Thanks, Portland — Kennewick Already Has a Harbor
When the Portland Oregon Journal offered free wharf plans to upper Columbia towns, Kennewick's editor declined with civic pride: the Port of Kennewick already had a port engineer, a plan and the best wharf on the river.
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.
The Portland, Oregon, Journal last Sunday announced that it was ready to assist upper Columbia towns to provide water terminal facilities. It makes two offers as follows:
"It will provide any upper Columbia community with plans for wharves, these plans to be expertly prepared and carefully adapted to the local needs and situations of the communities applying.
"It will advise upper river communities as to their legal rights and standing in respect to the acquiring of frontage and the use of the foreshore.
"Plans and counsel will be furnished free of all charge."
Certainly the Journal is to be congratulated for the enterprise it has shown in making this offer. Not only should the offer be respectfully received, but it should be readily accepted by every up-river town which has not taken steps to provide water shipping facilities.
On behalf of the citizens of Kennewick this paper wishes to extend to the Journal the community's thanks and to decline the offer for the reason that those things which the Journal urges the up-river towns to do, this city has already done. It is a coincidence that at almost the very hour when the Portland newspaper's offer was being typed, Paul P. Whitham, one of the Northwest's best port engineers, was turning in to the commissioners of the Port of Kennewick plans and specifications for a harbor and wharves which will meet all the demands of river traffic when the community's hundreds have grown to thousands or even tens of thousands. In other words, Kennewick is today in the very position which the Journal says every live, wide-awake, enterprising river town should be. We are not "will be," we are there.
Kennewick reached out and secured control of its tide lands several years ago when it made application to the state commissioner and secured a survey of its water front. It went even further in that, through the state commissioner, it had platted to the public the most desirable frontages inside the high water line. Two years ago the community equipped itself with the necessary machinery for development when it created the Port of Kennewick, and it is now in possession of a complete and comprehensive plan of improvement, so formulated as to be built in units to meet existing needs.
Kennewick not only already has the best wharf on the upper Columbia, but it is prepared to meet the demands of the future. It is just a little ahead of the procession.
“We are not "will be," we are there.”
Kennewick's 1916 boast that it was "ahead of the procession" on waterfront planning rhymes with every modern port-and-waterfront redevelopment fight. The editorial shows how public control of tide lands and a port commission became a civic identity — and how towns still compete to be the one that is ready before the opportunity arrives.
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