The Desert Land Grabs of Yakima Valley
A group of fifteen Seattle investors files to transform 7,000 acres of arid Yakima land into a profitable agricultural engine.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Articles of incorporation of the Yakima Farm and Water Company were filed in the Auditor's office on January second, the incorporators being Geo. Kinnear, B. Gallert, W. B. Brawley, J. R. Lewis, and J. F. McNaught. The object is to acquire and sell land for farming, and to build flumes and ditches for irrigation. Fifteen Seattle gentlemen have associated themselves together, and taken up a body of 7,000 acres of land in Yakima county, under the desert land act, which they intend to irrigate. This land is in what is known as the Moxee Valley, on the east side of the Yakima river. The company will at once dig a ditch from the Naches river, running through the land, and returning the water to the Yakima river near a point below Yakima City. The company comprises men of enterprise, ability, and capital, and in making the desert 'bloom and blossom as the rose' will also line their pockets with a goodly amount of filthy lucre.
“The company comprises men of enterprise, ability, and capital, and in making the desert 'bloom and blossom as the rose' will also line their pockets with a goodly amount of filthy lucre.”
The Moxee Valley remains a central hub of Washington’s agricultural power today. This 1883 initiative highlights how early Seattle capital viewed the 'desert' of Eastern Washington as a resource to be colonized and commodified by those with the capital to reroute its water.
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