The Irrigation Boom and the Yakima Valley Transformation
An editorial on how capital investment in canal systems is fueling rapid development and population growth in Yakima.
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.
When you invite your friends to a feast, you usually prepare and get ready by the time they arrive. This applies directly to the Yakima country. Until you have water on your land, and are in shape to invite people here, what would you do with them? I hear men growl every day because immigration does not pour in here. I would ask those men where in the past would they have put these people? Right here in our midst a great transformation has taken place—a general revolution of things. The greatest compliment the Yakima country ever received has been paid within the past twelve months, and that is that great corporations have expended vast sums of money in building canals to carry water to reclaim hundreds of thousands of acres of otherwise worthless land. Our local people could not build these canals, because they had no money; but outsiders—strangers—have selected this country as the best place in which to invest. Yakima's progress from now on will be as rapid as money, muscle and brains can push it.
“Prosperity in big letters is stamped on our mountains and in our valleys.”
Yakima's economic history is defined by the struggle to secure water rights and infrastructure. The tension between local agricultural ownership and outside corporate investment continues to shape policy debates in the Yakima Valley.
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