of ownership is now one of the great mill properties of the country, but the woolen mill, from which so much was expected, did not prove a financial success and was closed in 1880. It is rather a curious fact that no one of the woolen enterprises in the Inland Empire has met with large success except that at Pendleton, Ore., the success of which has been so great that it is a puzzle that others have mainly failed.The great development of wheat raising in what is now Garfield County led, as elsewhere in the region, to flouring mills. The pioneer mill at Pomeroy was started in 1877 by W. C. Potter and completed the following year by Mr. Pomeroy.Three miles above Pomeroy and for some years a rival to the lower town was Pataha City. It was on land taken up at first by James Bowers in 1861 and acquired in 1868 by A. J. Favor, who undertook a few years later to start a town. In pursuance of his plans he offered land for mill sites, and as a result J. N. Bowman and George Snyder constructed a mill in 1878. Subsequently John Houser became the great mill man of that entire section and his mill became one of the most widely known in the Inland Empire. He made a specialty of shipping flour to San Francisco for the manufacture of macaroni, the large percentage of gluten in the wheat of that region fitting it especially for that use. The son of Mr. Houser, Max Houser, going to Portland in about 1908, has become known the world over as the most daring and extensive wheat buyer on the Pacific Coast and has acquired a fortune estimated at six millions. The pioneer flouring mill of Asotin was built in 1881 at the town of that name by Frank Curtis and L. A. Stimson. The town itself upon one of the most beautiful of locations on Snake River, with the magnificent wheat fields of the Anatone flats on the highlands to the south and west, and a superb belt of fruit land extending down the river and broadening out at Clarkston, was laid out in 1878.Other mills were established at later dates, of which the most extensive were the mill at Prescott, erected by H. P. Isaacs in 1883, the City mill on Palouse Street in Walla Walla, built in 1898 by Scholl Brothers; Long's mill, a few miles below Dayton; the Corbett mill at Huntsville.In summarizing grain raising as the leading industry of old Walla Walla County it may be said that for several years past the total production for the four counties has been about 12,000,000 bushels per year. The value has, of course, varied much according to price. It is conservatively estimated that the value of the grain crops, including flour and feed in various manufactured forms for 1916, was approximately $15,000,000.GARDENS AND ORCHARDSAs grain raising put a finer point upon industry than its predecessor, stock raising, so in turn the gardens and orchards have yet more refined and differentiated the forms of industry and the developments of life in the growing communities of our story. As already related these lines of production had been tested by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the missionaries, Whitman and Spalding. It was, therefore, to be expected that even in the first years of settlement some attempts would be made to start orchards and gardens. The first nursery in Walla Walla seems to have been laid out in 1859 on the Ransom Clark donation claim on the Yellowhawk. In 1859 trees were set out on the J. W. Foster place. It is said that Mr. Foster brought his trees here on muleback over the Cascade Mountains. We are informed by Charles Clark of Walla Walla that most of Mr. Foster's trees were secured from Ransom Clark. In 1860 A. B. Roberts set out an orchard within the present city limits of Walla Walla on what later became the Ward place. In 1861 a notable step in fruit raising was taken by the coming of one of the most important of all the great pioneers of the Inland Empire. This was Philip Ritz. We find in theStatesmanof December 5, 1861, announcement that Mr. Ritz had arrived with a supply of trees from his nursery at Glen Dale near Corvallis, Ore., and that the trees were for sale at the store of John Wright. Subsequent items in theStatesmanfurnish an interesting exposition of the progress of both gardens and orchards. TheStatesmanwas wide awake as usual to the needs of the country and did not fail to exhort the citizens of Walla Walla to prepare for the demand which it was sure would come. On March 29, 1862, mention was made of the fact that green fruit, presumably apples, from the Willamette Valley, was selling for from twenty to fifty cents per pound. The paper expresses surprise that farmers are so slow about setting out trees. On June 21, 1862, it was announced with much satisfaction that scarcely had the snow from that extremely cold winter melted before there were radishes, lettuce, onions, and rutabagas brought in from foot hill gardens, and that there were new potatoes in the market by June 14th. The issue of July 26th notes the fact of green corn in abundance and that of August 2d declares that the corn was equal to that of the Middle Western States, and that fine watermelons were in the market. August 16th is marked by thanks to G. W. Shoemaker for a fine watermelon and the statement that there were others to come that would weigh forty pounds.In the number of August 30th it appears that Mr. Shoemaker brought to the office a muskmelon weighing eighteen pounds, and in the same issue is an item about a 103-pound squash raised by S. D. Smith. John Hancock is credited on September 6th with a watermelon of thirty-three pounds. Complaint is made, however, in the same number, of the fact that there is a meager supply of apples, plums and pears from the Willamette, and that the apples sell for twenty-five cents apiece, or fifty cents a pound. TheStatesmanof September 27th has the story of Walter Davis of Dry Creek sending a squash of a weight of 134½ pounds and twelve potatoes of a weight of twenty-nine pounds to the Oregon State Fair at Salem. Lamentable to narrate it appears later that these specimens of Walla Walla gardening disappeared. TheStatesmanindulges in some bitter scorn over the kind of people on the other side who would steal such objects. In an October number mention is made that James Fudge of Touchet had brought in three potatoes weighing eight pounds. In theStatesmanof December 20th is an item to the effect that Philip Ritz has a large assortment of trees and shrubs at the late residence of J. S. Sparks. It is also stated that Mr. Ritz is going to try sweet potatoes. In the issue of January 17, 1863, is the statement that Mr. Ritz had purchased land of Mr. Roberts for a nursery. In successive numbers, beginning February 28th, is Mr. Ritz's advertisement of the Columbia Valley nursery, the value of the stock of which is stated at $10,000. It seems to have been an extraordinary stock for the times, and the enterprise and industry of Mr. Ritz became a great factor in the development of the fruit business as well as many other things. There are several interesting items later on in 1863, showing that gardening, particularly the raising of onions, was advancing rapidly. In the spring of 1865 A. Frank & Co. shipped 40,000 pounds of onions to Portland. In theStatesmanof July 4, 1863, it is stated that John Hancock had corn fifteen feet high. During 1863 and 1864 there was much experimenting with sorghum. T. P. Denny is mentioned as having brought a bottle of fine sorghum syrup, and it is stated that Mr. Ritz was experimenting with Chinese and Imphee sugar cane. Mr. Ritz was succeeding well with sweet potatoes, and a fine quality of tobacco was being produced. The biggest potato story was of a Mechannock potato from Mr. Kimball's garden on Dry Creek, which weighed four and one-half pounds. In several numbers in September, 1863, mention is made of delicious peaches brought in by A. H. Reynolds.In short, it was well demonstrated that conditions were such that it might be expected that Walla Walla would become, and it has for some years been known as, the "Garden City."In the '60s and '70s a considerable amount of land south and west of Walla Walla was brought into use for gardening, and in various directions orchards were set out. One of the finest was that of W. S. Gilliam on Dry Creek. Everything looked encouraging for fruit raising at that early day, but in 1883 there came a bitter cold day, twenty-nine degrees below zero, far colder than ever known at any other time in Walla Walla, a most disastrous dispensation of nature, for many orchards, especially peaches and apricots, perished.FIVE REGIONSBroadly speaking, it may be said that there are five regions in Old Walla Walla County which have become important centers of fruit raising and intensivefarming in general, since fruit raising, gardening, dairying, and poultry raising have to varying degrees gone right along together. The first in age and extent is the region immediately around Walla Walla; the second that of Clarkston and down the Snake River to Burbank; the third that on the Touchet from Dayton to Prescott; the fourth the long narrow valley of the Tucanon; and the fifth that on the lower Walla Walla from Touchet and Gardena to the Columbia and thence through Attalia and Two Rivers to Burbank at the mouth of Snake River. There are, of course, some excellent orchards and gardens in portions not covered in this enumeration, and it is also proper to say that the most productive and compact single body of country is that portion of the Walla Walla Valley south of the state line extending to Milton, Ore.It is impossible within our limits to describe these different areas in detail. Each has some distinctive features. The youngest and least developed is that of the lower Walla Walla and the Columbia River. By reason of great heat and aridity and long growing season, that region is peculiarly adapted to grape culture and melon raising. Alfalfa produces four and five cuttings and the prospect for successful dairying is flattering. The expense of reclaiming the land and maintaining irrigating systems is high, but when fairly established it may be expected to be one of the most attractive and productive sections.The Walla Walla section has had the advantage of time and population and in the nature of the case has become most highly developed. In garden products Walla Walla asparagus, onions, and rhubarb may be said to be champions in the markets of the country. One of the important features of Walla Walla gardening is the Walla Walla hothouse vegetable enterprise on the river, five miles west of the city, conducted by F. E. Mojonnier. This is the largest hothouse in the Inland Empire and, with one exception, in the entire Northwest. It has two and a half acres under glass and does a business of thousands of dollars with the chief markets north and east.In orchards Walla Walla, while not in general in the same class for quantity with Yakima and Wenatchee, has the distinction of possessing two of the largest and perhaps most scientifically planted and cultivated orchards in the entire state; the Blalock and the Baker-Langdon orchards. The latter contains 680 acres of apples, is on sub-irrigated land of the best quality, and may be considered the last word in orchard culture. The manager, John Langdon, reports for 1917, 200,000 boxes, or about three hundred car loads, worth on cars at Walla Walla, at present prices, about three hundred thousand dollars. It is anticipated that when in full bearing at the age of twelve to fourteen years, the yield will be 1,000,000 boxes. Doctor Blalock was the great pioneer in fruit raising, as in grain-raising, on a large scale. The story of his carrying on the gigantic enterprise with inadequate resources to a triumphant conclusion, though not himself being able to retain possession, is one of the greatest stories in the Inland Empire.The Touchet belt may be said to be distinguished by its special adaptability to high grade apples of the Rome Beauty and Spitzenberg varieties as well as by the extraordinary and profitable production. In that belt are two orchards which while not remarkable for size have had about the most remarkable history of any in the state. These are the Pomona orchard of J. L. Dumas and that of J. D. Taggard between Waitsburg and Dayton. There are a number of other orchards of high grade in the Touchet Valley, and it may be anticipated that within a few years that rich and beautiful expanse will be a continuous orchard. Conditions of soil and climate make it ideal for apple-raising.

CHAPTER VTHE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY IN OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY TO THE PERIOD OF COUNTY DIVISION AND AFTERWARDS IN THE PRESENT WALLA WALLAWe have given in the first chapter of this volume a view of the physical features, geological formation, and climate of this region. It was obvious from that description that the Walla Walla country, like most of Eastern Washington, Northeastern Oregon, and even Northwestern Idaho, would be thought of at first inspection as a stock country. The army of early immigrants that passed through on their way to the Willamette Valley saw the upper country only at the end of the long, hot, dry summers, when everything was parched and wilted. It did not seem to them that any part would be adapted to agriculture except the small creek bottoms. They could, however, see in the oceans of bunch grass, withered though it was by drought, ample indications that stock to almost limitless extent could find subsistence.Hence with the opening of the country in 1859 the first thought of incoming settlers was to find locations along the creeks where a few acres for garden and home purposes might be found, and then a wide expanse of grazing land adjoining where the real business might be conducted. The first locations from 1859 and until about 1870 denote the dominance of that idea. We have already noted the beginnings of stock raising during the Hudson's Bay Company regime and the period of the Whitman mission. We have seen that Messrs. Brooke, Bumford and Noble started the same industry at Waiilatpu in 1851 and later on the Touchet and maintained it until expelled by Indians in 1855. H. M. Chase laid the foundations of the same on the Umatilla in 1851 in conjunction with W. C. McKay, and later upon the Touchet near where Dayton is now located. J. C. Smith on Dry Creek in 1857 had the same plans.The incoming of settlers in 1859 and 1860 and the location of the Fort induced a mercantile class to gather in the vicinity of that market. When gold discoveries set every one agog with excitement, the first effect was to create a line of business almost entirely adapted to supply miners' needs. The second effect speedily following was to lead thoughtful men to consider the region as a suitable location for producing first hand the objects of demand. Stock was foremost among those demands. The Indians already had immense droves of "cayuse" horses, and considerable herds of cattle. Many cattle were driven in in 1861. The hard winter of 1861-2 caused severe loss to cattle raisers, but so well were the losses repaired that it was reported in 1863 that there were in the valley, including the Touchet region, 1,455 horses, 438 mules, 1,864 sheep, 3,957 cattle, and 712 hogs. According to theStatesman15,000 pounds of wool were shipped out in that year. Sheep increased with extraordinaryrapidity. The valley became a winter feeding ground and the sheep were driven in from the entire Inland Empire. TheStatesmanasserts that in the winter of 1855-6 there were 200,000 head in the valley. They were worth at that time only a dollar a head. From that time on the stock business in its various branches became more definitely organized and shipments to the East and to California went on apace. It was not, however, for some years that the importation of blooded stock for scientific betterment was carried on to any considerable degree. It would be impossible within our limits to give any complete view of the leading promoters in the different lines. Practically every settler in the country had some stock. Those who may be said to have been leaders during the decade of the '60s in introducing stock into the various pivotal points of the old county may be grouped under some half dozen territories, which have later become the centers of farming sections and in several instances the sites of the existing towns.This list cannot in the nature of the case be exhaustive, for, as already noted, every settler had more or less stock. In naming some rather than others, we would not wish to be making any invidious comparisons, but rather selecting a few in each pivotal place, who came in earliest and had the greatest continuity of residence and the most constructive connection with the business. Naturally first in order may be named the vicinity of Walla Walla City as it has become, and the region adjoining it on the south into Oregon.Perhaps typical of the larger stockmen of the earliest period were Jesse Drumheller and Daniel M. Drumheller. The former of the brothers came first to Walla Walla from The Dalles with the United States troops in the War of 1855-6, as manager of transportation. When the wars were ended he settled on the place now owned by Charles Whitney. Subsequently he made his home for many years on the place west of town known to all inhabitants of the region. The younger brother came to the region in 1861 and located at what is still known as Hudson's Bay, and from that time on the two were among the foremost in driving stock in from the Willamette Valley and in extending their ranges in all directions. Like so many others they were wiped out in the hard winter of 1861-2, but nothing daunted, recognizing the superior adaptability of the region they renewed their drives and within a few years had stock, at first horses and cattle and then sheep, ranging from Couse Creek in Umatilla County to the Snake River. One of their greatest ranges was just north of the present Freewater and westward to the present Umapine and Hudson's Bay. Besides the Drumhellers some of the most prominent stockmen in that region ranging along the state line were John Bigham, W. S. Goodman, the Fruits, Girards, Shumways, Ingalls, and Fords. Nineveh Ford was one of the most noted of early Oregon pioneers and coming in that early day into the upper country became one of the permanent builders of Umatilla County. The Berry and Cummings families were a little farther north. Among the leaders in introducing a high grade of horses and cattle and later on in farming on a large scale, as well as connected with every public interest of importance, were the Resers, of whom the second and third generations are present-day leaders in all phases of the life of their communities. Their places were in the fertile foothill belt southeast of Walla Walla. In the same general section were many others whose main dependence at first was cattle, but who entered into the raising of grainearlier than those in other sections, by reason of the manifest advantages in soil and rainfall. Among such may be named Daniel Stewart, Christian Meier, Stephen Maxson, Thomas McCoy, S. W. Swezea, Orley Hull, Philip Yenney, Brewster Ferrel, James M. Dewar, the McGuires, Sheltons, Copelands, Barnetts, and Fergusons. Two of the prominent business men living in town might be mentioned as interested in stock raising and doing much to promote it, Dr. D. S. Baker and John Green. Among the most prominent pioneers in the section on Mill Creek, who afterwards were leaders in grain raising, but like all others turned their first attention to stock, were Robert Kennedy, W. S. Gilliam, James Cornwell, J. M. Lamb, Joseph Harbert, E. G. Riffle, W. J. Cantonwine, David Wooten, Thomas Gilkerson, J. Kibler and a little later several leading families, those of Evans, Thomas, Kershaw, Lyons, and Aldrich.Another great section of the cattle ranges was on Dry Creek and northward over the hills to and beyond the Touchet. Among the earliest settlers in that region whose first business was stock raising, but who afterward became pioneers a second time by entering into grain raising were Jonathan Pettyjohn, W. W. Walter, John Marion, J. C. Smith, S. H. Erwin, A. A. Blanchard and the Lamars. At a somewhat later date, but among the most important of all the cattle men of the valley, now known and honored by all in his advanced age, is Francis Lowden, whose ranges were in the middle and lower valley, and whose son, Francis, Jr., has become one of the leading meat market men in the Inland Empire. Mr. Lowden imported the first high-grade cattle, Shorthorns, and that was in 1864. Another growing center, at first for stock, then for farming, then for fruit, and finally for towns, was the upper Touchet, of which Waitsburg, Dayton, and Huntsville have become centers. As we have stated earlier, some of the first locations were made on the Touchet. The first settler at the junction of the Touchet and Coppei was Robert Kennedy in 1859, but the next year he moved to his permanent place near Walla Walla. During 1859 and the few years following there were located, at first engaged in cattle raising, but soon to branch out into farming, A. T. Lloyd, J. C. Lloyd, A. G. Lloyd, G. W. Loundagin, George Pollard, James Woodruff, Isaac Levens, Joseph Starr, Luke Henshaw, Martin Hober, Jefferson Paine, Philip Cox, W. P. Bruce and Dennis Willard.Farther up the Touchet, going on to the Patit and beyond in the vicinity of the present Dayton, Henri M. Chase and P. M. La Fontain had located before the great Indian wars, as already related. In the second stage of settlement, beginning in 1859, F. D. Schneble and Richard Learn upon the present location of Dayton, and near by Elisha Ping, J. C. Wells, Thomas and Israel Davis, S. L. Gilbreath (Mrs. Gilbreath was the first white woman to live in Columbia County), Jesse N. Day, Joseph Ruark, Joseph Boise, G. W. Miller, John and James Fudge, and John and Garrett Long, may be regarded as most distinctively the pioneers in the stock business, proceeding on within a few years to the usual evolution into farming and other branches of growing communities.The region of what is now Garfield and Asotin counties had an early history similar to that of the Walla Walla, Mill Creek, Touchet, Coppei, and Patit regions, though not so complete. Settlers entered during that same stage of the '60s and sought stations on the creeks from which desirable cattle ranges extended. One of the earliest of all settlers of the old Walla Walla County was Louis Raboin at the point on the Tucanon now known as Marengo. Raboin might justlybe called a pioneer of the pioneers, not only in stock raising, but in everything. Governor I. I. Stevens, in his report of railroad explorations, mentions him as located with his Indian wife and six children on the Tucanon, and the possessor of fifty horses and many cattle, and as having four acres of land in which potatoes and wheat were growing. The governor calls him Louis "Moragne'." According to Gilbert that name, from which Marengo was derived, had a curious origin. It seems that Raboin had been, like almost all the early French settlers of the Inland Empire, engaged in the trapping business. He was of a lively, active disposition and known by his comrades as "Maringouin" (mosquito). This cognomen became corrupted by the English-speaking people and finally became "Marengo."Incoming settlers, seeking water courses for homes and bunch-grass hills and prairies for stock ranges after the usual fashion, were not long in discovering the best locations on the Pataha, Tucanon, Alpowa, and Asotin, and small spring branches, and cabins and cattle began to diversify that broad expanse through which Lewis and Clark had wandered in 1806, and with which Bonneville and other fur hunters of the '30s were delighted.It was fully equal to the Touchet, Walla Walla, and Umatilla, with their tributaries toward the west. The advance guard upon the Pataha and the vicinity where Pomeroy now stands were Thomas Riley, James Rafferty, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, J. M. Pomeroy, from whom the town was named, Daniel McGreevy, and the brothers James and Walter Rigsby, Joseph S. Milan, Henry Owsley, Charles Ward, and Newton Estes.Among the streams on which early settlements were made was the Alpowa, the pleasant sounding name of which signified in Nez Percé "Spring Creek." H. M. Spalding, the missionary, made a station there among the natives of the band of Red Wolf and in 1837 or 1838 planted apple seeds from which some trees still exist. Timothy, famous in the Steptoe campaign, in which he saved the command from destruction and was afterwards rewarded after the usual fashion of the white race in dealing with Indians by being deprived of a country, was located on the Alpowa. His daughter was the wife of John Silcott of Lewiston, one of the most noted of early settlers.Asotin Creek, with its tributaries, at the eastern limit of the region of which this history treats, is another section with a distinctive life of its own. It is one of the most beautiful and productive sections of this entire area, but being a little to one side of the sweep of travel and settlement, having no railroads to this day, was later of settlement than the other sections. Jerry McGuire is named as the first permanent settler on the Asotin, though there were several transients whom we will name later.We will emphasize again that we are not trying here to name all the settlers of these sections, but rather those who from continuity of residence and subsequent connections become most illustrative of that first stage of settlement.CABIN BUILT BY M. PETTIJOHN IN 1858Jonathan Pettijohn is the man shown in the picture.A great impetus was given to the systematic development of the various branches of the stock business by the entrance of certain firms of dealers during the decade of the '70s. In Colonel Gilbert's history of Walla Walla and other counties he presents valuable data secured from the foremost of these dealers, as also one of the foremost of all the citizens of Walla Walla, William K. Kirkman. After having been engaged in Idaho and California in the cattle business, in the course of which time he operated more or less in and out of Walla Walla, Mr. Kirkman took up his permanent residence here in 1871. He formed a partnership with John Dooley and from that time until the lamented death of the two members of the firm they were one of the great forces in the organization of the industry of marketing both livestock and dressed meat. From the valuable data secured by Colonel Gilbert from Mr. Kirkman and from Mr. M. Ryan, Jr., another prominent dealer, we gather the estimate of 259,500 cattle driven out of the Inland Empire during the period from 1875 to 1880. Prices were variable, ranging from $9 to $25 per head, usually $10. W. H. Kirkman, son of W. K., relates this interesting incident. He was, as a boy, riding with his father on the range, when they encountered a number of extra fine fat cattle, and the father, looking over them with delight said, "Look there, my boy, every one of them is a $20 gold piece!" It might be added that those same cattle now would be worth $100 apiece. It is surprising to see from the exhibit given in the figures the large number of dealers operating in the country at that time. There were no less than forty-five firms or individuals engaged in shipping, mainly to Eastern markets, though a considerable amount went to California, Portland, or Puget Sound.It is of interest to see the enumeration by the assessor of the quantity of stock given at two different dates following 1863, for which the figures have already been given. In 1870 the assessment rolls show the following: Horses, 5,787; mules, 1,727; cattle, 14,114; sheep, 8,767; hogs, 5,067. In 1875 a great change occurred of which we shall speak at length, that is the division of the county, by which Walla Walla County was reduced to its present limits. We may, therefore, take that year as the proper one for final figures on the old county. The year 1875, according to the assessor, had the following livestock population: Horses, 8,862; mules, 401; cattle, 17,756 (there were 22,960 the previous year); sheep, 32,986; hogs, 8,150.We find various local items strewn through the files of theStatesmandealing with stock which are worthy of preservation. In issue of January 10, 1862, mention is made of a steer handled by Lazarus and brother, which weighed, dressed, 1,700 pounds.A few weeks later it is stated that a cow and calf were sold for $100. That will be remembered as the winter of the extreme cold weather. There are numerous items speaking of suffering and loss of stock. It was well nigh exterminated in some quarters. But it did not take long to change appearances, at least in the cattle that lived through the winter, for an item in the number of June 14 speaks of the fattest cattle and best beef that the editor had ever seen, and of the fact that large herds of cattle were going to the mining regions of Salmon River and South Fork. It is estimated in the issue of October 25, 1862, that 40,000 head of cattle had been brought into the East-of-the-mountain country during the year.PIONEER RACE TRACKIt appears that during the summer of 1862 a race track was laid out by Mr. Porter at a point on the Wallula Road three miles west of town, known as the Pioneer Race Course. A race is reported in theStatesmanof September 27, in which a roan mare won a purse of $100 from a cream horse. That perhaps may be considered the beginning of the Walla Walla Fair.The sheep business seems to have moved on apace during those early years, for in the paper of May 23, 1803, we learn that A. Frank & Co. had just shipped 10,000 pounds of wool to Portland, and expected to ship 7,000 more in a short time. Among the most prominent sheep men whose operations have covered a field in many directions from Walla Walla is Nathaniel Webb, one of the honored pioneers. In recent times, operating especially in the Snake River region, leading sheep raisers have been Davin Brothers, Adrian Magallon, and Leon Jaussaud, all Frenchmen.THE FARMING INDUSTRYFrom stock we turn to farming as the next great fundamental industry to take shape. We have already noted the fact that there was little comprehension of the great upland region, rolling prairies and swelling hills, as adapted to raising grain. Yet we know that Doctor Whitman had demonstrated the practicability of producing all standard crops during the ten years of his residence at Waiilatpu. Joseph Drayton of the Wilkes Expedition speaks with surprise of his observations there in 1841, seeing "wheat in the field seven feet high and nearly ripe, and corn nine feet in the tassel." He also saw vegetables and melons in great variety. The Hudson's Bay people had fine gardens near Wallula, at the time of the arrival of the Whitmans in 1836, and later on at the Touchet and on Hudson's Bay, as it is now known, southeast of Walla Walla. They had abundant provision also for dairy and poultry purposes.Hence farming and gardening and fruit raising had been abundantly tested in the more favorably situated locations long prior to the founding of Walla Walla. With the establishment of the Fort at its present location, Capt. W. R. Kirkwood laid out a garden, the success of which showed the utility of that location. The next year Charles Russell, then the wagon master at the fort, tested the land north of the post, afterwards owned by Mr. Drumheller, with eighty acres of barley, securing a yield of fifty bushels to the acre. He raised 100 acres of oats on the place which he afterwards took up on Russell Creek. The location must have been on the land now owned by O. M. Richmond, and there is remarkable evidence of the productiveness of that land in that it has produced nearly every year to the present. It is worth relating that after Mr. Russell had sowed the oats the Indians were so threatening that he abandoned the place, and cattle ate the growing grain so closely that there seemed no hope of a crop. But in June, the Indians having withdrawn, Mr. Russell went out and fenced the field, the oats sprung up anew and yielded fifty bushels to the acre. In the same year of 1858, Walter Davis seeded 150 acres to oats at a place on Dry Creek. The Indians warned him to leave, but a squad of soldiers went out and cut the oats for hay. In 1860 Stephen Maxson raised a fine crop of wheat on the place on Russell Creek still owned by his descendants.Perhaps the operations of Messrs. Russell, Davis, and Maxson may be considered the initiation of the grain production in the Inland Empire. Probably there would have been but a slow development had not the discovery of gold stimulated the demand for all sorts of agricultural products.In 1863 a few experiments on the higher land began. Milton Evans has told the author that in that year he tried a small piece of wheat a few miles northeastof Walla Walla, but that it was a complete failure, and hence the impression already common was confirmed that the upland was useless, except for grazing. In 1867, however, John Montague raised a crop of oats, over fifty bushels to the acre, on land apparently afterwards part of the Delaney place northeast of town. Even that was not generally accepted as any proof of the use of the uplands. Some of the old-timers have said to the author that they seemed determined that grain should not grow on those lands.But with the rapid influx of settlers and the flattering returns from the trade in provisions with the mines, the more desirable places in the foothill belt, and then on the benches and plains and then on the hills, were taken up, and by 1875 it was generally understood that a great wheat belt extended along the flanks of the Blue Mountains all the way from Pendleton to Lewiston, with a somewhat variable width upon the plains. Not until another decade was it understood that the grain belt covered the major part of what now composes the four counties of our story.We find in the valuable history of Colonel Gilbert, to which we have made frequent reference, so good a summary of certain essential data in respect to the development to date of publication in 1882 of that great fundamental business of wheat raising, in which are included also certain allied data of importance, that we insert it at this point in our narrative."An agricultural society was organized in July of this year, 1866, by an assemblage of citizens at the courthouse, on the 9th of that month, when laws and regulations were adopted, and the following officers chosen: H. P. Isaacs, president; A. Cox and W. H. Newell, vice presidents; J. D. Cook, treasurer; E. E. Rees, secretary; and Charles Russell, T. G. Lee, A. A. Blanchard, executive committee. For the fair to be held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of the ensuing October, the last three gentlemen became managers and the following executive committee: H. P. Isaacs, J. D. Cook, J. H. Blewett and W. H. Newell.In 1867 the grain yield of the Blue Mountain region exceeded the demand, and prices that had been falling for several years left that crop a drug. It was sought to prevent an entire stagnation of agricultural industries, by shipping the surplus down the Columbia River to the seaboard. Freights on flour at that time were: From Wallula per ton to Lewiston, $15; to The Dalles, $6; to Portland, $6; and the following amounts were shipped:To Portland, between May 27 and June 13, 4,156 barrels; to The Dalles, between April 19 and June 2, 578 barrels; to Lewiston, between April 18 and May 14, 577 barrels; total to June 13 by O. S. N. Company, 5,311 barrels.The same year Frank & Wertheimer shipped from Walla Walla 15,000 bushels of wheat down the Columbia, thus starting the great outflow of bread products from the interior.In 1868 Philip Ritz shipped fifty barrels of flour from the Phoenix mills in Walla Walla to New York, with the following result: (It was the first of Washington Territory products seen in the East.)First cost of flour, $187.50; sacks for same, $27.00; transportation to San Francisco, $100.00; freight thence to New York, $107.80; total cost in gold, $422.30; profit realized on the transaction, $77.46, or $1.55 per barrel.Wheat had fallen to 40 cents per bushel in Walla Walla because of the following scale of expenses of shipping to San Francisco:Freight per ton to Wallula, $6.00; thence to Portland, $6.00; thence to San Francisco, $7.00; drayage, $1.50; commission, $2.00, $3.50; primage and leakage, $1.00; bagging, $4.50, $5.50; total expense to San Francisco, $28.00.In 1869 there was a short crop, due to the drought and want of encouragement for farmers to raise grain. June 14, a storm occurred of tropical fierceness, during which a waterspout burst in the mountains, and sent a flood down Cottonwood Cañon that washed away houses in the valley. In consequence of the short crop, wheat rose to 80 cents per bushel in Walla Walla, and flour to $5.50 per barrel. In November hay brought $17 per ton, oats and barley 2 cents per pound, and butter 37½ cents.Having traced agricultural development from its start and through its years of encouragement, till quantity exceeding the home demand had rendered it a profitless industry in 1868 and 1869, let us glance at the causes leading to a revival of inducements for tilling the soil in the Walla Walla country. It should be borne in mind that the farmers in the valley and along creeks nearer the mines than this locality, were supplying the principal mountain demand, and the only hope left was to send produce to tide water and thus to the world's market. What it cost to do this had been tried with practical failure as a result. This shipping to the seaboard was an experimental enterprise, and there was not sufficient assurance of its paying to justify farmers in producing quantities for that purpose, consequently not freight enough of this kind to warrant the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in putting extra steamers or facilities on the river to encourage it. The outlook was, therefore, gloomy. This was a state of things which caused an agitation of the railway question, resulting in the construction of what is more familiarly known as Baker's Railroad, connecting Walla Walla with navigable waters. The building of this road encouraged the farmers to raise a surplus, it encouraged the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to increase the facilities for grain shipment, it caused a reduction of freight tariffs all along the line and made it possible for a farmer to cultivate the soil at a profit. Something of an idea of the result may be gathered from an inspection of the following exhibit of increase from year to year, of freights shipped on Baker's Road to Wallula en route for Portland. Between 1870 and 1874, down freights shipped yearly at Wallula did not exceed 2,500 tons. In 1874 Baker's Road had been completed to the Touchet, and carried freight from that point to Wallula at $1.50 per ton. In 1875 it was completed to Frenchtown and charged $2.50. Walla Walla rates averaged $4.50.Freight tonnage from Touchet in 1874 to Wallula aggregated 4,021 tons; in back freight, 1,126 tons; from Frenchtown in 1875 to Wallula, 9,155 tons; back freight, 2,192 tons; from Walla Walla in 1876 to Wallula, 15,266; back freight, 4,043; from Walla Walla in 1877 to Wallula, 28,806 tons; back freight, 8,368 tons; from Walla Walla in 1878 to Wallula, 35,014 tons; back freight, 10,454." Such are Colonel Gilbert's statements.The estimated wheat production in the entire upper country in 1866 was half a million bushels, of which half was credited to the Walla Walla Valley. From that time on to the present there has been a steady development of wheat raising throughout the region south of Snake River, as well as north and throughout the Inland Empire.WHEAT HARVESTING IN WALLA WALLA COUNTYThirty-two horses. Combined harvesting and threshing. Ground too hilly for tractors.In the decade of the '70s there came to Walla Walla a man destined to leave upon the entire region the impress of one of the most remarkable characters in far vision, noble aims, and philanthropic disposition that ever lived within the State of Washington. We refer to Dr. N. G. Blalock. Eminent in his profession, his ceaseless industry and progressive aims did more perhaps than any other single life to broaden and advance all phases of the section in which he lived and wrought. He was the pioneer in wheat raising on large scale, as well as in many other lines of activity and experiment. Making, though not retaining, several fortunes, his life work was to mark out the way for others less venturesome, to follow to success not alone in the acquirement of wealth, but in the nobler and more enduring products of education, philanthropy, patriotism, public service, and genuine piety. Coming to Walla Walla in 1872 and entering at once upon an extensive medical practice, Doctor Blalock had a vision of the future as well as the capacity to utilize at once the varied opportunities offered by the soil, the climate, and the location. He saw the splendid wild acres of land by the thousands lying in all directions and determined to make a thorough test of its adaptability to raise wheat on a large scale. He made a bargain for a tract of 2,200 acres six miles south of Walla Walla for a price of ten bushels of wheat per acre, to be paid from the first crop. The expense of breaking so large a body of land was great, but the first crop yielded thirty-one bushels per acre, a sufficient demonstration of the capacity of the land.In 1881 the crop on the tract averaged thirty-five and one-fourth bushels, while 1,000 acres of it yielded 51,000 bushels. The acreage and the yield, very carefully ascertained, was reported to the Government and stood then, and probably does yet, as the largest yield from that amount of land ever reported. Even more remarkable yields, but on smaller areas, have been known. Milton Aldrich produced on his Dry Creek ranch, on 400 acres, an average of sixty-six bushels of wheat and the next year there was a volunteer crop of forty bushels. Recently in the same vicinity Arthur Cornwell obtained an average of seventy-three bushels per acre. A hundred and ten bushels of barley per acre have been grown on the Gilkerson ranch on Mill Creek.An item of historic interest may be found in an estimate of cost made for a special number of theUnionduring the first years of the industry by Joseph Harbert, one of the most prominent pioneers and successful farmers in the valley. The crop was on 400 acres, which yielded 10,000 bushels of blue-stem wheat. At fifty cents per bushel for the crop, this will be seen to represent a profit of about two thousand three hundred dollars from land worth $12,000, or nearly twenty per cent. from which, however, should come wages of management.The land was summer fallowed in 1894 and valued at thirty dollars per acre. The estimate is in a locality where water and material to work with are reasonably convenient. The land is not very hilly and comparatively easy to work. The report is as follows:Itemized ExpensesCropMos.In. Pd.Inst.TotalPlanting, 90c per acre$ 360.0020$ 60.00$ 420.00Harrowing, 11c per acre44.00. .7.8351.83Plowing, second time, June, 1894360.001854.00414.00Harrowing before sowing44.00165.8749.87500 bu. seed wheat, highest market price250.00. .. . . .250.00Cleaning seed wheat9.00151.1210.12125 lbs. vitriol at 6c7.50. ..948.44Using vitriol on wheat8.00. .1.009.00Sowing, October, 1894, 15c per acre60.00147.0067.00Harrowing after sowing, 11c44.00. .5.1449.14Cutting, $1.00 per acre400.00413.33413.334,400 sacks, $49.00 per M215.60. .7.18222.78Thirty pounds of twine, 33⅓c10.00. ..3310.33Threshing 10,000 bushels, 4½c450.00. .15.00465.00Hauling to railroad, 2½c per sack110.00. .3.66113.66Warehouse charges to Jan. 1, 1896120.00. .. . . .120.00——————————Total cost$2,492.10. .$182.40$2,674.50It may be added that estimates of cost by a number of prominent farmers in the period of 1890 and thereabouts, indicated that the expense of sowing, seeding, harvesting, and putting into the warehouse, ran from twenty-one to forty cents a bushel, varying according to locality, yield, and other conditions.At a usual price of fifty or sixty cents a bushel, there was not a large margin above the interest on investment, maintenance of stock, machinery, improvements, and taxes. Nevertheless the farmers of this section felt every encouragement to continue, unless it were in the evil harvest year of 1893-4, when the price ran about twenty-five to thirty-five cents a bushel, and when rains, floods, strikes, and general calamity threatened to engulf, and did actually engulf some of the best farms. It is a historical fact that had it not been for the liberality of the banks in the four counties south of Snake River, which held obligations from a large number of the best-known farmers, there would have been widespread disaster. Thanks to the banks, as well as to the persistence and fortitude of the farmers and the solid resources of the country, these counties emerged from those years of depression with less injury and repaired their losses more quickly than any other section of the entire Northwest, or perhaps of the whole country.It may be added in connection with cost of wheat raising, that within the years since the opening of the present century there has been an enormous outlay by farmers in all kinds of farm machinery, the combines having become the usual means of harvesting, and traction engines for the combines and to some degree for plowing having superseded horse power. But cost of labor and general rise of prices have pushed up expenses, until now the most of farmers would estimate the cost of a bushel of wheat at fifty cents or more, some say even a dollar. As an offset to this there has come a great advance in price, insomuch that the farmers of Walla Walla and its sister counties have become the lords of the land. One of the most pleasing results of this new order of things is that the farmers, being almost entirely free from debt, have begun to build comfortable and even elegant homes, both on the farms and in the cities and to surround themselves with the conveniences of life, as automobiles, and to spend money in travel and luxuries which make some of the old-timers, accustomed to the deprivations of pioneer days, open their eyes with wonder, and possibly even disapproval. It is not observable,however, that the young folks on the farms have any backwardness in utilizing the good things of life which are the logical consummation of the foresight and industry of parents and grandparents. It is probable that no people in the United States have more reliable and steady incomes and greater sources for all the needs and enjoyments of life than do the farmers of old Walla Walla County.The experience of other sections was similar to that of the region immediately around Walla Walla. The first thought was of stock ranges, with such small patches of farming land adjacent to the creeks as might supply the family needs. It is stated that Elisha Ping and G. W. Miller raised crops of wheat and oats on the present site of Dayton in 1860. For the oats they received seven cents a pound and for the wheat two dollars a bushel. The location of the subsequent Dayton became a regular station on the stage line from Walla Walla to Lewiston, and that fact led J. M. Pomeroy, a little later the founder of the town named for him, to raise a crop of barley for horse feed. That was in 1863. As time passed on, and especially after the founding of flouring mills by S. M. Wait, there came a general movement to raise grain crops on the hills and plains and it was discovered, as a little earlier around Walla Walla, that the entire region was the very home land for grain. Within a few years it was found that barley of especially fine quality and heavy yield was one of the best crops, and Columbia County has become the center of barley production. Almost the entire county, with the exception of the timbered mountain belt, has become a grain field. Within recent years the region around and particularly east of Dayton has become the leading center of corn production.Garfield and Asotin counties repeated the experience of Walla Walla and Columbia; first stock ranges, then a few acres along the creeks as an experiment, soon the breaking up of the rich sod on the high plains and flats; and within a few years, a perfect ocean of waving grain over the greater part of the area. The first settlers already named in the section of this chapter on stock raising were the pioneers also in the wheat business, as the Rigsby brothers, J. M. Pomeroy, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, and others. Garfield and Asotin counties are in general more elevated than Walla Walla and Columbia, and their frontage on Snake River is more abrupt. This has given rise, first to a margin of ideal fruit and garden land between the river and the bluffs, which in case of Asotin is of considerable breadth, and in case of both of them has raised the question of conveying grain from the high plateaus to the river. In some places this has given rise to contrivances which are a great curiosity to strangers, the "grain-chutes" and "bucket lines," as devices to lower the grain from warehouses on the precipitous bank, sometimes eighteen hundred feet above the steamer landing. There is not yet a railroad on the south bank of Snake River, and water transportation is the only available means of getting the vast quantities of grain from those high prairies near the river to market.Items appear in the various issues of theStatesmanduring the first years of its existence in regard to grain raising which possess great historical interest. An editorial appears in the issue of February 1, 1862, urging farmers to go into grain raising extensively and declaring that all the indications point to a demand from the mines for all kinds of farm products.An advertisement for supplies at the Fort on July 19 calls for 375 tons ofoats, 100 tons of oat straw, and 1,200 cords of wood. Mention is also made in the paper of the farm of J. W. Shoemaker a short distance below the garrison, where grain to the value of $3,000, and garden produce to the value of $1,500, was raised.FLOUR MILLINGOne of the most important features of industry allied to grain production was flour milling. The first flour mill was erected in 1859 by A. H. Reynolds in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. T. Dent, the latter being a brother of Mrs. U. S. Grant. It was located on the land then owned by Jesse Drumheller, now part of the Whitney place. In the issue of March 29, 1862, is an advertisement of the Pasca Mills by Sims and Mix, which must have been the same mill built by Mr. Reynolds. In 1862 Mr. Reynolds built another mill, known as the Star Mill, on the Yellowhawk, near the present residence of his son, H. A. Reynolds. This was subsequently acquired by W. H. Gilbert. Mention is made in theStatesmanof August 2, 1862, of the flour mill of J. C. Isaacs. Apparently this is a confusion in name of the brothers, as the author is credibly informed that the mill opened at that time was the Excelsior mill built by H. P. Isaacs, subsequently the leading mill man of the Walla Walla country and one of the leaders in all forms of enterprise. The name Excelsior was later replaced by North Pacific. It was located on the mill race, whose remains still cross Division Street and was actively employed until about 1895. There is an advertisement in theStatesmanof March 21, 1863, to the effect that Graham flour and corn meal were being turned out at Mr. Reynolds' mill. In the number of March 31, 1865, is the announcement that Kyger and Reese, who were among the most extensive general merchants in Walla Walla, had leased the water power and site of E. H. Barron just below town on Mill Creek and were making ready to install a first-class mill, having three run of four-foot burrs and a capacity of 150 barrels a day. The firm were also establishing a distillery. It would seem that the latter manufactory was in larger demand than the former, for it was completed sooner. The mill, however, began grinding in October of that year. That mill became the property of Andrew McCalley in 1873, and after his death in 1891 was maintained by his sons until the property was lost by fire in 1897. One of the most important mills of the valley was that built by Messrs. Ritz and Schnebly about a quarter of a mile below the McCalley mill, known first as the Agate and then as the Eureka, conducted for some time by W. C. Painter, then sold to Welch and Schwabacher, and in turn disposed of by them in 1880 to Dement Brothers, and managed up to the present time by F. S. Dement. The mill is now known as Dement Brothers' mill and is one of the most extensive in the Inland Empire, making a specialty of choice breakfast cereals and through them as well as its high-grade flour carrying the name of Walla Walla, Wash., around the globe.The mills on the Touchet speedily followed those on Mill Creek. S. M. Wait, from whom the beautiful little city at the junction of the Touchet and the Coppei took its name, was the pioneer mill man as well as the founder of the town. TheStatesmanof June 2, 1865, mentions the fact that Mr. Wait's mill was just open and that it was one of the best equipped in the country and produced a grade of flour equal to the best from Oregon. A town soon began to grow at the location of the mill. Mr. Wait sold the mill to Preston Brothers and the stock to Paine Brothers and Moore of Walla Walla. The latter firm acquired an interest in the mill, but subsequently disposed of all their holdings to Preston Brothers, under whom the mill became one of the largest mill properties in the Northwest, being connected with large mills at Athena, Ore., and elsewhere, and under the more recent management of Messrs. Shaffer, Harper, and Leonard, conducting one of the most extensive milling lines in the country.NORTH PACIFIC MILLS (ISAAC'S MILL) WALLA WALLAFirst rolling mill on the Pacific coast. Erected in 1862. Capacity two hundred and fifty barrels. Many mills were erected before this, but this was the first to introduce rollers instead of the old mill stone.Mr. Wait inaugurated also the milling business in what is now Columbia County. Going to that region in 1871 where Jesse N. Day, from whom Dayton was named, had been endeavoring since 1864 to launch a town with but scanty success, Mr. Wait proposed to build a mill, provided inducements were offered. Mr. Day accordingly agreed to give five acres of land as a site, with a block of land for residences, and upon that Mr. Wait and William Metzger proceeded to launch the milling business at Dayton. In building that mill, with a brick building for a store and a planing mill, Messrs. Wait and Metzger laid out about $25,000, a large amount for those days. At the same time the Dayton Woolen Mill was undertaken, A. H. Reynolds being chief owner, F. S. Frary the secretary and manager and Mr. Wait the president of the company. The woolen mill had a land site of seven acres donated by John Mustard and a building was erected at a cost of $40,000. The new town of Dayton was booming in consequence of these investments. The flour mill proved a great success and with various changes of ownership is now one of the great mill properties of the country, but the woolen mill, from which so much was expected, did not prove a financial success and was closed in 1880. It is rather a curious fact that no one of the woolen enterprises in the Inland Empire has met with large success except that at Pendleton, Ore., the success of which has been so great that it is a puzzle that others have mainly failed.The great development of wheat raising in what is now Garfield County led, as elsewhere in the region, to flouring mills. The pioneer mill at Pomeroy was started in 1877 by W. C. Potter and completed the following year by Mr. Pomeroy.Three miles above Pomeroy and for some years a rival to the lower town was Pataha City. It was on land taken up at first by James Bowers in 1861 and acquired in 1868 by A. J. Favor, who undertook a few years later to start a town. In pursuance of his plans he offered land for mill sites, and as a result J. N. Bowman and George Snyder constructed a mill in 1878. Subsequently John Houser became the great mill man of that entire section and his mill became one of the most widely known in the Inland Empire. He made a specialty of shipping flour to San Francisco for the manufacture of macaroni, the large percentage of gluten in the wheat of that region fitting it especially for that use. The son of Mr. Houser, Max Houser, going to Portland in about 1908, has become known the world over as the most daring and extensive wheat buyer on the Pacific Coast and has acquired a fortune estimated at six millions. The pioneer flouring mill of Asotin was built in 1881 at the town of that name by Frank Curtis and L. A. Stimson. The town itself upon one of the most beautiful of locations on Snake River, with the magnificent wheat fields of the Anatone flats on the highlands to the south and west, and a superb belt of fruit land extending down the river and broadening out at Clarkston, was laid out in 1878.Other mills were established at later dates, of which the most extensive were the mill at Prescott, erected by H. P. Isaacs in 1883, the City mill on Palouse Street in Walla Walla, built in 1898 by Scholl Brothers; Long's mill, a few miles below Dayton; the Corbett mill at Huntsville.In summarizing grain raising as the leading industry of old Walla Walla County it may be said that for several years past the total production for the four counties has been about 12,000,000 bushels per year. The value has, of course, varied much according to price. It is conservatively estimated that the value of the grain crops, including flour and feed in various manufactured forms for 1916, was approximately $15,000,000.GARDENS AND ORCHARDSAs grain raising put a finer point upon industry than its predecessor, stock raising, so in turn the gardens and orchards have yet more refined and differentiated the forms of industry and the developments of life in the growing communities of our story. As already related these lines of production had been tested by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the missionaries, Whitman and Spalding. It was, therefore, to be expected that even in the first years of settlement some attempts would be made to start orchards and gardens. The first nursery in Walla Walla seems to have been laid out in 1859 on the Ransom Clark donation claim on the Yellowhawk. In 1859 trees were set out on the J. W. Foster place. It is said that Mr. Foster brought his trees here on muleback over the Cascade Mountains. We are informed by Charles Clark of Walla Walla that most of Mr. Foster's trees were secured from Ransom Clark. In 1860 A. B. Roberts set out an orchard within the present city limits of Walla Walla on what later became the Ward place. In 1861 a notable step in fruit raising was taken by the coming of one of the most important of all the great pioneers of the Inland Empire. This was Philip Ritz. We find in theStatesmanof December 5, 1861, announcement that Mr. Ritz had arrived with a supply of trees from his nursery at Glen Dale near Corvallis, Ore., and that the trees were for sale at the store of John Wright. Subsequent items in theStatesmanfurnish an interesting exposition of the progress of both gardens and orchards. TheStatesmanwas wide awake as usual to the needs of the country and did not fail to exhort the citizens of Walla Walla to prepare for the demand which it was sure would come. On March 29, 1862, mention was made of the fact that green fruit, presumably apples, from the Willamette Valley, was selling for from twenty to fifty cents per pound. The paper expresses surprise that farmers are so slow about setting out trees. On June 21, 1862, it was announced with much satisfaction that scarcely had the snow from that extremely cold winter melted before there were radishes, lettuce, onions, and rutabagas brought in from foot hill gardens, and that there were new potatoes in the market by June 14th. The issue of July 26th notes the fact of green corn in abundance and that of August 2d declares that the corn was equal to that of the Middle Western States, and that fine watermelons were in the market. August 16th is marked by thanks to G. W. Shoemaker for a fine watermelon and the statement that there were others to come that would weigh forty pounds.In the number of August 30th it appears that Mr. Shoemaker brought to the office a muskmelon weighing eighteen pounds, and in the same issue is an item about a 103-pound squash raised by S. D. Smith. John Hancock is credited on September 6th with a watermelon of thirty-three pounds. Complaint is made, however, in the same number, of the fact that there is a meager supply of apples, plums and pears from the Willamette, and that the apples sell for twenty-five cents apiece, or fifty cents a pound. TheStatesmanof September 27th has the story of Walter Davis of Dry Creek sending a squash of a weight of 134½ pounds and twelve potatoes of a weight of twenty-nine pounds to the Oregon State Fair at Salem. Lamentable to narrate it appears later that these specimens of Walla Walla gardening disappeared. TheStatesmanindulges in some bitter scorn over the kind of people on the other side who would steal such objects. In an October number mention is made that James Fudge of Touchet had brought in three potatoes weighing eight pounds. In theStatesmanof December 20th is an item to the effect that Philip Ritz has a large assortment of trees and shrubs at the late residence of J. S. Sparks. It is also stated that Mr. Ritz is going to try sweet potatoes. In the issue of January 17, 1863, is the statement that Mr. Ritz had purchased land of Mr. Roberts for a nursery. In successive numbers, beginning February 28th, is Mr. Ritz's advertisement of the Columbia Valley nursery, the value of the stock of which is stated at $10,000. It seems to have been an extraordinary stock for the times, and the enterprise and industry of Mr. Ritz became a great factor in the development of the fruit business as well as many other things. There are several interesting items later on in 1863, showing that gardening, particularly the raising of onions, was advancing rapidly. In the spring of 1865 A. Frank & Co. shipped 40,000 pounds of onions to Portland. In theStatesmanof July 4, 1863, it is stated that John Hancock had corn fifteen feet high. During 1863 and 1864 there was much experimenting with sorghum. T. P. Denny is mentioned as having brought a bottle of fine sorghum syrup, and it is stated that Mr. Ritz was experimenting with Chinese and Imphee sugar cane. Mr. Ritz was succeeding well with sweet potatoes, and a fine quality of tobacco was being produced. The biggest potato story was of a Mechannock potato from Mr. Kimball's garden on Dry Creek, which weighed four and one-half pounds. In several numbers in September, 1863, mention is made of delicious peaches brought in by A. H. Reynolds.In short, it was well demonstrated that conditions were such that it might be expected that Walla Walla would become, and it has for some years been known as, the "Garden City."In the '60s and '70s a considerable amount of land south and west of Walla Walla was brought into use for gardening, and in various directions orchards were set out. One of the finest was that of W. S. Gilliam on Dry Creek. Everything looked encouraging for fruit raising at that early day, but in 1883 there came a bitter cold day, twenty-nine degrees below zero, far colder than ever known at any other time in Walla Walla, a most disastrous dispensation of nature, for many orchards, especially peaches and apricots, perished.FIVE REGIONSBroadly speaking, it may be said that there are five regions in Old Walla Walla County which have become important centers of fruit raising and intensivefarming in general, since fruit raising, gardening, dairying, and poultry raising have to varying degrees gone right along together. The first in age and extent is the region immediately around Walla Walla; the second that of Clarkston and down the Snake River to Burbank; the third that on the Touchet from Dayton to Prescott; the fourth the long narrow valley of the Tucanon; and the fifth that on the lower Walla Walla from Touchet and Gardena to the Columbia and thence through Attalia and Two Rivers to Burbank at the mouth of Snake River. There are, of course, some excellent orchards and gardens in portions not covered in this enumeration, and it is also proper to say that the most productive and compact single body of country is that portion of the Walla Walla Valley south of the state line extending to Milton, Ore.It is impossible within our limits to describe these different areas in detail. Each has some distinctive features. The youngest and least developed is that of the lower Walla Walla and the Columbia River. By reason of great heat and aridity and long growing season, that region is peculiarly adapted to grape culture and melon raising. Alfalfa produces four and five cuttings and the prospect for successful dairying is flattering. The expense of reclaiming the land and maintaining irrigating systems is high, but when fairly established it may be expected to be one of the most attractive and productive sections.The Walla Walla section has had the advantage of time and population and in the nature of the case has become most highly developed. In garden products Walla Walla asparagus, onions, and rhubarb may be said to be champions in the markets of the country. One of the important features of Walla Walla gardening is the Walla Walla hothouse vegetable enterprise on the river, five miles west of the city, conducted by F. E. Mojonnier. This is the largest hothouse in the Inland Empire and, with one exception, in the entire Northwest. It has two and a half acres under glass and does a business of thousands of dollars with the chief markets north and east.In orchards Walla Walla, while not in general in the same class for quantity with Yakima and Wenatchee, has the distinction of possessing two of the largest and perhaps most scientifically planted and cultivated orchards in the entire state; the Blalock and the Baker-Langdon orchards. The latter contains 680 acres of apples, is on sub-irrigated land of the best quality, and may be considered the last word in orchard culture. The manager, John Langdon, reports for 1917, 200,000 boxes, or about three hundred car loads, worth on cars at Walla Walla, at present prices, about three hundred thousand dollars. It is anticipated that when in full bearing at the age of twelve to fourteen years, the yield will be 1,000,000 boxes. Doctor Blalock was the great pioneer in fruit raising, as in grain-raising, on a large scale. The story of his carrying on the gigantic enterprise with inadequate resources to a triumphant conclusion, though not himself being able to retain possession, is one of the greatest stories in the Inland Empire.The Touchet belt may be said to be distinguished by its special adaptability to high grade apples of the Rome Beauty and Spitzenberg varieties as well as by the extraordinary and profitable production. In that belt are two orchards which while not remarkable for size have had about the most remarkable history of any in the state. These are the Pomona orchard of J. L. Dumas and that of J. D. Taggard between Waitsburg and Dayton. There are a number of other orchards of high grade in the Touchet Valley, and it may be anticipated that within a few years that rich and beautiful expanse will be a continuous orchard. Conditions of soil and climate make it ideal for apple-raising.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY IN OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY TO THE PERIOD OF COUNTY DIVISION AND AFTERWARDS IN THE PRESENT WALLA WALLA

We have given in the first chapter of this volume a view of the physical features, geological formation, and climate of this region. It was obvious from that description that the Walla Walla country, like most of Eastern Washington, Northeastern Oregon, and even Northwestern Idaho, would be thought of at first inspection as a stock country. The army of early immigrants that passed through on their way to the Willamette Valley saw the upper country only at the end of the long, hot, dry summers, when everything was parched and wilted. It did not seem to them that any part would be adapted to agriculture except the small creek bottoms. They could, however, see in the oceans of bunch grass, withered though it was by drought, ample indications that stock to almost limitless extent could find subsistence.

Hence with the opening of the country in 1859 the first thought of incoming settlers was to find locations along the creeks where a few acres for garden and home purposes might be found, and then a wide expanse of grazing land adjoining where the real business might be conducted. The first locations from 1859 and until about 1870 denote the dominance of that idea. We have already noted the beginnings of stock raising during the Hudson's Bay Company regime and the period of the Whitman mission. We have seen that Messrs. Brooke, Bumford and Noble started the same industry at Waiilatpu in 1851 and later on the Touchet and maintained it until expelled by Indians in 1855. H. M. Chase laid the foundations of the same on the Umatilla in 1851 in conjunction with W. C. McKay, and later upon the Touchet near where Dayton is now located. J. C. Smith on Dry Creek in 1857 had the same plans.

The incoming of settlers in 1859 and 1860 and the location of the Fort induced a mercantile class to gather in the vicinity of that market. When gold discoveries set every one agog with excitement, the first effect was to create a line of business almost entirely adapted to supply miners' needs. The second effect speedily following was to lead thoughtful men to consider the region as a suitable location for producing first hand the objects of demand. Stock was foremost among those demands. The Indians already had immense droves of "cayuse" horses, and considerable herds of cattle. Many cattle were driven in in 1861. The hard winter of 1861-2 caused severe loss to cattle raisers, but so well were the losses repaired that it was reported in 1863 that there were in the valley, including the Touchet region, 1,455 horses, 438 mules, 1,864 sheep, 3,957 cattle, and 712 hogs. According to theStatesman15,000 pounds of wool were shipped out in that year. Sheep increased with extraordinaryrapidity. The valley became a winter feeding ground and the sheep were driven in from the entire Inland Empire. TheStatesmanasserts that in the winter of 1855-6 there were 200,000 head in the valley. They were worth at that time only a dollar a head. From that time on the stock business in its various branches became more definitely organized and shipments to the East and to California went on apace. It was not, however, for some years that the importation of blooded stock for scientific betterment was carried on to any considerable degree. It would be impossible within our limits to give any complete view of the leading promoters in the different lines. Practically every settler in the country had some stock. Those who may be said to have been leaders during the decade of the '60s in introducing stock into the various pivotal points of the old county may be grouped under some half dozen territories, which have later become the centers of farming sections and in several instances the sites of the existing towns.

This list cannot in the nature of the case be exhaustive, for, as already noted, every settler had more or less stock. In naming some rather than others, we would not wish to be making any invidious comparisons, but rather selecting a few in each pivotal place, who came in earliest and had the greatest continuity of residence and the most constructive connection with the business. Naturally first in order may be named the vicinity of Walla Walla City as it has become, and the region adjoining it on the south into Oregon.

Perhaps typical of the larger stockmen of the earliest period were Jesse Drumheller and Daniel M. Drumheller. The former of the brothers came first to Walla Walla from The Dalles with the United States troops in the War of 1855-6, as manager of transportation. When the wars were ended he settled on the place now owned by Charles Whitney. Subsequently he made his home for many years on the place west of town known to all inhabitants of the region. The younger brother came to the region in 1861 and located at what is still known as Hudson's Bay, and from that time on the two were among the foremost in driving stock in from the Willamette Valley and in extending their ranges in all directions. Like so many others they were wiped out in the hard winter of 1861-2, but nothing daunted, recognizing the superior adaptability of the region they renewed their drives and within a few years had stock, at first horses and cattle and then sheep, ranging from Couse Creek in Umatilla County to the Snake River. One of their greatest ranges was just north of the present Freewater and westward to the present Umapine and Hudson's Bay. Besides the Drumhellers some of the most prominent stockmen in that region ranging along the state line were John Bigham, W. S. Goodman, the Fruits, Girards, Shumways, Ingalls, and Fords. Nineveh Ford was one of the most noted of early Oregon pioneers and coming in that early day into the upper country became one of the permanent builders of Umatilla County. The Berry and Cummings families were a little farther north. Among the leaders in introducing a high grade of horses and cattle and later on in farming on a large scale, as well as connected with every public interest of importance, were the Resers, of whom the second and third generations are present-day leaders in all phases of the life of their communities. Their places were in the fertile foothill belt southeast of Walla Walla. In the same general section were many others whose main dependence at first was cattle, but who entered into the raising of grainearlier than those in other sections, by reason of the manifest advantages in soil and rainfall. Among such may be named Daniel Stewart, Christian Meier, Stephen Maxson, Thomas McCoy, S. W. Swezea, Orley Hull, Philip Yenney, Brewster Ferrel, James M. Dewar, the McGuires, Sheltons, Copelands, Barnetts, and Fergusons. Two of the prominent business men living in town might be mentioned as interested in stock raising and doing much to promote it, Dr. D. S. Baker and John Green. Among the most prominent pioneers in the section on Mill Creek, who afterwards were leaders in grain raising, but like all others turned their first attention to stock, were Robert Kennedy, W. S. Gilliam, James Cornwell, J. M. Lamb, Joseph Harbert, E. G. Riffle, W. J. Cantonwine, David Wooten, Thomas Gilkerson, J. Kibler and a little later several leading families, those of Evans, Thomas, Kershaw, Lyons, and Aldrich.

Another great section of the cattle ranges was on Dry Creek and northward over the hills to and beyond the Touchet. Among the earliest settlers in that region whose first business was stock raising, but who afterward became pioneers a second time by entering into grain raising were Jonathan Pettyjohn, W. W. Walter, John Marion, J. C. Smith, S. H. Erwin, A. A. Blanchard and the Lamars. At a somewhat later date, but among the most important of all the cattle men of the valley, now known and honored by all in his advanced age, is Francis Lowden, whose ranges were in the middle and lower valley, and whose son, Francis, Jr., has become one of the leading meat market men in the Inland Empire. Mr. Lowden imported the first high-grade cattle, Shorthorns, and that was in 1864. Another growing center, at first for stock, then for farming, then for fruit, and finally for towns, was the upper Touchet, of which Waitsburg, Dayton, and Huntsville have become centers. As we have stated earlier, some of the first locations were made on the Touchet. The first settler at the junction of the Touchet and Coppei was Robert Kennedy in 1859, but the next year he moved to his permanent place near Walla Walla. During 1859 and the few years following there were located, at first engaged in cattle raising, but soon to branch out into farming, A. T. Lloyd, J. C. Lloyd, A. G. Lloyd, G. W. Loundagin, George Pollard, James Woodruff, Isaac Levens, Joseph Starr, Luke Henshaw, Martin Hober, Jefferson Paine, Philip Cox, W. P. Bruce and Dennis Willard.

Farther up the Touchet, going on to the Patit and beyond in the vicinity of the present Dayton, Henri M. Chase and P. M. La Fontain had located before the great Indian wars, as already related. In the second stage of settlement, beginning in 1859, F. D. Schneble and Richard Learn upon the present location of Dayton, and near by Elisha Ping, J. C. Wells, Thomas and Israel Davis, S. L. Gilbreath (Mrs. Gilbreath was the first white woman to live in Columbia County), Jesse N. Day, Joseph Ruark, Joseph Boise, G. W. Miller, John and James Fudge, and John and Garrett Long, may be regarded as most distinctively the pioneers in the stock business, proceeding on within a few years to the usual evolution into farming and other branches of growing communities.

The region of what is now Garfield and Asotin counties had an early history similar to that of the Walla Walla, Mill Creek, Touchet, Coppei, and Patit regions, though not so complete. Settlers entered during that same stage of the '60s and sought stations on the creeks from which desirable cattle ranges extended. One of the earliest of all settlers of the old Walla Walla County was Louis Raboin at the point on the Tucanon now known as Marengo. Raboin might justlybe called a pioneer of the pioneers, not only in stock raising, but in everything. Governor I. I. Stevens, in his report of railroad explorations, mentions him as located with his Indian wife and six children on the Tucanon, and the possessor of fifty horses and many cattle, and as having four acres of land in which potatoes and wheat were growing. The governor calls him Louis "Moragne'." According to Gilbert that name, from which Marengo was derived, had a curious origin. It seems that Raboin had been, like almost all the early French settlers of the Inland Empire, engaged in the trapping business. He was of a lively, active disposition and known by his comrades as "Maringouin" (mosquito). This cognomen became corrupted by the English-speaking people and finally became "Marengo."

Incoming settlers, seeking water courses for homes and bunch-grass hills and prairies for stock ranges after the usual fashion, were not long in discovering the best locations on the Pataha, Tucanon, Alpowa, and Asotin, and small spring branches, and cabins and cattle began to diversify that broad expanse through which Lewis and Clark had wandered in 1806, and with which Bonneville and other fur hunters of the '30s were delighted.

It was fully equal to the Touchet, Walla Walla, and Umatilla, with their tributaries toward the west. The advance guard upon the Pataha and the vicinity where Pomeroy now stands were Thomas Riley, James Rafferty, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, J. M. Pomeroy, from whom the town was named, Daniel McGreevy, and the brothers James and Walter Rigsby, Joseph S. Milan, Henry Owsley, Charles Ward, and Newton Estes.

Among the streams on which early settlements were made was the Alpowa, the pleasant sounding name of which signified in Nez Percé "Spring Creek." H. M. Spalding, the missionary, made a station there among the natives of the band of Red Wolf and in 1837 or 1838 planted apple seeds from which some trees still exist. Timothy, famous in the Steptoe campaign, in which he saved the command from destruction and was afterwards rewarded after the usual fashion of the white race in dealing with Indians by being deprived of a country, was located on the Alpowa. His daughter was the wife of John Silcott of Lewiston, one of the most noted of early settlers.

Asotin Creek, with its tributaries, at the eastern limit of the region of which this history treats, is another section with a distinctive life of its own. It is one of the most beautiful and productive sections of this entire area, but being a little to one side of the sweep of travel and settlement, having no railroads to this day, was later of settlement than the other sections. Jerry McGuire is named as the first permanent settler on the Asotin, though there were several transients whom we will name later.

We will emphasize again that we are not trying here to name all the settlers of these sections, but rather those who from continuity of residence and subsequent connections become most illustrative of that first stage of settlement.

CABIN BUILT BY M. PETTIJOHN IN 1858Jonathan Pettijohn is the man shown in the picture.

CABIN BUILT BY M. PETTIJOHN IN 1858Jonathan Pettijohn is the man shown in the picture.

CABIN BUILT BY M. PETTIJOHN IN 1858Jonathan Pettijohn is the man shown in the picture.

A great impetus was given to the systematic development of the various branches of the stock business by the entrance of certain firms of dealers during the decade of the '70s. In Colonel Gilbert's history of Walla Walla and other counties he presents valuable data secured from the foremost of these dealers, as also one of the foremost of all the citizens of Walla Walla, William K. Kirkman. After having been engaged in Idaho and California in the cattle business, in the course of which time he operated more or less in and out of Walla Walla, Mr. Kirkman took up his permanent residence here in 1871. He formed a partnership with John Dooley and from that time until the lamented death of the two members of the firm they were one of the great forces in the organization of the industry of marketing both livestock and dressed meat. From the valuable data secured by Colonel Gilbert from Mr. Kirkman and from Mr. M. Ryan, Jr., another prominent dealer, we gather the estimate of 259,500 cattle driven out of the Inland Empire during the period from 1875 to 1880. Prices were variable, ranging from $9 to $25 per head, usually $10. W. H. Kirkman, son of W. K., relates this interesting incident. He was, as a boy, riding with his father on the range, when they encountered a number of extra fine fat cattle, and the father, looking over them with delight said, "Look there, my boy, every one of them is a $20 gold piece!" It might be added that those same cattle now would be worth $100 apiece. It is surprising to see from the exhibit given in the figures the large number of dealers operating in the country at that time. There were no less than forty-five firms or individuals engaged in shipping, mainly to Eastern markets, though a considerable amount went to California, Portland, or Puget Sound.

It is of interest to see the enumeration by the assessor of the quantity of stock given at two different dates following 1863, for which the figures have already been given. In 1870 the assessment rolls show the following: Horses, 5,787; mules, 1,727; cattle, 14,114; sheep, 8,767; hogs, 5,067. In 1875 a great change occurred of which we shall speak at length, that is the division of the county, by which Walla Walla County was reduced to its present limits. We may, therefore, take that year as the proper one for final figures on the old county. The year 1875, according to the assessor, had the following livestock population: Horses, 8,862; mules, 401; cattle, 17,756 (there were 22,960 the previous year); sheep, 32,986; hogs, 8,150.

We find various local items strewn through the files of theStatesmandealing with stock which are worthy of preservation. In issue of January 10, 1862, mention is made of a steer handled by Lazarus and brother, which weighed, dressed, 1,700 pounds.

A few weeks later it is stated that a cow and calf were sold for $100. That will be remembered as the winter of the extreme cold weather. There are numerous items speaking of suffering and loss of stock. It was well nigh exterminated in some quarters. But it did not take long to change appearances, at least in the cattle that lived through the winter, for an item in the number of June 14 speaks of the fattest cattle and best beef that the editor had ever seen, and of the fact that large herds of cattle were going to the mining regions of Salmon River and South Fork. It is estimated in the issue of October 25, 1862, that 40,000 head of cattle had been brought into the East-of-the-mountain country during the year.

PIONEER RACE TRACK

It appears that during the summer of 1862 a race track was laid out by Mr. Porter at a point on the Wallula Road three miles west of town, known as the Pioneer Race Course. A race is reported in theStatesmanof September 27, in which a roan mare won a purse of $100 from a cream horse. That perhaps may be considered the beginning of the Walla Walla Fair.

The sheep business seems to have moved on apace during those early years, for in the paper of May 23, 1803, we learn that A. Frank & Co. had just shipped 10,000 pounds of wool to Portland, and expected to ship 7,000 more in a short time. Among the most prominent sheep men whose operations have covered a field in many directions from Walla Walla is Nathaniel Webb, one of the honored pioneers. In recent times, operating especially in the Snake River region, leading sheep raisers have been Davin Brothers, Adrian Magallon, and Leon Jaussaud, all Frenchmen.

THE FARMING INDUSTRY

From stock we turn to farming as the next great fundamental industry to take shape. We have already noted the fact that there was little comprehension of the great upland region, rolling prairies and swelling hills, as adapted to raising grain. Yet we know that Doctor Whitman had demonstrated the practicability of producing all standard crops during the ten years of his residence at Waiilatpu. Joseph Drayton of the Wilkes Expedition speaks with surprise of his observations there in 1841, seeing "wheat in the field seven feet high and nearly ripe, and corn nine feet in the tassel." He also saw vegetables and melons in great variety. The Hudson's Bay people had fine gardens near Wallula, at the time of the arrival of the Whitmans in 1836, and later on at the Touchet and on Hudson's Bay, as it is now known, southeast of Walla Walla. They had abundant provision also for dairy and poultry purposes.

Hence farming and gardening and fruit raising had been abundantly tested in the more favorably situated locations long prior to the founding of Walla Walla. With the establishment of the Fort at its present location, Capt. W. R. Kirkwood laid out a garden, the success of which showed the utility of that location. The next year Charles Russell, then the wagon master at the fort, tested the land north of the post, afterwards owned by Mr. Drumheller, with eighty acres of barley, securing a yield of fifty bushels to the acre. He raised 100 acres of oats on the place which he afterwards took up on Russell Creek. The location must have been on the land now owned by O. M. Richmond, and there is remarkable evidence of the productiveness of that land in that it has produced nearly every year to the present. It is worth relating that after Mr. Russell had sowed the oats the Indians were so threatening that he abandoned the place, and cattle ate the growing grain so closely that there seemed no hope of a crop. But in June, the Indians having withdrawn, Mr. Russell went out and fenced the field, the oats sprung up anew and yielded fifty bushels to the acre. In the same year of 1858, Walter Davis seeded 150 acres to oats at a place on Dry Creek. The Indians warned him to leave, but a squad of soldiers went out and cut the oats for hay. In 1860 Stephen Maxson raised a fine crop of wheat on the place on Russell Creek still owned by his descendants.

Perhaps the operations of Messrs. Russell, Davis, and Maxson may be considered the initiation of the grain production in the Inland Empire. Probably there would have been but a slow development had not the discovery of gold stimulated the demand for all sorts of agricultural products.

In 1863 a few experiments on the higher land began. Milton Evans has told the author that in that year he tried a small piece of wheat a few miles northeastof Walla Walla, but that it was a complete failure, and hence the impression already common was confirmed that the upland was useless, except for grazing. In 1867, however, John Montague raised a crop of oats, over fifty bushels to the acre, on land apparently afterwards part of the Delaney place northeast of town. Even that was not generally accepted as any proof of the use of the uplands. Some of the old-timers have said to the author that they seemed determined that grain should not grow on those lands.

But with the rapid influx of settlers and the flattering returns from the trade in provisions with the mines, the more desirable places in the foothill belt, and then on the benches and plains and then on the hills, were taken up, and by 1875 it was generally understood that a great wheat belt extended along the flanks of the Blue Mountains all the way from Pendleton to Lewiston, with a somewhat variable width upon the plains. Not until another decade was it understood that the grain belt covered the major part of what now composes the four counties of our story.

We find in the valuable history of Colonel Gilbert, to which we have made frequent reference, so good a summary of certain essential data in respect to the development to date of publication in 1882 of that great fundamental business of wheat raising, in which are included also certain allied data of importance, that we insert it at this point in our narrative.

"An agricultural society was organized in July of this year, 1866, by an assemblage of citizens at the courthouse, on the 9th of that month, when laws and regulations were adopted, and the following officers chosen: H. P. Isaacs, president; A. Cox and W. H. Newell, vice presidents; J. D. Cook, treasurer; E. E. Rees, secretary; and Charles Russell, T. G. Lee, A. A. Blanchard, executive committee. For the fair to be held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of the ensuing October, the last three gentlemen became managers and the following executive committee: H. P. Isaacs, J. D. Cook, J. H. Blewett and W. H. Newell.

In 1867 the grain yield of the Blue Mountain region exceeded the demand, and prices that had been falling for several years left that crop a drug. It was sought to prevent an entire stagnation of agricultural industries, by shipping the surplus down the Columbia River to the seaboard. Freights on flour at that time were: From Wallula per ton to Lewiston, $15; to The Dalles, $6; to Portland, $6; and the following amounts were shipped:

To Portland, between May 27 and June 13, 4,156 barrels; to The Dalles, between April 19 and June 2, 578 barrels; to Lewiston, between April 18 and May 14, 577 barrels; total to June 13 by O. S. N. Company, 5,311 barrels.

The same year Frank & Wertheimer shipped from Walla Walla 15,000 bushels of wheat down the Columbia, thus starting the great outflow of bread products from the interior.

In 1868 Philip Ritz shipped fifty barrels of flour from the Phoenix mills in Walla Walla to New York, with the following result: (It was the first of Washington Territory products seen in the East.)

First cost of flour, $187.50; sacks for same, $27.00; transportation to San Francisco, $100.00; freight thence to New York, $107.80; total cost in gold, $422.30; profit realized on the transaction, $77.46, or $1.55 per barrel.

Wheat had fallen to 40 cents per bushel in Walla Walla because of the following scale of expenses of shipping to San Francisco:

Freight per ton to Wallula, $6.00; thence to Portland, $6.00; thence to San Francisco, $7.00; drayage, $1.50; commission, $2.00, $3.50; primage and leakage, $1.00; bagging, $4.50, $5.50; total expense to San Francisco, $28.00.

In 1869 there was a short crop, due to the drought and want of encouragement for farmers to raise grain. June 14, a storm occurred of tropical fierceness, during which a waterspout burst in the mountains, and sent a flood down Cottonwood Cañon that washed away houses in the valley. In consequence of the short crop, wheat rose to 80 cents per bushel in Walla Walla, and flour to $5.50 per barrel. In November hay brought $17 per ton, oats and barley 2 cents per pound, and butter 37½ cents.

Having traced agricultural development from its start and through its years of encouragement, till quantity exceeding the home demand had rendered it a profitless industry in 1868 and 1869, let us glance at the causes leading to a revival of inducements for tilling the soil in the Walla Walla country. It should be borne in mind that the farmers in the valley and along creeks nearer the mines than this locality, were supplying the principal mountain demand, and the only hope left was to send produce to tide water and thus to the world's market. What it cost to do this had been tried with practical failure as a result. This shipping to the seaboard was an experimental enterprise, and there was not sufficient assurance of its paying to justify farmers in producing quantities for that purpose, consequently not freight enough of this kind to warrant the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in putting extra steamers or facilities on the river to encourage it. The outlook was, therefore, gloomy. This was a state of things which caused an agitation of the railway question, resulting in the construction of what is more familiarly known as Baker's Railroad, connecting Walla Walla with navigable waters. The building of this road encouraged the farmers to raise a surplus, it encouraged the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to increase the facilities for grain shipment, it caused a reduction of freight tariffs all along the line and made it possible for a farmer to cultivate the soil at a profit. Something of an idea of the result may be gathered from an inspection of the following exhibit of increase from year to year, of freights shipped on Baker's Road to Wallula en route for Portland. Between 1870 and 1874, down freights shipped yearly at Wallula did not exceed 2,500 tons. In 1874 Baker's Road had been completed to the Touchet, and carried freight from that point to Wallula at $1.50 per ton. In 1875 it was completed to Frenchtown and charged $2.50. Walla Walla rates averaged $4.50.

Freight tonnage from Touchet in 1874 to Wallula aggregated 4,021 tons; in back freight, 1,126 tons; from Frenchtown in 1875 to Wallula, 9,155 tons; back freight, 2,192 tons; from Walla Walla in 1876 to Wallula, 15,266; back freight, 4,043; from Walla Walla in 1877 to Wallula, 28,806 tons; back freight, 8,368 tons; from Walla Walla in 1878 to Wallula, 35,014 tons; back freight, 10,454." Such are Colonel Gilbert's statements.

The estimated wheat production in the entire upper country in 1866 was half a million bushels, of which half was credited to the Walla Walla Valley. From that time on to the present there has been a steady development of wheat raising throughout the region south of Snake River, as well as north and throughout the Inland Empire.

WHEAT HARVESTING IN WALLA WALLA COUNTYThirty-two horses. Combined harvesting and threshing. Ground too hilly for tractors.

WHEAT HARVESTING IN WALLA WALLA COUNTYThirty-two horses. Combined harvesting and threshing. Ground too hilly for tractors.

WHEAT HARVESTING IN WALLA WALLA COUNTYThirty-two horses. Combined harvesting and threshing. Ground too hilly for tractors.

In the decade of the '70s there came to Walla Walla a man destined to leave upon the entire region the impress of one of the most remarkable characters in far vision, noble aims, and philanthropic disposition that ever lived within the State of Washington. We refer to Dr. N. G. Blalock. Eminent in his profession, his ceaseless industry and progressive aims did more perhaps than any other single life to broaden and advance all phases of the section in which he lived and wrought. He was the pioneer in wheat raising on large scale, as well as in many other lines of activity and experiment. Making, though not retaining, several fortunes, his life work was to mark out the way for others less venturesome, to follow to success not alone in the acquirement of wealth, but in the nobler and more enduring products of education, philanthropy, patriotism, public service, and genuine piety. Coming to Walla Walla in 1872 and entering at once upon an extensive medical practice, Doctor Blalock had a vision of the future as well as the capacity to utilize at once the varied opportunities offered by the soil, the climate, and the location. He saw the splendid wild acres of land by the thousands lying in all directions and determined to make a thorough test of its adaptability to raise wheat on a large scale. He made a bargain for a tract of 2,200 acres six miles south of Walla Walla for a price of ten bushels of wheat per acre, to be paid from the first crop. The expense of breaking so large a body of land was great, but the first crop yielded thirty-one bushels per acre, a sufficient demonstration of the capacity of the land.

In 1881 the crop on the tract averaged thirty-five and one-fourth bushels, while 1,000 acres of it yielded 51,000 bushels. The acreage and the yield, very carefully ascertained, was reported to the Government and stood then, and probably does yet, as the largest yield from that amount of land ever reported. Even more remarkable yields, but on smaller areas, have been known. Milton Aldrich produced on his Dry Creek ranch, on 400 acres, an average of sixty-six bushels of wheat and the next year there was a volunteer crop of forty bushels. Recently in the same vicinity Arthur Cornwell obtained an average of seventy-three bushels per acre. A hundred and ten bushels of barley per acre have been grown on the Gilkerson ranch on Mill Creek.

An item of historic interest may be found in an estimate of cost made for a special number of theUnionduring the first years of the industry by Joseph Harbert, one of the most prominent pioneers and successful farmers in the valley. The crop was on 400 acres, which yielded 10,000 bushels of blue-stem wheat. At fifty cents per bushel for the crop, this will be seen to represent a profit of about two thousand three hundred dollars from land worth $12,000, or nearly twenty per cent. from which, however, should come wages of management.

The land was summer fallowed in 1894 and valued at thirty dollars per acre. The estimate is in a locality where water and material to work with are reasonably convenient. The land is not very hilly and comparatively easy to work. The report is as follows:

It may be added that estimates of cost by a number of prominent farmers in the period of 1890 and thereabouts, indicated that the expense of sowing, seeding, harvesting, and putting into the warehouse, ran from twenty-one to forty cents a bushel, varying according to locality, yield, and other conditions.

At a usual price of fifty or sixty cents a bushel, there was not a large margin above the interest on investment, maintenance of stock, machinery, improvements, and taxes. Nevertheless the farmers of this section felt every encouragement to continue, unless it were in the evil harvest year of 1893-4, when the price ran about twenty-five to thirty-five cents a bushel, and when rains, floods, strikes, and general calamity threatened to engulf, and did actually engulf some of the best farms. It is a historical fact that had it not been for the liberality of the banks in the four counties south of Snake River, which held obligations from a large number of the best-known farmers, there would have been widespread disaster. Thanks to the banks, as well as to the persistence and fortitude of the farmers and the solid resources of the country, these counties emerged from those years of depression with less injury and repaired their losses more quickly than any other section of the entire Northwest, or perhaps of the whole country.

It may be added in connection with cost of wheat raising, that within the years since the opening of the present century there has been an enormous outlay by farmers in all kinds of farm machinery, the combines having become the usual means of harvesting, and traction engines for the combines and to some degree for plowing having superseded horse power. But cost of labor and general rise of prices have pushed up expenses, until now the most of farmers would estimate the cost of a bushel of wheat at fifty cents or more, some say even a dollar. As an offset to this there has come a great advance in price, insomuch that the farmers of Walla Walla and its sister counties have become the lords of the land. One of the most pleasing results of this new order of things is that the farmers, being almost entirely free from debt, have begun to build comfortable and even elegant homes, both on the farms and in the cities and to surround themselves with the conveniences of life, as automobiles, and to spend money in travel and luxuries which make some of the old-timers, accustomed to the deprivations of pioneer days, open their eyes with wonder, and possibly even disapproval. It is not observable,however, that the young folks on the farms have any backwardness in utilizing the good things of life which are the logical consummation of the foresight and industry of parents and grandparents. It is probable that no people in the United States have more reliable and steady incomes and greater sources for all the needs and enjoyments of life than do the farmers of old Walla Walla County.

The experience of other sections was similar to that of the region immediately around Walla Walla. The first thought was of stock ranges, with such small patches of farming land adjacent to the creeks as might supply the family needs. It is stated that Elisha Ping and G. W. Miller raised crops of wheat and oats on the present site of Dayton in 1860. For the oats they received seven cents a pound and for the wheat two dollars a bushel. The location of the subsequent Dayton became a regular station on the stage line from Walla Walla to Lewiston, and that fact led J. M. Pomeroy, a little later the founder of the town named for him, to raise a crop of barley for horse feed. That was in 1863. As time passed on, and especially after the founding of flouring mills by S. M. Wait, there came a general movement to raise grain crops on the hills and plains and it was discovered, as a little earlier around Walla Walla, that the entire region was the very home land for grain. Within a few years it was found that barley of especially fine quality and heavy yield was one of the best crops, and Columbia County has become the center of barley production. Almost the entire county, with the exception of the timbered mountain belt, has become a grain field. Within recent years the region around and particularly east of Dayton has become the leading center of corn production.

Garfield and Asotin counties repeated the experience of Walla Walla and Columbia; first stock ranges, then a few acres along the creeks as an experiment, soon the breaking up of the rich sod on the high plains and flats; and within a few years, a perfect ocean of waving grain over the greater part of the area. The first settlers already named in the section of this chapter on stock raising were the pioneers also in the wheat business, as the Rigsby brothers, J. M. Pomeroy, James Bowers, Parson Quinn, and others. Garfield and Asotin counties are in general more elevated than Walla Walla and Columbia, and their frontage on Snake River is more abrupt. This has given rise, first to a margin of ideal fruit and garden land between the river and the bluffs, which in case of Asotin is of considerable breadth, and in case of both of them has raised the question of conveying grain from the high plateaus to the river. In some places this has given rise to contrivances which are a great curiosity to strangers, the "grain-chutes" and "bucket lines," as devices to lower the grain from warehouses on the precipitous bank, sometimes eighteen hundred feet above the steamer landing. There is not yet a railroad on the south bank of Snake River, and water transportation is the only available means of getting the vast quantities of grain from those high prairies near the river to market.

Items appear in the various issues of theStatesmanduring the first years of its existence in regard to grain raising which possess great historical interest. An editorial appears in the issue of February 1, 1862, urging farmers to go into grain raising extensively and declaring that all the indications point to a demand from the mines for all kinds of farm products.

An advertisement for supplies at the Fort on July 19 calls for 375 tons ofoats, 100 tons of oat straw, and 1,200 cords of wood. Mention is also made in the paper of the farm of J. W. Shoemaker a short distance below the garrison, where grain to the value of $3,000, and garden produce to the value of $1,500, was raised.

FLOUR MILLING

One of the most important features of industry allied to grain production was flour milling. The first flour mill was erected in 1859 by A. H. Reynolds in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. T. Dent, the latter being a brother of Mrs. U. S. Grant. It was located on the land then owned by Jesse Drumheller, now part of the Whitney place. In the issue of March 29, 1862, is an advertisement of the Pasca Mills by Sims and Mix, which must have been the same mill built by Mr. Reynolds. In 1862 Mr. Reynolds built another mill, known as the Star Mill, on the Yellowhawk, near the present residence of his son, H. A. Reynolds. This was subsequently acquired by W. H. Gilbert. Mention is made in theStatesmanof August 2, 1862, of the flour mill of J. C. Isaacs. Apparently this is a confusion in name of the brothers, as the author is credibly informed that the mill opened at that time was the Excelsior mill built by H. P. Isaacs, subsequently the leading mill man of the Walla Walla country and one of the leaders in all forms of enterprise. The name Excelsior was later replaced by North Pacific. It was located on the mill race, whose remains still cross Division Street and was actively employed until about 1895. There is an advertisement in theStatesmanof March 21, 1863, to the effect that Graham flour and corn meal were being turned out at Mr. Reynolds' mill. In the number of March 31, 1865, is the announcement that Kyger and Reese, who were among the most extensive general merchants in Walla Walla, had leased the water power and site of E. H. Barron just below town on Mill Creek and were making ready to install a first-class mill, having three run of four-foot burrs and a capacity of 150 barrels a day. The firm were also establishing a distillery. It would seem that the latter manufactory was in larger demand than the former, for it was completed sooner. The mill, however, began grinding in October of that year. That mill became the property of Andrew McCalley in 1873, and after his death in 1891 was maintained by his sons until the property was lost by fire in 1897. One of the most important mills of the valley was that built by Messrs. Ritz and Schnebly about a quarter of a mile below the McCalley mill, known first as the Agate and then as the Eureka, conducted for some time by W. C. Painter, then sold to Welch and Schwabacher, and in turn disposed of by them in 1880 to Dement Brothers, and managed up to the present time by F. S. Dement. The mill is now known as Dement Brothers' mill and is one of the most extensive in the Inland Empire, making a specialty of choice breakfast cereals and through them as well as its high-grade flour carrying the name of Walla Walla, Wash., around the globe.

The mills on the Touchet speedily followed those on Mill Creek. S. M. Wait, from whom the beautiful little city at the junction of the Touchet and the Coppei took its name, was the pioneer mill man as well as the founder of the town. TheStatesmanof June 2, 1865, mentions the fact that Mr. Wait's mill was just open and that it was one of the best equipped in the country and produced a grade of flour equal to the best from Oregon. A town soon began to grow at the location of the mill. Mr. Wait sold the mill to Preston Brothers and the stock to Paine Brothers and Moore of Walla Walla. The latter firm acquired an interest in the mill, but subsequently disposed of all their holdings to Preston Brothers, under whom the mill became one of the largest mill properties in the Northwest, being connected with large mills at Athena, Ore., and elsewhere, and under the more recent management of Messrs. Shaffer, Harper, and Leonard, conducting one of the most extensive milling lines in the country.

NORTH PACIFIC MILLS (ISAAC'S MILL) WALLA WALLAFirst rolling mill on the Pacific coast. Erected in 1862. Capacity two hundred and fifty barrels. Many mills were erected before this, but this was the first to introduce rollers instead of the old mill stone.

NORTH PACIFIC MILLS (ISAAC'S MILL) WALLA WALLAFirst rolling mill on the Pacific coast. Erected in 1862. Capacity two hundred and fifty barrels. Many mills were erected before this, but this was the first to introduce rollers instead of the old mill stone.

NORTH PACIFIC MILLS (ISAAC'S MILL) WALLA WALLA

First rolling mill on the Pacific coast. Erected in 1862. Capacity two hundred and fifty barrels. Many mills were erected before this, but this was the first to introduce rollers instead of the old mill stone.

Mr. Wait inaugurated also the milling business in what is now Columbia County. Going to that region in 1871 where Jesse N. Day, from whom Dayton was named, had been endeavoring since 1864 to launch a town with but scanty success, Mr. Wait proposed to build a mill, provided inducements were offered. Mr. Day accordingly agreed to give five acres of land as a site, with a block of land for residences, and upon that Mr. Wait and William Metzger proceeded to launch the milling business at Dayton. In building that mill, with a brick building for a store and a planing mill, Messrs. Wait and Metzger laid out about $25,000, a large amount for those days. At the same time the Dayton Woolen Mill was undertaken, A. H. Reynolds being chief owner, F. S. Frary the secretary and manager and Mr. Wait the president of the company. The woolen mill had a land site of seven acres donated by John Mustard and a building was erected at a cost of $40,000. The new town of Dayton was booming in consequence of these investments. The flour mill proved a great success and with various changes of ownership is now one of the great mill properties of the country, but the woolen mill, from which so much was expected, did not prove a financial success and was closed in 1880. It is rather a curious fact that no one of the woolen enterprises in the Inland Empire has met with large success except that at Pendleton, Ore., the success of which has been so great that it is a puzzle that others have mainly failed.

The great development of wheat raising in what is now Garfield County led, as elsewhere in the region, to flouring mills. The pioneer mill at Pomeroy was started in 1877 by W. C. Potter and completed the following year by Mr. Pomeroy.

Three miles above Pomeroy and for some years a rival to the lower town was Pataha City. It was on land taken up at first by James Bowers in 1861 and acquired in 1868 by A. J. Favor, who undertook a few years later to start a town. In pursuance of his plans he offered land for mill sites, and as a result J. N. Bowman and George Snyder constructed a mill in 1878. Subsequently John Houser became the great mill man of that entire section and his mill became one of the most widely known in the Inland Empire. He made a specialty of shipping flour to San Francisco for the manufacture of macaroni, the large percentage of gluten in the wheat of that region fitting it especially for that use. The son of Mr. Houser, Max Houser, going to Portland in about 1908, has become known the world over as the most daring and extensive wheat buyer on the Pacific Coast and has acquired a fortune estimated at six millions. The pioneer flouring mill of Asotin was built in 1881 at the town of that name by Frank Curtis and L. A. Stimson. The town itself upon one of the most beautiful of locations on Snake River, with the magnificent wheat fields of the Anatone flats on the highlands to the south and west, and a superb belt of fruit land extending down the river and broadening out at Clarkston, was laid out in 1878.

Other mills were established at later dates, of which the most extensive were the mill at Prescott, erected by H. P. Isaacs in 1883, the City mill on Palouse Street in Walla Walla, built in 1898 by Scholl Brothers; Long's mill, a few miles below Dayton; the Corbett mill at Huntsville.

In summarizing grain raising as the leading industry of old Walla Walla County it may be said that for several years past the total production for the four counties has been about 12,000,000 bushels per year. The value has, of course, varied much according to price. It is conservatively estimated that the value of the grain crops, including flour and feed in various manufactured forms for 1916, was approximately $15,000,000.

GARDENS AND ORCHARDS

As grain raising put a finer point upon industry than its predecessor, stock raising, so in turn the gardens and orchards have yet more refined and differentiated the forms of industry and the developments of life in the growing communities of our story. As already related these lines of production had been tested by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the missionaries, Whitman and Spalding. It was, therefore, to be expected that even in the first years of settlement some attempts would be made to start orchards and gardens. The first nursery in Walla Walla seems to have been laid out in 1859 on the Ransom Clark donation claim on the Yellowhawk. In 1859 trees were set out on the J. W. Foster place. It is said that Mr. Foster brought his trees here on muleback over the Cascade Mountains. We are informed by Charles Clark of Walla Walla that most of Mr. Foster's trees were secured from Ransom Clark. In 1860 A. B. Roberts set out an orchard within the present city limits of Walla Walla on what later became the Ward place. In 1861 a notable step in fruit raising was taken by the coming of one of the most important of all the great pioneers of the Inland Empire. This was Philip Ritz. We find in theStatesmanof December 5, 1861, announcement that Mr. Ritz had arrived with a supply of trees from his nursery at Glen Dale near Corvallis, Ore., and that the trees were for sale at the store of John Wright. Subsequent items in theStatesmanfurnish an interesting exposition of the progress of both gardens and orchards. TheStatesmanwas wide awake as usual to the needs of the country and did not fail to exhort the citizens of Walla Walla to prepare for the demand which it was sure would come. On March 29, 1862, mention was made of the fact that green fruit, presumably apples, from the Willamette Valley, was selling for from twenty to fifty cents per pound. The paper expresses surprise that farmers are so slow about setting out trees. On June 21, 1862, it was announced with much satisfaction that scarcely had the snow from that extremely cold winter melted before there were radishes, lettuce, onions, and rutabagas brought in from foot hill gardens, and that there were new potatoes in the market by June 14th. The issue of July 26th notes the fact of green corn in abundance and that of August 2d declares that the corn was equal to that of the Middle Western States, and that fine watermelons were in the market. August 16th is marked by thanks to G. W. Shoemaker for a fine watermelon and the statement that there were others to come that would weigh forty pounds.In the number of August 30th it appears that Mr. Shoemaker brought to the office a muskmelon weighing eighteen pounds, and in the same issue is an item about a 103-pound squash raised by S. D. Smith. John Hancock is credited on September 6th with a watermelon of thirty-three pounds. Complaint is made, however, in the same number, of the fact that there is a meager supply of apples, plums and pears from the Willamette, and that the apples sell for twenty-five cents apiece, or fifty cents a pound. TheStatesmanof September 27th has the story of Walter Davis of Dry Creek sending a squash of a weight of 134½ pounds and twelve potatoes of a weight of twenty-nine pounds to the Oregon State Fair at Salem. Lamentable to narrate it appears later that these specimens of Walla Walla gardening disappeared. TheStatesmanindulges in some bitter scorn over the kind of people on the other side who would steal such objects. In an October number mention is made that James Fudge of Touchet had brought in three potatoes weighing eight pounds. In theStatesmanof December 20th is an item to the effect that Philip Ritz has a large assortment of trees and shrubs at the late residence of J. S. Sparks. It is also stated that Mr. Ritz is going to try sweet potatoes. In the issue of January 17, 1863, is the statement that Mr. Ritz had purchased land of Mr. Roberts for a nursery. In successive numbers, beginning February 28th, is Mr. Ritz's advertisement of the Columbia Valley nursery, the value of the stock of which is stated at $10,000. It seems to have been an extraordinary stock for the times, and the enterprise and industry of Mr. Ritz became a great factor in the development of the fruit business as well as many other things. There are several interesting items later on in 1863, showing that gardening, particularly the raising of onions, was advancing rapidly. In the spring of 1865 A. Frank & Co. shipped 40,000 pounds of onions to Portland. In theStatesmanof July 4, 1863, it is stated that John Hancock had corn fifteen feet high. During 1863 and 1864 there was much experimenting with sorghum. T. P. Denny is mentioned as having brought a bottle of fine sorghum syrup, and it is stated that Mr. Ritz was experimenting with Chinese and Imphee sugar cane. Mr. Ritz was succeeding well with sweet potatoes, and a fine quality of tobacco was being produced. The biggest potato story was of a Mechannock potato from Mr. Kimball's garden on Dry Creek, which weighed four and one-half pounds. In several numbers in September, 1863, mention is made of delicious peaches brought in by A. H. Reynolds.

In short, it was well demonstrated that conditions were such that it might be expected that Walla Walla would become, and it has for some years been known as, the "Garden City."

In the '60s and '70s a considerable amount of land south and west of Walla Walla was brought into use for gardening, and in various directions orchards were set out. One of the finest was that of W. S. Gilliam on Dry Creek. Everything looked encouraging for fruit raising at that early day, but in 1883 there came a bitter cold day, twenty-nine degrees below zero, far colder than ever known at any other time in Walla Walla, a most disastrous dispensation of nature, for many orchards, especially peaches and apricots, perished.

FIVE REGIONS

Broadly speaking, it may be said that there are five regions in Old Walla Walla County which have become important centers of fruit raising and intensivefarming in general, since fruit raising, gardening, dairying, and poultry raising have to varying degrees gone right along together. The first in age and extent is the region immediately around Walla Walla; the second that of Clarkston and down the Snake River to Burbank; the third that on the Touchet from Dayton to Prescott; the fourth the long narrow valley of the Tucanon; and the fifth that on the lower Walla Walla from Touchet and Gardena to the Columbia and thence through Attalia and Two Rivers to Burbank at the mouth of Snake River. There are, of course, some excellent orchards and gardens in portions not covered in this enumeration, and it is also proper to say that the most productive and compact single body of country is that portion of the Walla Walla Valley south of the state line extending to Milton, Ore.

It is impossible within our limits to describe these different areas in detail. Each has some distinctive features. The youngest and least developed is that of the lower Walla Walla and the Columbia River. By reason of great heat and aridity and long growing season, that region is peculiarly adapted to grape culture and melon raising. Alfalfa produces four and five cuttings and the prospect for successful dairying is flattering. The expense of reclaiming the land and maintaining irrigating systems is high, but when fairly established it may be expected to be one of the most attractive and productive sections.

The Walla Walla section has had the advantage of time and population and in the nature of the case has become most highly developed. In garden products Walla Walla asparagus, onions, and rhubarb may be said to be champions in the markets of the country. One of the important features of Walla Walla gardening is the Walla Walla hothouse vegetable enterprise on the river, five miles west of the city, conducted by F. E. Mojonnier. This is the largest hothouse in the Inland Empire and, with one exception, in the entire Northwest. It has two and a half acres under glass and does a business of thousands of dollars with the chief markets north and east.

In orchards Walla Walla, while not in general in the same class for quantity with Yakima and Wenatchee, has the distinction of possessing two of the largest and perhaps most scientifically planted and cultivated orchards in the entire state; the Blalock and the Baker-Langdon orchards. The latter contains 680 acres of apples, is on sub-irrigated land of the best quality, and may be considered the last word in orchard culture. The manager, John Langdon, reports for 1917, 200,000 boxes, or about three hundred car loads, worth on cars at Walla Walla, at present prices, about three hundred thousand dollars. It is anticipated that when in full bearing at the age of twelve to fourteen years, the yield will be 1,000,000 boxes. Doctor Blalock was the great pioneer in fruit raising, as in grain-raising, on a large scale. The story of his carrying on the gigantic enterprise with inadequate resources to a triumphant conclusion, though not himself being able to retain possession, is one of the greatest stories in the Inland Empire.

The Touchet belt may be said to be distinguished by its special adaptability to high grade apples of the Rome Beauty and Spitzenberg varieties as well as by the extraordinary and profitable production. In that belt are two orchards which while not remarkable for size have had about the most remarkable history of any in the state. These are the Pomona orchard of J. L. Dumas and that of J. D. Taggard between Waitsburg and Dayton. There are a number of other orchards of high grade in the Touchet Valley, and it may be anticipated that within a few years that rich and beautiful expanse will be a continuous orchard. Conditions of soil and climate make it ideal for apple-raising.

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