Taming the Bench Lands
Settlers in the Wenas Valley organize to bring irrigation to higher ground.
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 Wenas is one of those beautiful valleys which cluster jewel-like around Yakima. It has but one drawback, and that is a lack of water—or rather the lack of the application of water for irrigating the higher lands. This is to be overcome if skill and capital can do it. The settlers have organized and employed an engineer to make the surveys with a view to taking water from the Yakima river at some point near the mouth of the canyon, building a ditch with fall sufficient to run an immense turbine wheel which is to carry the water onto the bench lands. At a meeting held last Saturday much interest prevailed, and $8,000 was immediately subscribed to the enterprise and assurances given that if the scheme was found practicable sufficient money would be forthcoming to complete the work. It is estimated that between thirty and forty thousand acres of the most productive land would thus be redeemed and placed under cultivation.
“It is estimated that between thirty and forty thousand acres of the most productive land would thus be redeemed and placed under cultivation.”
Yakima's history is defined by the struggle to move water from the rivers to the 'bench lands.' This 1889 effort to privately fund large-scale irrigation foreshadows the immense federal and local water projects that continue to spark intense debate in the Yakima Basin today.
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