Part 27

Aside from having a long salt-water coast, open to traffic from the ocean, with splendid harbors, the county is traversed in all its agricultural half by a network of railroads, by the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, B. B. and B. C. railroads. These furnish exceptional means of traffic to all industries excepting the mining. The county has also an admirable system of wagon roads, some planked, some graveled and some graded and drained, covering about 700 miles.

PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS.

BELLINGHAM, on a salt-water bay of the same name, is the county seat, and commercial metropolis not only for this county but much other territory. It has a population of about 40,000 people. Into it all the railroads center, while the harbor is one of the best in Washington. It is largely a manufacturing town, having plants for the production of sash, doors, columns, tin cans, boilers, engines, flour and feed, canned fish, condensed milk, and many others. It is a substantial, live business community of wide-awake people, and growing rapidly. It has a gravity water system, electric lights, and gas plant.

BLAINE is a city of about 3,000 inhabitants, situated close to the Canadian line and on the Great Northern railway. Timber and lumber manufactures are the chief sources of its prosperity. Fishing and the canning of salmon are also important industries. The railroad [Page 89] company has recently expended considerable sums in improving its facilities. Blaine is a growing community.

SUMAS, on the Canadian border, is a lumbering town of 1,100 people.

LYNDEN is an agricultural center of 1,200 citizens.

FERNDALE is a lumber center of 1,000 people. Besides, there are a dozen smaller business centers in the county, growing and prosperous.

WHITMAN COUNTY

Whitman county is one of the chief agricultural counties of the state, lying immediately south of Spokane county and on the Idaho state line, having the Snake river for its southern boundary. The county is a plateau of rolling prairie lands, a large portion of which is farmed, watered by a number of streams, which are utilized for irrigation purposes in some of the bottom lands--although the rainfall is sufficient to mature crops, and no irrigation is had on the great bulk of the farms. The area is about 2,000 square miles. The population is about 40,000. The soil is a strong mixture of volcanic ash and clay of great fertility and permanence. Twenty years of wheat-growing still leaves the soil able to produce from 25 to 50 bushels per acre.

RESOURCES.

All the resources of the county originate in this splendid soil. For growing all the cereals and fruits and vegetables it has no superior. The county is well settled, and probably no county can excel Whitman county in the per capita wealth of its farmers. The products of the county are varied, and include wheat, oats, barley and hay, all giving splendid yields--wheat from 30 to 50 bushels, oats 60 to 100 bushels, barley from 50 to 80 bushels, and hay from 4 to 6 tons per acre. Potatoes, sugar beets and other vegetables produce fine crops.

The hardier fruits, such as apples, pears, plums and cherries, are successfully raised in all parts of the county, while on the bottom lands, along the Snake river, peaches, melons, etc., are produced in abundance. Seventy-five carloads of fruit go out annually from one orchard.

Wheat gives up five and one-half million bushels to the farmers each year. Oats one and three-fourths million and barley about one-half million bushels. Whitman county has more banks than any county in eastern Washington besides Spokane.

TRANSPORTATION.

Whitman county is as well, or better, provided with railroads than any agricultural county in the state. The Northern Pacific, O. R. & N., Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the S. & I. railroads are all interlaced about its grain-fields. These all connect with Spokane, and give access to all eastern and western markets.

COLFAX, the county seat, situated near the center of the county, on the railroads and Palouse river, is the largest town in the county, with about 3,600 population. The town owns its own water system, has electric lights, fine court-house, banks, mills, warehouses, etc.

PULLMAN is a town of 3,000 people, near which is located the Washington State College, a large educational institution supported by the state, having about 1,000 students. It is an important grain-shipping point. It has a public water system, electric lights, and is a thriving and growing commercial center.

PALOUSE is a railroad center of 2,500 people, a large shipping point for grain, live stock, fruits and pottery.

OAKESDALE is a town of 1,500 people, having three railroads, and is an important shipping point.

TEKOA has a population of about 1,400, is a railroad center, and is a large shipper of fruits and grain.

GARFIELD has a population of 1,000, and ships much grain and other produce.

ROSALIA has 1,000 population, and is an important grain center.

This county has a dozen other shipping points where from 300 to 700 people are supported by the business originating on the tributary farms.

YAKIMA COUNTY

Yakima county is one of the large and important counties in the state, having the Yakima Indian reservation included within its boundaries. Its area is 3,222 square miles and it has a population of about 38,000. It is watered by the Yakima river and its tributaries, and through its valleys the railroads from the east find their easiest grade toward the Cascade passes. It is a county of level valleys and plateaus, having a soil made up chiefly of volcanic ash and disintegrated basaltic rocks, of great depth, which yields fabulously in cereal and grass crops, fruits and vegetables with the magic touch of irrigation. Artificial watering is 30 years old in this valley, and yet only a very small area was thus treated until the matter was taken up by the national government. But now vast areas are being provided with water, and the consequent growth and development of the county is wonderful.

A series of lakes in the mountains are being utilized as reservoirs, and from these lakes the waters are being distributed in many directions in the large irrigating canals. When the projects now under way are completed, more than 200,000 acres will be under ditches.

RESOURCES.

Yakima's wealth consists in the combination of its soil and water and climate. The county, lying east of the Cascade mountains, in [Page 91] large part at a low elevation, receives somewhat severe heat in the summer, which gives the opportunity successfully to ripen the less hardy fruits--peaches, apricots, grapes, etc. The county has half a million bearing trees and two and one-half million young trees growing in its orchards.