A New Chapter for Adams County
Twelve families arrive by train from Russia to seek new lives on the unclaimed lands of Washington.
On last Wednesday evening, the west-bound passenger train brought to Ritzville some fifty emigrants. They represent twelve families and are direct from Russia. They all have money enough to go to work for themselves and will doubtless find homes on the unclaimed lands in the county, and become at once a factor in our population.
“They all have money enough to go to work for themselves and will doubtless find homes on the unclaimed lands in the county.”
Ritzville’s history is deeply rooted in the arrival of Volga German immigrants, a demographic shift that defined the town's agricultural economy for over a century. This 1898 report captures the quiet, pragmatic beginnings of a community that would soon transform the dry-land wheat farming landscape of Eastern Washington.
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