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76 (continued)
The Peak of Prosperity 1906-1916
In 1905 the snow pack was heavy and provided a great amount of surface moisture in the spring of 1906. This
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encouraged Cliffton ham and Archie Tucker to start planting orchards northeast of town. The soil in this area had a high gravel content and was suitable for fruit production. Water for irrigation was obtained from springs, ponds, and shallow wells. The trees were planted in a definite pattern, with soft fruits, such as peaches, cherries, and plums, alternating with apples and pears. By 1910, these two men had over 300 acres of orchard in production. The Ham orchard contained 200 acres of trees and the Tucker orchard, 100 acres. Both operations had packing sheds located on the home places and near the railroad depot. Peak employment reached 200 workers in the harvest season. In 1910, 90 railroad car loads of peaches, pears, and apples were shipped to points east. Shortly after this time the Ham orchard was listed as the largest D'Anjou pear producing orchard in Washington. 36
From 1900 to 1909, Coulee City became a major wheat shipping port of the Big Bend. Over a million bushels of wheat were shipped by railroad in 1909. This business suffered a setback when the Great Northern completed a branch line to Waterville in November of 1909. 37 This tied the western part of the Big Bend closer to Wenatchee and took this area away from the direct influence of Coulee City and Spokane.
In July of 1910 the Connell Northern Branch of the Northern Pacific was completed from Coulee City to Connell. This event placed Coulee City on a main line railroad and some
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36 Interview with L. E. Jeffers, June, 1968.
37 Wenatchee Daily World, November 11, 1909, p. 1.
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progress in rail freight was realized with two trains a day. 38 In the same year, the Sunset Highway was opened from Spokane across the Big Bend, and people saw automobiles traveling the route occasionally. This road later became a part of U. S. Highway 2. See Appendix B for highways and railroads in Grant County.
Crops evidently remained generally good from the period 1910 until 1916. Yields were high for the times and averaged from 15 to 20 bushels per acre. Prices ranged upward from 70 cents per bushel for wheat, and a little higher for oats and barley. Farming expenses were not high and people made money. This encouraged them to expand and modernize their farming and living conditions. Many new houses were built in town and in the country from 1912 to 1916. This provided employment for tradesmen and business for the merchants in town.
Employment opportunity was generally good during this period, as work could be found in construction, railroading, and on the farm. It was not uncommon for men to work 60 days in the wheat harvest if they got on the right threshing crew. The change in farming methods created a new business--that of raising horses and mules for draft animals. The vast herds of half-wild horses that roamed Grant County had been rounded up and destroyed or shipped out of the country in 1906. At that time they were a nuisance to the homesteader, but by 1912, there was a shortage of work animals.
By 1916, farming methods had come a long way from the time a man cleared the land of sagebrush with a grub hoe and ax
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38 Harris, p. 3.
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before planting a small plot of grain. The early harvests were usually completed with a minimum of machinery. The grain was cut with a cradle scythe, bound in bundles, and threshed by using livestock and the wind. 39 By 1906, binders, headers, and threshing machines were in use. A few horse push or pull combines appeared after 1910, but generally the grain was separated by stationary machines. After the grain was sacked, it was stacked in the field, covered with straw, and then hauled to town by four and six horse team wagons. Sleds were used on the winter snow. Bulk grain shipment was on a very small scale in 1910.
Not all the farm land was planted to grain; much had to be used for pasturage and hay for the large number of horses and mules that were required to power the farm machinery. The average farmer had about 30 head of draft animals; however, some farmers had 60 head or more. Thus, a surplus of grain did not flood the market until tractors replaced horsepower and more land could be put into crops. There were few weeds to fight in the field before 1905. 40
Various types of spring wheat were grown, but the most popular variety was Blue Stem this wheat usually brought the highest price on the market. In the period from 1900 to 1925, prices received for a bushel of wheat fluctuated from 41 cents in 1900 to $2 in 1917. By 1923, the price had dropped to 82 cents per bushel. The year 1916 was the best year for all around farm prices: wheat brought $1.43; eggs, 35 cents per dozen;
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39 Lewis, p. 24.
40 Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Everett Rice, June, 1968.
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and butter, 30 cents per pound. 41 Big crops raised in 1916 produced 26 bushels per acre.
In 1923, a local farm labor headquarters was established in Coulee City under the direction of B. R. Lindley. The following scale of pay per day included board: haying, @2.50; spike pitchers and stackers, $3.50 to $4.50; header punchers, $5.00; and header tenders, $4.00 to $5.00. 42 Tractors and self propelled machines did not replace man and horse power until the 1930's. Tractors were available before this time, but no one had money to buy them until the late 1930's.
Era of Drought and Depression
A decline of prosperity began in 1917 when the Big Bend experienced the start of a seven-year drought that lasted until 1924. Rainfall dropped from eight to five inches per year and was not adequate for grain production. The orchards did not have water for irrigation, and court battles began over water rights. Crop production dropped from 20 bushels per acre to 3. It was during this period that a farmer living near Wilson Creek harvested 321 acres of wheat and received a yield of 79 sacks. 43 Another farmer north of Coulee City harvested 400 acres of wheat and received 375 sacks. 44
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41 Coulee City Dispatch, August 25, 1916, pp. 2-3.
42 Ibid., July 20, 1923, p. 3.
43 C. A. Hawley, "Grant County," The Book of Counties: Washington State Assoc. of County Commissioners (1953), pp. 44-52.
44 Interview with Tress Davis, July, 1968.
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Fig. 14.--Harvest Scenes in the Big Bend
A threshing machine and crew at work in the fields northwest of Coulee City sometime after 1910.
A load of wheat coming into Coulee City.
A picture of one of the earliest combines in the area. This is a ground-driven push type combine.
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People began to leave the Big Bend as disaster befell the land. Hundreds of families were forced to abandon their rural homes and to leave the country. They were starved out, and left the land to the wind, coyote, jackrabbit, rattlesnake, and tumble weeds. Schoolhouses became deserted, along with the country villages. Of the 100 school districts in Grant County in 1909, at least two-thirds went out of existence between 1915 and 1930. 45 Note Appendix C for the decline in number of farms.
Business fared no better. Before the depression and the long drought ended, business in all lines had practically ceased. The bank in Coulee City was forced to close its doors in 1921, along with all the other banks in Grant and Douglas Counties except the bank at Krupp (Marlin). Financial trouble is evident in 1916 when the following notice appeared in the Coulee City Dispatch: "Six big business concerns will discontinued the sale of goods on credit and sell for cash only, resulting in savings for the farmer." 46 People had over-extended themselves in the period of prosperity from 1906-1916. Now they were in mortgage trouble.
A few people stayed on the land because they had no place to go. They were afraid to move to a new area because it might offer worse conditions than they had here. Those that stayed traded their work horses for milk cows, raised chickens, and sold eggs, butter, and cream. Milk cows became the banks
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45 Hawley, p. 51.
46 Coulee City Dispatch, June 2, 1916, pp. 1-2.
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and saved some of the land for the farmer. 47 By 1925, 80 percent of the land in Douglas County went back for taxes. Chris Jorgensen bought 320 acres of land west of Coulee City for $7,000. He lost the land for taxes in the 1920's and then bought it back again in 1930 for $700. 48
In 1918, the flu epidemic hit the area and a number of deaths resulted. Small children and old people were the hardest hit. Sheriff's sales of real estate and property began in the same year and auction sales followed. As the land dried up, the winds created dust storms in 1921. Fertile top soil was blown off the fields and deposited in the fence rows. There did not appear to be any relief in sight.
The Bureau of Reclamation had announced in 1903 that the soil of the Columbia Basin was suitable for irrigation. 49 In 1914, a measure was prepared which called for a bond issue of $40,000,000 for the construction of an irrigation project to bring water from Lake Wenatchee by canal and syphon to irrigate the Quincy Valley. However, when submitted to the voters as a referendum measure in the general election of 1914, it was defeated by nearly a two-to 0ne majority. 50
In mid-July, 1918, Rufus Woods, publisher of the Wenatchee Daily World, held a conference in Ephrata with Gale Mathews and William Clapp. At this time Clapp proposed the building of
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47 Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Everett Rice, June, 1968.
48 Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Chris Jorgensen, July, 1968.
49 Richard L. Newberger, Our Promised Land (New York: the Macmillan Co., 1930), p. 79.
50 Wenatchee Daily World Magazine Supplement, March 6, 1967, "Flowing Wealth," by Bruce Mitchell, p. 24.
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a dam across the Columbia at the head of the Grand Coulee, then diverting water down the Coulee to the basin for irrigation. Shortly afterwards Woods published a story that was to become memorable in the history of the Columbia Basin Project.
The last, the newest, the most ambitious idea in the way of reclamation and the development of water power ever formulated is now in process of development. The idea contemplates turning the Columbia River back into its old bed in Grand Coulee, by the construction of a giant dam, the reclamation of between one and two million acres of land in Grant, Adams and Franklin counties and the development of a water power approximating Niagara Falls. 51Other plans and surveys were made along with much political activity before the construction of Grand Coulee Dam began in the early 1930's. One of the most famous surveys conducted was made by General George Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal. Goethals toured the dam site in February, 1922, and his report on the feasibility of the project was negative. On the way to the dam site, Goethals stayed at the Thompson Hotel in Coulee City, and was not impressed with the town or the Grand Coulee. 52
The Coulee City Commercial Club (Chamber of Commerce) began working for appropriations for the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in 1920. One of the leading promoters of the project was Frank McCann. McCann had come to the Big Bend in 1883 and, after working at various local and county government jobs, he ran a general merchandise store for many years in Coulee City. He spent a great deal of time writing articles and giving lectures about the area. McCann was a amateur geologist and he
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51 Wenatchee Daily World, July 18, 1918, p. 7.
52 Ibid., October 1, 1958, p. 29.
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was instrumental in bringing Professor Davis of Harvard and a party of eminent geologists to survey the Dry Falls in 1912. We are indebted to him for numerous accounts he wrote for newspapers regarding the Indians, trails, and geology of the region. He was a one-man chamber of commerce, who promoted the early tourist sight-seeing trips to the region and the establishment of Dry Falls State Park.
In 1924, there was adequate moisture to raise crops producing up to 17 bushels per acre, but the price of wheat took a drop before the farmers got their crops to market. The drought came to and and but the depression continued for the people in the Big Bend. By 1932, the price of wheat had fallen to 20 cents a bushel. 53
Drought and depression had wrought ruin as complete as usually results from war, pestilence, and famine. The tough ones stuck it out and hoped for better times. They refused to recognize or be discouraged by these adverse conditions. This is best illustrated by the following incident:
In the days of the battle to build Grand Coulee Dam a speaker from the East was talking to a group of Grant County residents. "You fellows might as well forget your project," the speaker said gloomily. "There is not a chance in the world you could ever get the money appropriated. After all, there is a Depression going on!"____________
"What's a Depression?" asked a settler in the crowd.
"Why" answered the speaker a little testily, "That's when a lot of people are out of work, the prices of farm products are way down, and nobody has any money."
"Heck" answered the old settler, "We've had that kind of times for the last 40 years and it hasn't stopped us. Let's go ahead and build Grand Coulee Dam." 54
53 Interview with Harold Jensen, April, 1968.
54 Back Through the Pages of History, Silver Anniversary Bulletin of the Grant County Public Utility District, 1967, p. 4.
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(pages 81-2 are fig. 14, above)
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