The Palace for the Poor
Walla Walla County commissioners spar over a controversial, high-cost proposal to replace the county’s humble poor farm with a luxury-equipped facility.
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.
County Commissioners Cornwell and Smith are currently inspecting the county poor house near Spokane with a view to building a superior facility on the Walla Walla county poor farm. They visited the poor house near Portland recently, but it did not meet their expectations. Currently, there are only five paupers maintained by the county under the contract system. Two commissioners are determined to build a home of such superior advantages and conveniences that indigent persons would flock to it. The proposed project is estimated to cost between eighteen and twenty thousand dollars. Commissioner McCaw, however, is opposing the scheme, arguing that it is an inexcusable extravagance. He notes that the cost of salaries alone under the new system would exceed current maintenance costs and has threatened to resign if the project proceeds against the objections of heavy taxpayers.
“He cannot see why the county should build and furnish a palatial home for the poor when it is plain that the cost in salaries alone... would be greater than the entire cost of maintenance under the contract system.”
This 1903 debate captures a perennial tension in Walla Walla’s civic identity: the friction between expansive public spending and fiscal conservatism. The 'poor house' is a relic of an era before the social safety net was federalized, yet the argument over whether to build for comfort or for bare-minimum survival remains a central thread in modern debates over regional homelessness services and public facilities.
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