The Struggle for Water in the High Desert
While Washington’s coastal regions flourished, homesteaders in the arid eastern interior were driven to desperation by the failure of deep-well drilling in Douglas County.
In Douglas County, newly organized from Spokane County, the soil is a sandy loam, well-adapted to agriculture and cattle raising. However, the largest body of unbroken prairie land in the Territory would undoubtedly be settled more rapidly were it not for the scarcity of water. Settlers have thus far been unable to obtain water on the largest portion of the prairie, owing to their limited means of sinking wells. Many have been sunk from 60 to 100 feet, failing to get water. One well was sunk 250 feet with the same result. The people desire that Congress make an appropriation to be applied in sinking one or two artesian wells on this prairie, thereby testing the question whether or not water can be obtained. If this experiment should be successfully made, thousands of acres of the finest soil in the world would be cultivated, and many immigrants who are now turning away on account of the scarcity of water would find homes here, and sales of land by the Government to actual settlers would, in a very short time, return into the National Treasury a far greater amount of money than need be thus appropriated.
“Many have been sunk from 60 to 100 feet, failing to get water. One well was sunk 250 feet with the same result.”
The 1880s dream of 'making the desert bloom' through federal intervention echoes today's debates over water rights, irrigation, and the sustainability of farming in drought-prone regions of Eastern Washington, where the promise of infrastructure still shapes the viability of rural communities.
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