The City Lights and Waterworks Are Complete
North Yakima unveils a $176,000 infrastructure project intended to serve the city of the future.
The citizens of North Yakima are now congratulating themselves on having the most perfect and best-built system of waterworks and electric lights in the Pacific Northwest. The pure, cold, and sparkling waters from the Cascade Mountains are now in our residences and our business houses. The waterworks are a monument to engineering skill, persistent labor, and financial pluck. The franchises for the electric lights and waterworks were granted by the city council to Edward Whitson in April. The combined Holly and gravity systems were adopted, and work was rushed. Today, we see the result in a system that engineers pronounce the peer of any in the country. The two plants cost in the neighborhood of $176,000. At the test on Monday, there was a pressure of from 105 to 110 pounds, and three streams were thrown to a height more than sufficient to clear any of the three-story buildings in the city.
“They built not for the North Yakima of to-day, but for the large city of the future.”
The massive investment in water and electricity in 1890 reflects the 'booster' mentality that defined Washington town development. The desire for high-pressure water systems to fight fires and support growth is a recurring theme in the city's transformation from a frontier town to a regional hub.
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