Columbia County Ate Its Last Local Steak
After three years of trainloads shipped out, Dayton's butcher shops ran dry and the town had to import beef from the East.
People generally had no idea when they saw trainload after trainload of beef and stock cattle going out of Columbia County, Wash., as has been the case during the past three years, that the local supply would ever be exhausted. But that is the situation today. There is no beef stock left in the county. One butcher shop has had to close in consequence, and the remaining shop has a supply sufficient to last only a short time. Within a few days Dayton will be compelled to ship beef in from the Eastern market.
“There is no beef stock left in the county.”
The item captures a familiar rural tension: local resources are exported until the home market is left short. Dayton's 19th-century beef shortage rhymes with modern debates over food-system resilience and whether communities can keep what they produce.
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