The Case for an Irrigation University
Yakima boosters argue that the arid environment makes the city the only logical choice for the new state Agricultural College.
The location of the agricultural college is a matter of the highest importance to this state. Washington must always be an agricultural state. The counties from which the choice will undoubtedly be made are Whitman, Lincoln, Adams, and Yakima; and of these, Yakima, for many reasons, would seem to be the best location. It is the most central—indeed, it is the connecting link between the East and West. It has, practically, no rain, and must depend on irrigation for the production of even one blade of grass. But herein lies her strongest, her unanswerable, claim for the Agricultural College. There is no such school anywhere in the arid irrigating belt. Such a college located in Yakima County would benefit not only that county, but all similar districts in our own and in sister states. It would teach the methods by which 'the desert is made to blossom as the rose.'
“It would teach the methods by which 'the desert is made to blossom as the rose,' and by which much can be produced from nothing.”
This reflects the intense competition between Washington towns to host state institutions, a process that shaped the state's geography. The 'desert to blossom' rhetoric remains a core part of the identity of the Yakima Valley and its relationship to irrigation.
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