The Cowychee Valley Road Struggle
Settlers in the Cowychee Valley fight for a direct path to North Yakima, trapped by encroaching fences and rugged terrain.
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.
The settlers of the Cowychee Valley are extremely anxious for the county to give them a road along the creek, from Silas W. Morton’s ranch to the Cowychee bridge. In the past year, a couple of county roads have been vacated and fenced in, and as a result, the fifty or sixty families in the Cowychee are obliged to travel over a heavy grade and away around by Wide Hollow in order to reach North Yakima to do their trading. In addition to the proposed road saving material distance in travel, the grades are much easier, and double the amount of freight can be hauled per wagon. Citizens of North Yakima should co-operate with the settlers of the Cowychee in this matter and use their influence, by petition and otherwise, with the county commissioners to have this road established.
“In the past year a couple of county roads have been vacated and fenced in, and, as a result, the fifty or sixty families in the Cowychee are obliged to travel over a heavy grade and away around by Wide Hollow.”
This 1889 conflict over infrastructure and land access mirrors the ongoing tension in Yakima County between agricultural development, private property rights, and the necessity of public transit routes to support the local economy.
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