A Fifteen-Million-Dollar Gamble on the Horse Heaven Hills
Voters prepare for a high-stakes bond election to fund the irrigation of 50,000 acres, warning that defeat spells doom for the district.
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.
Inquiries have come to this office relative to the bonding of a large portion of the Horse Heaven country for the purpose of installing the high line canal. An election will be held on the sixth of this month for the purpose of getting an expression from the residents and land owners in the district, and it develops that there is considerable opposition from certain bigger interests to prevent the water rights for this district from passing to the farmers. Judge Carroll B. Graves, attorney for the district, stated: 'In case the bonds are voted down at the coming election, the situation is fraught with grave and dangerous consequences. I am profoundly impressed with the view that an adverse decision at the polls will be the death of the district and may have the effect of killing any project for the irrigation of the Horse Heaven lands.' The bonds will be upon the entire district, comprising some 50,000 acres, and will be in the sum of $15,000,000. At this rate, the bond liability will be in the neighborhood of $30 per acre.
“An adverse decision at the polls will be the death of the district.”
The struggle to control water rights in the arid Horse Heaven Hills was one of the most critical civic fights in early Kennewick. The scale of the proposed investment ($15 million in 1916) illustrates the immense pressure on the land and the early corporate attempts to dictate regional water access.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.