A Giant Among the Yakima Hops
A tall man's visit to the Tacoma Exposition leads to an irrigation marketing prank.
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.
Lincoln County produces a wonderful specimen of humanity in a young man named Burge, who is six feet eight inches tall. He was viewing the Yakima exhibit at the Tacoma Exposition last week when some wag pinned one of the Yakima cards, with the inscription 'This is the result of irrigation,' to the tail of his coat. The simple folk of Tacoma marveled much at our productiveness.
“This is the result of irrigation.”
This is a rare, humorous example of 1890s 'boosterism.' Yakima's economy was built on the irrigation miracle, and the local press constantly promoted the region's agricultural fertility to attract investment.
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