The Grand Design for the Sunnyside Canal
A multi-million dollar irrigation project promises to transform arid lands into an agricultural empire, aiming to support 60,000 residents.
It has taken capital to open up the country, for in this central Washington the most perfect conditions in agriculture are only attained through irrigation. The Northern Pacific, Yakima and Kittitas Irrigation company was incorporated and commenced arranging preliminaries for the prosecution of the work. The plans laid out contemplate a series of great canals. This canal begins at a point about two miles below Union Gap and will empty into the Yakima River opposite the town of Prosser. Its dimensions are thirty feet wide on the bottom, sixty-two on top, and will carry 33,000 cubic feet per minute. The length of the canal is sixty-five miles. Engineer Rockwood estimates that this land will support 60,000 people. The company does not intend to retain the canals after the country is settled, but to dispose of the water rights or shares with the land.
“This system outlined is the greatest in the whole United States, if not in the world.”
The massive irrigation project described helped define the Yakima Valley as an agricultural powerhouse, a status that still dictates the region's economy and water rights politics today.
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