Will Kennewick's New Stock Yard Boost Local Hay Prices?
Community excitement over a planned feeding plant sparks a debate on whether the move will drive up hay prices or create the economic stability the region needs.
The story, cleaned up
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Everyone is excited over the announcement that Kennewick is to have a big stock yard. Frank Emigh says hay will always be worth $18.00 now, but N. C. Bowles says this is only a pipe dream that it won't help the price more than a couple of dollars. It may help the price a little and unquestionably will furnish a steady market, but if the hay supply in this county was so very limited that a stock yard would boost the price $10 per ton, we could feel assured that Kennewick would never be selected as a site for a feeding plant. However, such a plant will be of inestimable value to the community. Besides furnishing a steady market for our hay it will give employment to many men, bring lots of travel and traffic this way, but best of all will furnish a good market for our stock and our hides—something that we sadly lack at present.
“Rather than welcome those who are coming to invest their money here with the news that we expect to make them pay $18 for their hay, it strikes us far more appropriate to welcome them with the news that we can all of us now see money in the dairy and stock business.”
Kennewick’s early 20th-century preoccupation with industrial development and its impact on agriculture mirrors the ongoing regional tension between rapid development and maintaining the area's farming heritage. The promise of 'steady markets' remains the driving narrative for economic planning in the Tri-Cities today.
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