The Orient Expressed: A Vision for Walla Walla Wheat
Prominent Portland booster Colonel Henry Dosch tours Walla Walla, urging local millers to modernize and pivot toward the Japanese market.
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.
Colonel Henry E. Dosch of Portland, who was in Walla Walla yesterday conferring with local millers relative to bringing about a closer business relationship between the millers of Oregon and Washington and dealers in Japan, left last evening for Spokane. Before returning to Portland, Colonel Dosch expects to make a tour of the Palouse to interview grain and mill men. 'My trip to Walla Walla has been satisfactory in every respect,' Colonel Dosch said at the Hotel Dacres. 'I hope to see the day when Walla Walla millers will be reaping a vast benefit by being brought into closer relations with the dealers in the Orient. What you are really in need of is a street car system. Once you have a system your outlying suburbs will grow up like magic and the town will take on a city appearance that nothing else will give it.'
“Once you have a system your outlying suburbs will grow up like magic and the town will take on a city appearance that nothing else will give it.”
Colonel Dosch’s 1903 pitch—that Walla Walla needed better infrastructure and a stronger export strategy to become a 'great city'—echoes the city’s ongoing struggles with urban planning and maintaining its economic relevance in a globalized trade landscape. The push for modernization through streetcars and international trade links remains a central thread in the Pacific Northwest's identity.
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