Topic: Agriculture
Hay has been harvested in Washington since the arrival of the first European residents and remains the fourth most valuable crop in the state, behind only apples, wheat and potatoes. Alfalfa, timothy ...
Seattle timber-baron brothers Frederick Spencer Stimson (1868-1921) and Charles Douglas "C. D." Stimson (1857-1929) acquired a rural parcel at Derby, near Woodinville, for use as a country retreat and...
Jim Holmes may be the quintessential example of the type of person whose professional background prepared him to help found a successful vineyard and winery in a previously untested, and even unpromis...
While the lumber, coal, and dairy industries played important roles in Washington's early economic development, the humble hop is a significant part of that story as well. The pretty green cones of ho...
Hops, the bitter plant used for beer flavoring, were in high demand in national and international markets in the last half of the nineteenth century, and conditions in river valleys of the Puget Sound...
Washington State College (later WSU) established the Irrigation Experiment Station at Prosser in 1919. The Washington Irrigation Institute recommended such a program to study problems faced by farmers...
Irrigation has been the single most crucial element in the Walla Walla Valley's agriculture since 1836, when pioneer missionary Marcus Whitman (1802-1847) dug the first irrigation ditch near his Walla...
Since the 1980s, the area around Walla Walla in Southeastern Washington has become noted for its wine industry, with more than 100 wineries and nearly 2,000 acres of vineyards now flourishing in the W...
Most early Japanese immigrants to the Pacific Northwest came to work in the labor-intensive industries of timber, railroad construction, fish processing, and agriculture. As they became more settled t...
In 2002 Snohomish County chose the Jensen-Grimm Farm in Arlington as one of its designated Centennial Farms, those operated by the same family for more than 100 years. The following article, written b...
King County's five Agricultural Production Districts (APDs), first designated in the county's 1985 Comprehensive Plan, represent a continuation of efforts to preserve rapidly diminishing agricultural ...
King County's Farmland Preservation Program protects farmland and open space in the rapidly developing county by using tax money to buy development rights on farms. It is one of the oldest such progra...
This bibliography on the history of agriculture in King County was prepared as a community history resource by staff of the former King County Office of Cultural Resources, now 4Culture (King County C...
Lulu Mildred (Shircliff) Kombol was born on August 27, 1885, in Walla Walla.She wrote her autobiography at age 89 while living in Seattle with a daughter. Her original account has been slightly expand...
The Palouse region of Eastern Washington and Idaho is famous for for its rolling hills of wheat. Until the early 2000s, it also was famous as the lentil capital of the United States, producing nearly ...
The town of Lind in Adams County is located in the middle of dryland wheat country near the interchange between State Route 21 and US Highway 395, some 17 miles southwest of Ritzville. Homesteaders be...
Lopez Island, surrounded by the cold waters of the Salish Sea, is at 29.5 square miles the third-largest island in San Juan County. It is the first scheduled stop on the Washington State Ferry route f...
Luther Burbank Park, located on the northeastern tip of Mercer Island, was once home to the Luther Burbank School, a parental school for delinquent youths. The school closed in 1966, and the property ...
The first book written by Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I, rocketed to the top of the national bestseller list in 1945. Translations followed in more than 30 languages, and the book was made into a ser...
Marymoor Park, located along the Sammamish Slough in Redmond north of Lake Sammamish, was once a prehistoric Indian site. Homesteaded by John Tosh in 1876, the site was later bought by James Clise (18...
An Oregon boy who came up working construction and studied civil engineering in college, Norm McKibben became a can-do serial entrepreneur in the wine business. After retiring as president of a nation...
The Methow Valley Irrigation District operates an irrigation system at Twisp in the Methow River valley in Okanogan County in North Central Washington. It was established in 1919 and was based on a pr...
Peppermint and spearmint plants are commercially cultivated for their oils, which are primarily used to flavor candy and chewing gum, cough drops, and toothpaste. Originally cultivated and harvested b...
Mabel Monsey, who as a young woman homesteaded a claim near Lake Stevens in Snohomish County with her husband and children, chronicled their pioneer experiences during their 13 years in the area in a ...