The Water Wars of the Yakima River
Two competing land companies engaged in a legal and physical standoff over irrigation rights, leaving laborers arrested and local farms in limbo.
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 section of country lying across the Columbia river from Pasco is just now suffering from a severe drought, caused by the arrest for trespass of a body of laborers who were engaged in the construction of an irrigating ditch, which it is expected will cover 16,000 to 18,000 acres of fine land. There have been two irrigating companies formed, the object in each case being to place under irrigation the same land extending along the Columbia river from opposite Wallula to the mouth of the Yakima river. One company, the Dudley company, purchased odd sections from the railroad and planned to take water from the Yakima river about two miles below Kiona. Another, the Leadbetter company, surveyed a parallel line. The Leadbetter company got a force of men on the ground two weeks ago to begin work, but were not permitted to do much; Dudley had the whole gang arrested on a charge of trespass. The Dudley company now has about a hundred men on the ground to begin excavation.
“The section of country lying across the Columbia river from Pasco is just now suffering from a severe drought, caused by the arrest for trespass of a body of laborers.”
Early Washington state was built on the premise of 'reclaiming' arid land, yet these bitter, litigious battles over water rights in the Yakima and Columbia basins defined the region's development. Similar disputes between public interest, private developers, and senior water rights holders continue to shape the political and physical landscape of the Yakima Valley today.
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