Walla Walla University - Mountain Ash Yearbook (College Place, WA)

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T0 recall their earliest efforts, we turn back to September, 1836, when Marcus Whit- man; his bride, Narcissa Prentice Whitman; and assistants, the Reverend and Mrs. H. H. Spalding and W. H. Gray arrived at the British post, Fort Walla Walla, located then about thirty miles west of the present city on the Columbia River. Sponsored by several Protestant churches through the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission, the Whitmans established the now famous mission at VVaiilatpu, six miles west of modern W alla W alla. Here they labor- ed in love, providing for the spiritual and Mt. Rainier, just 90 feet too short to be the tallest mountain in continental United States, is an extinct volcano which blew its top and still has three peaks over 14,000 feet. The war lord of the Northwest now wears a glacier pack to cool its violent temper. A little steam issuing from the crater xtill reminds climbers 0f the old mountaints fiery youth.

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INTRODUCTION continued Most newcomers to the Northwest, how- ever, came seeking the way to wealth. None realized that the year would come when four million tourists would spend 330 million dol- lars sight-seeing and playing in Washington. Trapping, fishing, logging and farming beckoned as sure roads to financial security. Lewis and Clarkls report of their epic trans- continental journey in 1805 told of many martens, beavers, foxes, otters, mink, and muskrats. Consequently, trapping and fur trading enticed the John Jacob Astors to the territory. The Hudson Bay Company and the American F ur Company gave immediate com- petition. Lumbering offered rich promise, too, and for over half a century was the largest single source of income in the state. Loggers with axes, cross-cut saws, and strong backs tackled giant forests in the spirit of their ficti- tious hero, Paul Bunyan. Fishing and marketing the canned sal- mon, tuna, and halibut was an early money- maker and still produces over 40 million dol- lars a year in income. The coast harbored these three avenues to wealth, so the rich farmland east of Rain- ieris Cascade Range was rather neglected until 1859 when gold was discovered in what is now the Orofino and Salmon River country of Idaho. Supplies for the gold fields came around the Horn, up from California, up the Columbia River to the point where the Walla Walla River joins it, and then overland to Walla Walla. The town, formerly called Step- toeville after the fort around which it was built, was renamed in 1859. Citizens of this booming little town were quite accustomed to seeing heavily laden camels leaving their city, called 8many watersll in Indian, heading across the brown hills to the gold fields. Though the yellow fever of gold was al- ways the most alluring, it was not the most lasting. About this time farmers in the Inland Empire began raising large quantities of gold- en wheat. In 1872 Dr. Dorsey S. Baker began building a thirty-mile railroad to the Columbia River where as many as five steamboats might be docked waiting to carry wheat to the world market. For years Walla Walla wheat was the standard by which wheat prices were quoted in Liverpool and elsewhere. With gold and wheat pouring through it, W alla Walla grew to be the largest city of the entire territory and maintained its position al- most to the time when the Klondike gold rush did for Seattle what the Idaho gold rush had done for Walla Walla. Let us look now at some of those pioneers who came to find a passageway to service. They are not only the best remembered, but were also among the first to enter the Inland Empire. Shearwatcr and 37-foot Chris Craft cabin. cruimrs rvham Bowmank Bay in Puget Sound at WWC's field xtation located the scenic, treacherous Deception Pam. The biology dellarlmcnfx 26-foot awaiting use by budding biologists at Rosario Beach just a mile from

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10 physical needs of the Cayuse Indians and im- migrants along the Oregon Trail. Each task seemed monumental. The Cayuse language first had to be mastered, then reduced to writing. The books they printed for their Indian school were the first published in the Northwest. Work with the nomadic people was slow. In October, 1842, a message from the Ameri- can Board told the Whitmans to close their mission and move to the north. In spite of the hazards of the winter journey across the rug- ged wilds of the interior, Whitman immediate- ly started for the East to ask the Board to rescind its orders. The Whitmans loved these natives. Hardships, disappointments, even the loss of their only daughter could not induce the Whitmans to leave the Indians who five years later massacred them and twelve others. Sprightly waters of the Natehes River cascade over rocks and boulders in their dash from the glaciers to the sea. Several parallels might be drawn between the dam and the college. The dam tame: and makes water power usefule the college does the same for youth. Such missionaries truly represented Christian- ity. Three Indian wars finally closed the territmy to settlers in 1856. When people did start moving in again, they huddled in the protection of Fort Steptoe, around which Walla Walla grew. Here Washingtonis first college was foundedethe first piano brought ethe first band and railroad founded. In 1869 the first Seventh-day Adventist family settled. In 1874 Elder and Mrs. I. D. VanHorn held the first Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic series. By 1877 when the Pacific Union Confer- ence of Seventh-day Adventists was organized, 200 members lived in the Northwest. Fifteen years later the membership had doubled itself three time. These 1,600 Adventists sacrificed $50,000 to start Walla Walla College. INTRODUCTION continued