Topic: Agriculture
In Washington, a national leader in both farm production and international trade, agricultural exports played a key role in development from the early years of non-Indian settlement. As steamboats car...
Washington's soils and climate make it one of the most productive agricultural states in the union. When explorers and fur traders from the East Coast and Europe reached the Northwest in the late 1700...
At the turn of the twentieth century, Washington farmers and ranchers realized they still had much to learn about the land. Washington State College (later University) in Pullman became the center of ...
The U.S. government officially recognizes more than 250 wine-growing regions, known as American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). Twenty of those AVAs are located partially or entirely within Washington...
Joy Andersen had no idea that a career in the wine industry was awaiting her as she completed her chemistry degree at the University of Washington. It wasn’t until she started her first job at C...
For nearly a century, Washington has been the nation's leading apple-growing state. Washington's apple story began in the 1820s, when the first apple seeds were planted at Fort Vancouver. Early farmer...
Associated Vintners (AV) was a Seattle winemaking firm formed primarily by a group of University of Washington faculty members. Its backstory is perhaps the classic local instance of home garage-based...
Joseph Koch (1920-2000) was a longtime resident of Auburn, a small town located in south King County only a few miles from the Pierce County border. From the time of his retirement in 1962, Joe was on...
Beef cattle have been an economic driver in Washington's agricultural history since the first cattle arrived by ship with Spanish explorers, likely in 1780. Production soared with the rush of gold min...
The following short essay was written in 1934 by Bellevue native Patricia Groves Sandbo (b. 1916), a freshman at Seattle Pacific College, for her English II Class. She received an "A" for her story th...
Benton City is a small municipality of some 3,000 residents on the north bank of the Yakima River near the center of Benton County in the Columbia Basin region of southeastern Washington. A hunting an...
Berries have long been woven into the fabric of Washington food ways and agriculture. Before and after European settlement, Native tribespeople gathered wild berries, a significant part of their food ...
Bob Betz (b. 1948) is a leader and pioneer in the Washington wine industry. After growing up in Seattle, he took several trips to Europe and fell in love with the culture of winemaking. He abandoned h...
Located where the Nisqually River empties into southern Puget Sound on the Pierce-Thurston county border, the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge protects the river's estuary, providing...
In 1851, oysters from Shoalwater (later Willapa) Bay start feeding San Francisco. The oyster business will flourish in the bay until the 1880s and will be an important cause of settlement in the area.
On September 16, 1851, Luther M. Collins (1813-1860), Henry Van Asselt (1817-1902), and Jacob Maple (or Mapel) (1798-1884) and his son Samuel Maple (1827-1880) select the first Donation Land claims wi...
In 1852, Catholic Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Father Charles Pandosy and Father Eugene Casmire Chirouse (1821-1892), in company with Yakama people, labor with shovels to dig the first irriga...
In 1859, cattleman Ben Snipes (1835-1906) constructs a small cabin in the Yakima Valley. The structure is the first cabin in the region to be built by a white person.
In 1859, cowboy Ben Snipes (1835-1906) drives his first herd of cattle north from the Columbia River through Washington Territory to the gold mining camps along the Fraser River in British Columbia. S...
In 1863, Michael H. Sullivan (1840?-1912) and Samuel Calhoun build the first dike in Skagit County. They prove that the treeless flats between the Sullivan and Swinomish sloughs, once thought useless ...
In March 1865, pioneer Ezra Meeker (1830-1928) plants hop vine cuttings on his farm in the Puyallup Valley. The plants flourish and Meeker continues to expand his plantings over the years. By the earl...
In May 1865, Sylvester M. Wait (d. 1891) begins operating a flour mill in the midst of farmland clustered around the convergence of the Touchet River and Coppei Creek in Walla Walla County. The previo...
In 1869, the Charles Schanno family plants the first known grapevines in the Yakima Valley on their farm near Union Gap. Finding the climate ideal for wine grape production, other settlers follow suit...
In December 1869, M. S. Booth drives 200 head of cattle across Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle.
On February 23, 1870, Seymour Wetmore arrives in Seattle and announces that he captured a large cougar on his farm near Lake Washington. The animal was killing sheep in the area and a trap was devised...
On October 22, 1870, it is reported that during the previous year more than 1,200 head of cattle were driven from Yakima Valley to Puget Sound. Most if not all of the cattle went over Snoqualmie Pass.
In the summer of 1871, William Moore (1833-1913) and other farmers commission work to begin building a major portion of a three-mile dike from Stanwood (northeastern Snohomish County) north toward Mil...
In 1872 (some sources state 1869) Charles Carpenter brings hop root cuttings to the Yakima Valley and grows them on his homestead at Ahtanum near Moxee. The climate and soil prove perfect for the crop...