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Unless one employs an experienced expert he will be scarcely able to find any suitable government land in Douglas county at the present writing. The best lands have all been taken. What are known as the "gravelly flats" extend from Hartline to Coulee City. They lie, practically to the north and south, but extend only a short distance. But there are rich surroundings in the vicinity of Wilsoncreek, and beyond Coulee City, westward, toward Waterville, are some of the most valuable and productive farms in the county. The chief city is Waterville, the county seat; miles away from any railroad as yet, but still a bustling, busy, metropolitan town of which much more is said in another chapter. A singularly wrong impression has been gained of the fertility of this section of the country by travelers. Riding from Coulee City to Waterville in a stage, unless the season be winter, one is enveloped in a cloud of dust. It can only be equalled in the vicinity of Pasco, Franklin county. But this dust is a money maker. It is simply volcanic ash. Scoria; and just off the stage line in the quiet fields it is growing stupendous crops of wheat, oats and barley, and the finest specimens of kitchen garden products, prize takers at county fairs. The snows of winter supply the place of summer and spring rains. Yet this spring (1904) there has been plenty of precipitation; a spring unusual for the quantity of moisture. To you the people of Douglas county will explain that the nature of the soil and the closeness of the lava bed rock to the surface makes the lack of rain by no means detrimental to the making of a crop. They will tell you, also, that at all times, even in the driest, when for months not a drop of water has fallen, moisture is found only a few inches from the surface. The crops themselves bear witness to the truth of their assertions.
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Well water may be obtained at a depth of from ten to fifty feet. At times the drilling is hard, and the "shots" of giant powder dropped in the cavity may not always produce the desired result; but patience will invariably reward the farmer who really wants a well. Therefore it need not surprise the traveler through Douglas county to see so many residences pitched in the valleys instead of on the highlands; in these locations water is more accessible.
Douglas county is situated in the central portion of the state; is 120 by 60 miles in area, and constitutes an important section of what is recognized as the Big Bend country. It is penetrated by the Central Washington railway to Coulee City, nineteen miles, 2,640 feet; traveled by the Great Northern road 72 miles, 686 feet, and the "Adrian Cut-off," from Coulee City to Adrian, about 22 miles.
Of the famous alkali lakes of Douglas county the report of the Washington Geological survey says:
The alkali lakes of the state are neither numerous nor large. Among the largest are Moses Lake, Blue Lake and Sanitarium, or Soap Lake. These, together with numerous temporary ponds and a chain of fresh water lakes occupy the former bed of the Columbia—the Grand Coulee.
Moses Lake, which lies about twelve miles southeast of Ephrata, on the Great Northern railway, is about eighteen miles long and a mile wide. It is very shallow. The average depth is, approximately, twenty feet. It lies in a shallow basin with low banks, so that a rise of but a few feet would inundate a large section of country. The water is unfit for drinking purposes, but is not strongly alkaline and could probably be used in irrigation. The section of country in which these lakes are located is, of course, very dry and supports only a scanty vegetation. Where there is water, however, the soil is very fertile. The lake drains a large area through upper Crab Creek. It has no outlet, but across its foot lies a low range of sand hills through which the water seeps into the sources of lower Crab Creek, which occupies the bed of the canyon below. Along this canyon lie numerous shallow ponds which dry up in summer. The deposits left by these are not of any considerable value, though they contain an appreciable quantity of borax. An interesting feature of Moses Lake is the fact that it is gradually rising, having risen about ten feet in the last seven years. If it continues to rise a few more feet it will break through a clear course into lower Crab Creek and empty into the Columbia. The analysis of the water of Moses Lake, by H. G. Knight, is as follows:
The following is from the Wenatchee Advance:
Parties who have recently arrived from Moses Lake and the lower Crab Creek country tell a sad tale in regard to the ruination of valuable ranches on lower Crab Creek caused by the washing out of the natural land dyke at the foot of Moses Lake. The water cut a channel through the sand dunes as wide as the Wenatchee river and washed tons and tons of sand down over valuable alfalfa lands virtually ruining them. The lake is twelve feet lower than ever before known and is dry for miles down from the head, and if the channel is cut deep enough the lake is very likely to go completely dry.
There is a tradition among the Indians to the effect that years and years ago there was no Moses Lake—only a creek—but two or three dry seasons intervened in succession and the creek went almost dry. Then the wind blew a
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terrific gale for months and drifted the sand back and forth until it had completely filled the creek bed and threw up a dam twenty feet high and miles and miles in length at the lower end. When the water came again in the spring the space filled up and made the present Moses Lake. This is the Indian explanation of the matter, and it looks reasonable, for there are pot holes and sand dunes at the lower end of the lake which are continually shifting as the winds will it. It is through these dunes that the waters of the lake have cut a channel and washed a great mass of sand down on the beautiful ranches that are located below.
More interesting is the so-called Soap, or Sanitarium Lake, situated about six miles north of Ephrata. This lake is so called because it is so strongly alkaline as to be soapy to the touch, and when a strong wind blows across it the water along the shore is beaten into great rolls of foam. Fish cannot live in the water, nor is there any vegetation in this as in Moses Lake. The water is used for bathing, but to those unaccustomed to its use the water has a slightly caustic or irritating effect. It is also claimed that it is useful medicinally. There is much of peculiar interest about the lake. It is about two and a quarter by three-quarters miles in extent, is very deep in places, and probably averages about forty feet. It drains only a very small area of country and has neither inlet or outlet, in the form of streams. It is located in a deep basin walled to the height of
l00 feet or more on the east and west by cliffs of black basalt. The land to the north and south rises slowly; on the south to nearly the height of the cliffs, but on the north the rise is so slight that should the lake rise fifteen feet it would empty into the next of the chain of lakes to the north. The source of the water of the lake is said to be a spring in the center. Indians of the neighborhood assert that only a few years since the lake was very small and was fed by this strong alkaline spring. Fresh water is, however, continually seeping in from the shores, as is shown by the fact that fresh water wells may be sunk even but a few feet from the shore, and that the cattle disliking the strong alkaline water face the shore to obtain the sweeter seepage. The water of the lake contains calcareous matter to such an extent that the stones and debris at the bottom are encrusted with a frost-like coating of calcium carbonate. An analysis of the water is as follows:
Of this singular lake the
Ellensburg Localizer said :
There is a lake about one mile wide by two miles long some distance from the borax beds in Douglas county, which has been a great resort for the Indians when afflicted with eruptions of any kind. It is reported to be very efficacious is curing all cutaneous diseases and even syphilitic disorders. It is called by the Indians 'Big Pe Lake.' The water has a yellowish tinge, but is very clear. A person can see to the bottom of it where it is thirty feet deep. There is something peculiar about it; the surface reflects images equal to a mirror, and magnifies objects many fold. It will magnify a child to the proportions of a giant. Our informant says: 'The hand or foot reflected
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from the lake's surface is magnified most astonishingly. This lake has been used by the Indians from time immemorial, and is still utilized for the purposes named. There is no doubt that on account of its healing properties it will be taken up and some day become a great watering place, eclipsing the famous Medical Lake, in Spokane county.'
In April, 1903, the big span of the Rock Island bridge across the Columbia, on the Great Northern railway, was swung into place. Serious difficulty was encountered in throwing this span across 416 feet of space between the arches. It was impossible to build false work, as at that point the river is from eighty to one hundred feet deep. It courses through under the bridge like a mill race. It was, to the engineers, a new problem. General Manager Mitchell, of the Great Northern Company, solved it by an intricate system of ties and counter balances which enabled the builders to carry the bridge out from each beam 208 feet without support, meeting in the center, a feat never before attempted, and which is considered a triumph of engineering skill.
In the spring of 1901 preparations were made for sinking oil wells in Douglas county. The sites where valuable fields were supposed to exist were near Central Ferry, across the Columbia river, and on the Douglas county side. A company known as the Wenatchee Oil & Coal Company was organized with the following officers: C. C. Bireley, president; F. W. Mauser, secretary and treasurer; T. L. Brophly, superintendent, and George H. Walter, director and a heavy stockholder. The company secured a 25-years-lease of two quarter sections of land on which the oil discovery was made, and shipped in machinery for drilling wells. When oil indications were first discovered it appeared on the surface of the ground among the springs which here and there issue forth. Later, however, a cloud burst occurred just above the place which washed an immense gorge through the land where there indications appeared, revealing the geological formation to a depth of thirty or forty feet. The predominating rock is cretaceous sandstone, in folds of six to eight feet, lying one above the other. Where these springs issued forth the surface of the ground for some distance around was saturated with a greasy oil fluid. Oil experts, of course examined it, and it was largely upon their recommendation that capital became interested and the necessary machinery purchased to begin active operations. But so far there has been no result worthy of the first excitement occasioned by the early discoveries.
One of the peculiar attractions a new comer will notice in the northwestern portion of Douglas county is the frequency of what are termed "haystack rocks." Geological experts have explained their presence, as being meteors, having been deposited in prehistoric ages. In shape and size they are in the exact form of an ordinary haystack. Some of them are small, possibly four of five feet in diameter and the same in height. Others stand fully forty to sixty feet in height and about thirty feet in diameter at the base. They are usually oval or rounding until they gradually taper to a small, round top, exactly similar to a haystack. At a distance the eye is easily deceived. Some of them have been deposited in the best portions of the farming lands in the county, and splendid loam creeps up to their very base. Many stand alone like sentinels; in other localities some farms of 320 acres possess three or four of them.
With the exceptions of Grand and Moses Coulees the most conspicuous landmark in Douglas county is Badger Mountain, a long, rambling elevation extending from the Columbia river in a southeasterly direction, rising to an elevation of several hundred feet above the level of the surface of the country, the surrounding plain, and 4,000 feet above sea level. Not a great many years ago the west end of Badger Mountain was covered with a thick
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growth of pine timber. This was, in fact, the only body of timber in Douglas county, and without its presence the settlement of the western portion of the Big Bend would have been retarded for a number of years. This mountain forest supplied fuel, fencing and building material for miles around. It appeared as though a kind providence had provided this timber that the choice agricultural lands of the western Big Bend country might be developed. Today the western portion of Badger Mountain has only a straggling growth of scraggy timber, while the town of Waterville and the hundreds of farm residences which can be seen from the summit of the mountain show what has become of the once handsome growth of timber which was there.
Douglas county contains about 5,200 square miles, or four times the size of the whole state of Rhode Island. The states of Rhode Island and Delaware could both be placed in Douglas county and then there would be 700 square miles residue. It is as large as the state of Connecticut, and covers a stretch of country greater in extent than the distance between New York and Philadelphia.
In the earlier portion of this chapter we alluded to the phenomena of "crops without rain." The annual precipitation over the northern half of the Big Bend country or the plateau is between ten and fifteen inches. Over the most of this area it is nearly uniform and ranges from twelve to fourteen inches. That is, all the rain and melted snow of the year would, if preserved, make a layer of water from twelve to fourteen inches deep. Now, an annual rainfall of twelve to fourteen inches seems scanty to persons unacquainted with the country and it would be scanty in most localities, but in the Big Bend country there are some peculiarities which modify this feature and make it less felt—make it, in fact, sufficient. How it happens that this country, particularly Douglas county, with such slight precipitation, has become famous as the greatest wheat producing country in the United States is a most vitally interesting study, and the reason is not generally understood from a scientific viewpoint. We here produce excerpts from a speech delivered by Professor
Mark V. Harrington, in 1896, president of the Washington State University, at the second Douglas County Industrial Exposition held in Waterville, October 2, 1896, which fully explains the matter. Professor Harrington said:
This region lies in temperate and rather cool latitudes. It is in hot climates that the insufficiency of water is most felt. Spain has many enclosed basins something like this. They generally get more rain than you do here, but they lie from six to ten degrees further south and the plateaus are dry and arid. On the other hand the rainfall in Sweden is as little as here and in some places is less, but there is no trouble in Sweden in growing trees or raising crops in ordinary seasons. But this is from five to eight degrees further north than you are, the mean temperatures for the same elevation are lower, and the evaporation of moisture is consequently less.
The soil in this region is usually light and fine. These qualities make it, when dry and not protected by vegetation, powder easily under the wheels of heavy wagons, and it is easily lifted by the wind and may be carried long distances. It almost floats in the air. This lightness is not due to its being intrinsically lighter when powdered than when solid. A bushel of wheat weighs as much when ground as when entire in the grain and yet it may be ground so fine as to float is such quantities in the air as to make the latter semi-explosive. The fine soil which you have here is comminuted rock and has not lost any of its weight in being powdered. Its faculty of floating is due to this: Each solid particle has adhering to it a thin skin of air thinner and less adherent when the surface is polished, thicker and more tenacious when the body has a rough surface. This thin skin of air does not lessen the weight
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of a particle, but when the latter is minute and especially if it is rough, the adhering air forms a large part of the entire particle, and the two together have a greater bulk for the same weight and fall more slowly.
It is this layer of air which makes the fine soil useful in saving ground water. It retards the evaporation of moisture because the crevices between particles being filled with air, the heat is slower in penetrating and evaporation is slower. Again this very fineness facilitates the absorption of water, which falls upon the surface and this prevents running off. The water replaces air very readily and forms a surrounding envelope of its own. Capillary attraction which will hold water powerfully in a tube holds it as powerfully in a fine soil. The water is more easily taken up by such a soil and more firmly held when it is taken up. Capillary attraction yields only to evaporation and to seductive force of the tips of growing roots. These draw water more powerfully than does capillary attraction in the soil. The dust and fine soil of this region play other parts in its natural economy, both beneficial and harmful, but these belong to other questions than that now under discussion.
The precipitation of the Big Bend country is not distributed wastefully through the whole year, when it is not needed as well as when it is, as is the Case in eastern states. Nor does it fall chiefly when it is not wanted, at or after harvest as in some places, notably Florida. It falls here chiefly in two seasons, so convenient for the farmer that it could scarcely have been more so had he arranged it himself. The first precipitation season is the winter from November to February, inclusive. The precipitation is greatest in quantity at this season and descends as snow. It drifts but little, lies long and affords a long period of sleighing. In the spring it melts gradually, feeding the water slowly to the soil, which takes it up like a sponge, allowing very little to flow off. Meanwhile the snow covering in winter is a valuable feature. It protects the soil from sudden changes of temperature, defends young plants of winter crops, and tends to keep the temperature of air even, preventing the sudden changes of thawing and freezing, which are so injurious to plant life. This season of great precipitation corresponds to that of the adjacent Pacific coast.
The second season of precipitation is of about six weeks duration in late spring—in April and May. Between this and the preceding has been a period of several weeks free from rain, a time for the farmer to sow his crops and giving them a period of sunny weather to bring them up and prevent them from rotting in the ground. Then during the growing season are rains which feed the crops when they most need it. In this rainy season the Big Bend country shows its alliance to the Montana and Dakota region, where the rainy season is from April to June. Then follows a long, dry season for the harvesting of crops and the fall plowing. During the two precipitation seasons—a short six months—about three-quarters of the rain falls. This makes it as effective as a half more falling indifferently through the year, without counting the advantages of being sure of a dry harvest.
Located in the extreme northeast part of Douglas county," says a correspondent of the
Big Bend Empire, writing in May, 1896, "and bordering on the Colville reservation is a section of country which, though not widely known, is one of the most fertile regions of the Big Bend. This is the 'Little Bend.' Here the Columbia river runs from the mouth of the Grand Coulee almost north for twelve miles. Coming around to within a distance of fifteen miles of the coulee walls, then widening out in that sweep which borders the Big Bend proper. Across this narrow northeastern peak is the wagon road running from Wilbur to the Okanogan mines. There the settler has the choice of locating in any altitude desired between the Columbia river and the high, rolling prairie
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land as this part is formed of benches extending from the river to the high lands. Should the wayfaring home seeker conclude he did not want to go into farming wheat and hardy products he has only to move a few benches down toward the river where he has a location especially adapted to the culture of fruit and berries equal in every respect to the golden state of California. On these benches may be seen springs of pure, clear water gushing out of the hillsides, and immediately below, caused by this moisture, are beautiful groves of birch and balm to greet the stockman on a summer day while riding among his herds. This is the ideal bunch grass region of the Big Bend, owing to the richness of soil and abundance of water.
That portion of Douglas county lying between Grand and Moses Coulees is known as the Highland country. The following descriptive matter of this section of the county is from the pen of J. Harry Noonan:
Lying at such an altitude as to overlook the greater part of Douglas county, the giant country of the Evergreen State, and much of the higher portions of Washington, as well as points in Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia, rests the beautiful Highland country, the home ideal of numbers of happy, enterprising and
self-sustaining tillers of the soil. This land ranges from 2,000 to 2,500 feet above the sea level and occupies that high ridgeway extending between Grand and Moses Coulees, occupying most of townships 22, 23, 24, and 25, range 26, the center of township 24, range 26, being about 16 miles from Coulee City and 20 miles from Ephrata on the Great Northern Railway. This country being highly elevated the crops are not subject to severe frosts like that of the lower lands, and the higher elevation insures us sufficient snow and rain during the year to saturate the ground, and being a brown clay soil and wonderfully adapted to the retention of moisture, good crops could be raised without a drop of water from May until August.
The idea of building a tramway from the plateau west of Waterville to the Columbia river for the more economical transportation of wheat was conceived by A. L. Rogers, who worked hard to get the farmers interested in the enterprise. Later Mr. Rogers sold his interests to the Columbia River Tramway Company. The tramway was completed in November, 1902. It carries grain from the plateau to the Columbia river, and thus saves the hard hauls down the canyons to the shipping points from 2,000 to 2,500 feet below the level of the plateau.
In December, 1903, a writer in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said:
Douglas, one of the last counties in the state to receive settlement and its lands to be brought under cultivation, has made a very substantial and satisfactory growth during the year 1903, not only in population but in building improvements and in the general prosperity of its people. This is the county that only a few years ago contained but a few stockmen. According to the report of Assessor Will the population is a little over 12,000. Douglas has made the largest percentage of gain in population of any county in the state except Franklin, since 1900. Since then the gain is 5,794, or 116.8 per cent. The assessor's rolls show that there are 23,033 head of cattle, valued at $412,150, and 12,780 horses valued at $361,505, and a total increase for taxation of over $5,000,000 since last year. The county raised about 6,000,000 bushels of wheat this year, for which something like $3,600,000 will be paid.
Especially along the Great Northern railway is the growth of the county noticeable. The towns of Quincy, Ephrata, Wilsoncreek, Stratford, and Knipp have all made very substantial gains, while the land adjacent, which only a few years ago was called the Big Bend Desert, is being made to blossom and yield abundantly.
In October of the same year the
Douglas County Press, published at Waterville, said:
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A rapid transformation is being wrought in that section lying along the Great Northern railway. A few years ago land there was sold by E. F. Benson, then in the employment of the Northern Pacific land department, for a few cents per acre. While in Quincy we heard of a number of sections of the same land being sold at from $15 to $20 per acre. Messrs. Babcock, Blythe, Richardson, Urquhart and other stock men figured on this being a perpetual home for stock and good for nothing but range. Standing on an eminence this side of Quincy and Winchester as far as the vision can reach the shack of the homesteader dots the level plain. On driving through we found considerable breaking being done, orchards planted and the work going on to convert wheat from the sands of what was once known as the Big Bend desert. We can remember when the Ritzville country was said to be too dry for farming; money loaners would not go into the Horse Heaven nor Washtuchna sections as they were thought to be worthless. Ritzville today is one of the greatest wheat shipping points in the world. In the two latter sections land is now selling for from twenty to thirty dollars per acre.
At one time our own section of the Big Bend was considered arid. Now we prophesy that Quincy, Winchester, Ephrata, Adrian. Wilsoncreek, and in fact all the points along the railroad will yet be great shipping marts for wheat. All this is going to make Douglas a wealthy county. In a few years we believe that the territory now embraced in Douglas county will be sustaining a population one hundred times greater than at present. Water is now being found in great quantities at a depth of from 200 to 300 feet. There are now about a dozen good wells adjacent to Quincy and it is believed that artesian water will be found there. All through that section we found the settlers hopeful that Uncle Sam will carry out the proposed irrigation scheme and put that country under water. Should that be done this will be one of the most productive sections of the west. Where the stock men of a few years ago ruled supreme will be the fields of alfalfa and fruit—a few acres being sufficient for a living.
Frank M. Dallam, writing for the
Big Bend Empire under date November 30, 1S93, had this to say of southern Douglas county, which at that time was regarded by all as a sandy desert, worthless as farming land or for any other purposes:
The southern portion is flat and sandy, covered with sage brush and at present little better than a desert. Yet this sandy land that in its present condition is so uninviting will at some future day be dotted with valuable farms and orchards, providing homes for hundreds of people and adding very materially to the wealth of the state. It has been fully demonstrated in isolated spots, where water for irrigation could be secured, that the soil is prodigally productive, and fruits and vegetables raised that cannot be surpassed in size and flavor anywhere. It is a thousand or more feet lower than the northern division of the county, the climate is much more temperate and the summer longer. It is especially adapted to the growth of both large and small fruits. All that is needed is water and some day the requisite capital will be forthcoming to sink artesian wells and secure water to reclaim this Sahara.
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