The Rapid Rise of Ainsworth
A town that was nothing but sagebrush and coyotes four years ago is now a railroad terminus and a contender for the future state capital.
From being one of the most barren, unsightly, wretched places on the continent of America, the site of the town of Ainsworth gives promise at an early day of becoming that occupied by one of the leading and one of the best towns in the Territory. It has taken several long steps forward of late, one being to get itself into acknowledged prominence as a candidate for future State capital honors, a second being the making of that place the eastern terminus of the Cascades division of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Four years ago there was here but a wild waste of sand and sagebrush, inhabited solely by the coyote and an occasional Siwash. Now it is a town of 700 to 800 people, with every branch of business well represented.
“Four years ago there was here but a wild waste of sand and sagebrush, inhabited solely by the coyote and an occasional Siwash.”
Ainsworth (now a ghost town near Pasco) represents the classic boom-and-bust cycle of 19th-century railway town promotion. Its swift rise and disappearance into the desert mirrors how speculative geography shaped the early maps of Washington.
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