First irrigation ditch in the Yakima Valley is dug at the Saint Joseph Mission in 1852.

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In 1852, Catholic Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Father Charles Pandosy and Father Eugene Casmire Chirouse (1821-1892), in company with Yakama tribes people, labor with shovels to dig the first irrigation ditch in the Yakima Valley. In time irrigation will so transform the natural sagebrush desert (an ecology known as shrub-steppe) that the Yakima Valley will become known as the fruit bowl of the nation.

Fathers Pandosy and Chirouse arrived in the Yakima Valley in 1847. In 1852, at the invitation of Yakama Nation Chief Kamiakin (ca. 1800-1877), Father Pandosy and Father Louis Joseph D’herbomez built the Saint Joseph Mission on the banks of Ahtanum Creek, which flowed through Kamiakin’s summer camping grounds. Father Chirouse, stationed at Holy Cross Mission on the lower Ahtanum, was a frequent visitor.

Kamiakin, his people, and the missionaries were on very friendly terms. Kamiakin brought his children to the priests for baptism into the Catholic faith, and many Yakamas followed suit.

The Yakima Valley, naturally composed of dry grassland, was sufficiently fertile even with only the average eight inches of rainfall per year to feed the indigenous people without irrigation for centuries. The desert plants that grew there were harvested in such a manner that they would re-seed themselves without cultivation. The crops were primarily roots and berries.

White settlers, including the missionary priests, were quick to dismiss the natural balance of this arrangement. They saw in the rich, porous soil the potential for a much larger output than was possible with only rainfall.

The Fathers and the Yakamas planted a small garden and irrigated it with the Ahtanum Creek water that flowed through their canal. They grew wheat and corn, along with melons, potatoes, and pumpkins. Chief Kamiakin particularly enjoyed walking through this lush oasis in the midst of the familiar sagebrush.

The Yakama Indian War of 1855, however, put an end to this fledgling demonstration of the Yakima Valley’s farming potential. Both the missionaries and the Yakama fled the compound, which United States Army troops from Fort Vancouver burned to the ground.

Within two decades, first small and then much larger irrigation canals would be dug throughout the Yakima Valley, eventually irrigating 350,000 acres of orchards, vineyards, and farms.

Sources:
Jan Halliday and Gail Chehak, Native Peoples of the Northwest (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2000), 181; Paul Dorpat and Genevieve McCoy, Building Washington: A History of Washington State Public Works (Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1998), 227; Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander, Exploring Washington’s Past: A Road Guide To History, Revised Edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 142; Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Works Projects Administration in the State of Washington, with added material by Howard McKinley Corning, The New Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State (Portland: Binfords & Mort, 1950), 301; Cary Campbell, History of the Catholic Missions to the Yakama edited by Bishop Carlos Sevilla, S.J. (Ahtanum, Washington: Saint Joseph Mission, n.d.).
Note: The Kirk and Alexander account erroneously states that the Mission was originally called Sainte Croix. This file was corrected on September 21, 2003.

By Paula Becker, February 24, 2003

Apple Trees planted 1867, grounds of St. Joseph Mission on the Ahtanum, Yakima Valley, October 2005
Photo by Paula Becker

Pies baked with apples from first fruit trees in Yakima Valley (1867), St. Joseph Mission on the Ahtanum, October 2005
Photo by Paula Becker