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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 62 |
| 1898 | 112 |
| 1899 | 10 |
62 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 Klondike Gold Rush and the Northwest Farmer
As thousands flock to the Alaskan gold fields, regional agriculturalists anticipate a massive economic windfall from the sudden demand for food.
- The Railroad Barons and the Range Wars
Northern Pacific executives visit Yakima to defend their controversial new land-leasing system against local sheepmen.
- The Mortgage Freeze of 1897
New state legislation intended to protect farmers from foreclosure has inadvertently choked off agricultural lending.
- 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 Desert That Could Bloom: Pasco’s Irrigation Revival
Philadelphia capital revives an abandoned Palouse canal project, promising water for 5,000 acres this summer and eventually 15,000 acres near Pasco.
- 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.
- When the Brewery Trust Told a State Inspector to Bring It On
A dairy commissioner orders dairymen to stop feeding cows wet brewers' grain. The Seattle Brewing and Malting Co. writes back that the National Brewers' Association will fund the fight — and dares him to take it to court.
- 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.
- A Sheepman Vanishes on the Way Home
A Klickitat County rancher carrying a large sum of cash disappears while attempting to return to Scotland, sparking fears of foul play.
- 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.
- The Book-Keeper and the Plumber Who Milked Twenty-Six Cows Before Breakfast
Two Spokane office men built a dairy on the Spokane River without quitting their day jobs — and sent Hoard's Dairyman the receipts, down to the price of bran.
- The Fumigation Didn't Take: Live Scale Found on Japanese Oranges
A King County fruit-growers' committee inspects a shipment of imported oranges that the state's own commissioner had fumigated, finds the mealy bug and scale still alive, and demands stricter enforcement before the fruit goes on sale.
- 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 Klickitat Sheep Inspector Scandal
After a costly and ineffective attempt to tax Oregon sheepmen, Klickitat County officials fire their inspector, sparking a local debate over governance and border control.
- Don't Bond the Valley to a Dry Ditch
A Wenatchee editor warns that a $100,000 Wright-law irrigation bond would repeat the Kennewick failure—leaving settlers with debt, abandoned orchards, and no water.
- Spokane Had Mining Fever, and the Men Selling the Stock Had the Only Sure Thing
A Yakima correspondent visits Spokane and finds a city where hotel clerks, newsboys and waiter girls are all buying mining shares — and where even Ezra Meeker has traded hops for a stock prospectus.
- The Grass Belongs to Klickitat
A new Washington sheep quarantine law promised to shut out 75,000 Oregon sheep — and local stockmen said the range was theirs, not the neighbors'.
- Wenatchee Growers Told a Railroad: Give Us Water and We'll Fill Your Freight Cars
A delegation of Wenatchee Valley orchardists met Great Northern officials at Seattle's Hotel Butler to argue that irrigation—not mines or timber—would turn eastern Washington into a freight-producing countryside.
- 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.