Kennewick’s Satirical Search for a Forest

Seemingly it is one of the whims of Fate that lost opportunities are always bobbing up and smiting us after it is too late. We read in Polk's new tri-county directory that Pasco is the center of one of the finest grape producing regions in the world, also the center of a great wool and wheat growing country. Although the directory contains a very fair and favorable write-up of Kennewick, somebody was evidently asleep on the job as not one word is said about Kennewick’s being one of the greatest summer resorts in the world, surrounded as it is by great natural forests. There is no inviting nor alluring description of the cool fragrance of the pines and fir and spruce; of the velvety comfort of the grassy glades; of crested heights and thunderous canyons of purling brooks and limpid lakes; of leaping trout and bounding deer. Of course, the town isn't exactly hewn out of the forest. There are no logged-off lands in the suburbs, but the Cascades are just up on the other side of Ellensburg, the Blue Mountains are only a little way beyond Walla Walla, and then there is the choice of the Okanogan woods to the north or Deschutes wilds to the south. A glance at the map shows that Kennewick is in fact the center of the forest fastnesses of the Northwest.