The Water Miracle in the Moxee
After expensive drilling, a new artesian well turns arid sagebrush into a potential oasis for Yakima settlers.
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.
On Saturday last, H. B. Scudder arrived in the city with the news that artesian water had been struck by the company. The report spread rapidly, for it solves the problem of irrigating lands lying above the ditch lines. At a depth of a little over four hundred feet, the flow began. At first it was at the rate of 80,000 gallons of water per diem, but the drill was kept pounding away until now the flow is 27,000 gallons an hour. By Saturday night, the water was sent up through six-inch casing to a height of thirty-three feet. The news brought in many parties from surrounding points who aimed to take advantage of the success of the experiment by filing on vacant government lands. The Yakima Land Company intends to put down wells every quarter of a mile on their property. The full extent of the benefits to be derived from the success of this experiment can hardly be realized, but it is generally recognized that nothing of greater moment has ever happened here.
“The news seemed almost too good to be true, for it solves the problem of the irrigation of lands lying above the ditch lines.”
The quest for water access defined Yakima's early development and remains a central tension in the valley, as current groundwater management disputes echo these 1891 efforts to 'reclaim' arid lands for speculative agriculture.
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