A Massive Poultry Demonstration
An experimental shipment of 2,600 chicks from California arrives in Benton City to prove large-scale commercial viability.
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.
Of the day-old chicks ordered from Petaluma, California, 2600 arrived last Thursday. They were installed in two Petaluma brooders in a vacant store building near the O-W. R. & N. depot. C. J. Taylor is in charge. Only 5 per cent has succumbed to the inevitable. S. J. Harrison and L. L. Todd, the owners, intended them as a demonstration of growing chickens on a large scale with a brooder. Every day since their arrival they have been visited by chicken fanciers from the nearby towns.
“They were installed in two Petaluma brooders in a vacant store building.”
This story highlights the era's transition toward industrial-scale agriculture, which defined much of the Yakima Valley's economic growth. The 'chicken fanciers' gathering at a vacant storefront to watch a 1915 tech demonstration—the modern brooder—shows how agricultural innovation was once a major local civic spectacle.
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