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32 stories
- The Northern Pacific's Plan for the Yakima Valley
A railroad land agent outlines a strategy to monopolize grazing rights, promote 20-acre farm plots, and lure a sugar beet factory to the region.
- Yakima's Orchards Weren't Dead After All
After a November cold snap that hit 20 below zero, Yakima Valley growers feared their fruit trees were ruined. By spring, the blossoms told a different story.
- The Railroad Barons and the Range Wars
Northern Pacific executives visit Yakima to defend their controversial new land-leasing system against local sheepmen.
- The Best and Most Reliable Pickers to Be Obtained
Hop tying and strawberry picking brought cash onto the reservation and goods into Yakima's stores — and the growers knew exactly whose labor they were counting on.
- The Mountains Closed: Stockmen Fight the Cascade Forest Reserve
Eastern Washington's cattle and sheep men warn that locking up the Cascades as a federal forest reserve would beggar every valley town — and train their anger on the Yakama Reservation boundary, which they want opened to their herds.
- The Sugar War: Why Yakima Farmers Wanted Hawaii's Sweet Deal Axed
Northern Pacific distributed beet seed in North Yakima to test sugar production, but farmers argued they couldn't compete with Hawaiian sugar grown with cheap labor.
- Counterfeit Yakima Potatoes on the Sound
A Tacoma paint dealer tells the valley's paper that Puget Sound merchants were passing off second-grade Western Washington spuds as Yakima's prized crop — and that in a full year he got the genuine article only three times.
- The Selah Rattlesnake Hunters Who Shipped Their Catch to China
A Yakima Valley farm employed Chinese laborers to catch rattlesnakes alive, jar them in whisky, and export them for a profit—an odd, dangerous trade recorded through the racist language of the era.
- Turning Salt Flats into Wheat Fields
A Yakima sheepman discovers how to reclaim abandoned alkali-ridden soil through careful irrigation.
- The Hay Market Heats Up in the Yakima Valley
As alfalfa prices climb, local agricultural managers weigh the risks of livestock investment against the volatility of the regional market.
- A Dry-Hills Gamble: Sixty Settlers and a Well
When boosters claimed Yakima’s brown hills could farm, thirteen families put up $25 each to drill for water and prove it.
- 12,000 Cattle Roundup—Only 100 Good Enough to Sell
A Yakima rancher returned from the Columbia roundup with a hard tally: a long winter and scarce feed left almost the entire herd unfit for market.
- The Steamboat Scheme to Sneak 10,000 Sheep into Washington
Barred from driving his Oregon flocks through Klickitat County, M. McLennan charters a special steamer to slip them into Skamania County and on to Yakima.
- The Cattle Boom That Was Selling Off Its Own Future
A Northern Pacific land examiner warns that Nebraska buyers are sweeping up Washington breeding stock, prices are surging in Yakima County, and an Adams County artesian well could open a new grazing frontier.
- The Butter Swindler's Comeuppance
A clever farm wife turns the tables on a traveling salesman peddling a fraudulent 'miracle' churn.
- A Sharp Defense in Yakima
A prominent Kittitas sheep rancher fends off a pair of highwaymen with a pocketknife during a visit to Yakima.
- Yakima Horses Marching to the Klondike — 150 Bought for the Ice
A Seattle-led expedition buys up 275 horses and 100 oxen, 150 of them through Coffin Bros. in North Yakima, to freight supplies overland to the ice-bound Yukon this winter.
- A $10,000 Co-op With No Fruit in the Store
A Seattle farm reporter walks into the Tacoma offices of the Washington Fruit Produce Union to find both its manager and secretary conveniently 'out of town,' an empty warehouse, a treasurer who ran off with the funds — and hundreds of farmers who had just paid $5 apiece to join.
- The Diseased-Poultry Swindle
A Yakima agricultural editor traces how sick birds moved from farmyards to city markets—and demands that the governor and legislature clean up the trade.
- The Orchardist's Revolt: Wawawai Grower Accuses Yakima Commission Firm of Withholding $1,100
J.W. Offield says Thompson Kain refused to pay for his peach and pear crop; the firm counters that he misrepresented varieties and freight rates.
- Washington Slams the Gate on Oregon Sheep
A new state law quarantines out-of-state flocks at the border, and the Oregon herders who have grazed Mount Adams every summer are suddenly out of luck — with 50,000 sheep and nowhere to put them.
- Pay Rent or We Drive the Flocks Elsewhere: Sheepmen Balk at the Railroad's Grazing Leases
Dan Goodman tells a reporter that if the Northern Pacific charges for pasture, whole bands of sheep will be pushed off its line — while the company says the leases exist to keep outside herds from eating out the range.
- When the Creamery Burned, Yakima's Milk Had Nowhere to Go
Captain Dunn lost his creamery to fire, put his cows on the range when no skimming station could be arranged, and warned that Yakima's dairy economy would feel the loss.
- Six Mowers in the Alfalfa: Inside the Northwest's Largest Irrigated Ranch
The superintendent of the Moxee Company's farm walks a reporter through 680 acres of alfalfa, 180 of barley and a hop yard rented out for a quarter of the bale — and explains why California-style hay stacking won't do for Yakima Valley stockmen.
- The Commissioner Who Wouldn’t Hand Over the Books
A state auditor comes to Yakima to shut down the arid-land office. Col. Howlett says the law is on his side—and politely keeps the records.