Mr. Wait inaugurated also the milling business in what is now Columbia County. Going to that region in 1871 where Jesse N. Day, from whom Dayton was named, had been endeavoring since 1864 to launch a town with but scanty success, Mr. Wait proposed to build a mill, provided inducements were offered. Mr. Day accordingly agreed to give five acres of land as a site, with a block of land for residences, and upon that Mr. Wait and William Metzger proceeded to launch the milling business at Dayton. In building that mill, with a brick building for a store and a planing mill, Messrs. Wait and Metzger laid out about $25,000, a large amount for those days. At the same time the Dayton Woolen Mill was undertaken, A. H. Reynolds being chief owner, F. S. Frary the secretary and manager and Mr. Wait the president of the company. The woolen mill had a land site of seven acres donated by John Mustard and a building was erected at a cost of $40,000. The new town of Dayton was booming in consequence of these investments. The flour mill proved a great success and with various changes of ownership is now one of the great mill properties of the country, but the woolen mill, from which so much was expected, did not prove a financial success and was closed in 1880. It is rather a curious fact that no one of the woolen enterprises in the Inland Empire has met with large success except that at Pendleton, Ore., the success of which has been so great that it is a puzzle that others have mainly failed.

The great development of wheat raising in what is now Garfield County led, as elsewhere in the region, to flouring mills. The pioneer mill at Pomeroy was started in 1877 by W. C. Potter and completed the following year by Mr. Pomeroy.

Three miles above Pomeroy and for some years a rival to the lower town was Pataha City. It was on land taken up at first by James Bowers in 1861 and acquired in 1868 by A. J. Favor, who undertook a few years later to start a town. In pursuance of his plans he offered land for mill sites, and as a result J. N. Bowman and George Snyder constructed a mill in 1878. Subsequently John Houser became the great mill man of that entire section and his mill became one of the most widely known in the Inland Empire. He made a specialty of shipping flour to San Francisco for the manufacture of macaroni, the large percentage of gluten in the wheat of that region fitting it especially for that use. The son of Mr. Houser, Max Houser, going to Portland in about 1908, has become known the world over as the most daring and extensive wheat buyer on the Pacific Coast and has acquired a fortune estimated at six millions. The pioneer flouring mill of Asotin was built in 1881 at the town of that name by Frank Curtis and L. A. Stimson. The town itself upon one of the most beautiful of locations on Snake River, with the magnificent wheat fields of the Anatone flats on the high lands to the south and west, and a superb belt of fruit land extending down the river and broadening out at Clarkston, was laid out in 1878.

Other mills were established at later dates, of which the most extensive were the mill at Prescott, erected by H. P. Isaacs in 1883, the City mill on Palouse Street in Walla Walla, built in 1898 by Scholl Brothers; Long's mill, a few miles below Dayton; the Corbett mill at Huntsville.

In summarizing grain raising as the leading industry of old Walla Walla County it may be said that for several years past the total production for the four counties has been about 12,000,000 bushels per year. The value has, of course, varied much according to price. It is conservatively estimated that the value of the grain crops, including flour and feed in various manufactured forms for 1916, was approximately $15,000,000.

GARDENS AND ORCHARDS

As grain raising put a finer point upon industry than its predecessor, stock raising, so in turn the gardens and orchards have yet more refined and differentiated the forms of industry and the developments of life in the growing communities of our story. As already related these lines of production had been tested by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the missionaries, Whitman and Spalding. It was, therefore, to be expected that even in the first years of settlement some attempts would be made to start orchards and gardens. The first nursery in Walla Walla seems to have been laid out in 1859 on the Ransom Clark donation claim on the Yellowhawk. In 1859 trees were set out on the J. W. Foster place. It is said that Mr. Foster brought his trees here on muleback over the Cascade Mountains. We are informed by Charles Clark of Walla Walla that most of Mr. Foster's trees were secured from Ransom Clark. In 1860 A. B. Roberts set out an orchard within the present city limits of Walla Walla on what later became the Ward place. In 1861 a notable step in fruit raising was taken by the coming of one of the most important of all the great pioneers of the Inland Empire. This was Philip Ritz. We find in the Statesman of December 5, 1861, announcement that Mr. Ritz had arrived with a supply of trees from his nursery at Glen Dale near Corvallis, Ore., and that the trees were for sale at the store of John Wright. Subsequent items in the Statesman furnish an interesting exposition of the progress of both gardens and orchards. The Statesman was wide awake as usual to the needs of the country and did not fail to exhort the citizens of Walla Walla to prepare for the demand which it was sure would come. On March 29, 1862, mention was made of the fact that green fruit, presumably apples, from the Willamette Valley, was selling for from twenty to fifty cents per pound. The paper expresses surprise that farmers are so slow about setting out trees. On June 21, 1862, it was announced with much satisfaction that scarcely had the snow from that extremely cold winter melted before there were radishes, lettuce, onions, and rutabagas brought in from foot hill gardens, and that there were new potatoes in the market by June 14th. The issue of July 26th notes the fact of green corn in abundance and that of August 2d declares that the corn was equal to that of the Middle Western States, and that fine watermelons were in the market. August 16th is marked by thanks to G. W. Shoemaker for a fine watermelon and the statement that there were others to come that would weigh forty pounds. In the number of August 30th it appears that Mr. Shoemaker brought to the office a muskmelon weighing eighteen pounds, and in the same issue is an item about a 103-pound squash raised by S. D. Smith. John Hancock is credited on September 6th with a watermelon of thirty-three pounds. Complaint is made, however, in the same number, of the fact that there is a meager supply of apples, plums and pears from the Willamette, and that the apples sell for twenty-five cents apiece, or fifty cents a pound. The Statesman of September 27th has the story of Walter Davis of Dry Creek sending a squash of a weight of 134½ pounds and twelve potatoes of a weight of twenty-nine pounds to the Oregon State Fair at Salem. Lamentable to narrate it appears later that these specimens of Walla Walla gardening disappeared. The Statesman indulges in some bitter scorn over the kind of people on the other side who would steal such objects. In an October number mention is made that James Fudge of Touchet had brought in three potatoes weighing eight pounds. In the Statesman of December 20th is an item to the effect that Philip Ritz has a large assortment of trees and shrubs at the late residence of J. S. Sparks. It is also stated that Mr. Ritz is going to try sweet potatoes. In the issue of January 17, 1863, is the statement that Mr. Ritz had purchased land of Mr. Roberts for a nursery. In successive numbers, beginning February 28th, is Mr. Ritz's advertisement of the Columbia Valley nursery, the value of the stock of which is stated at $10,000. It seems to have been an extraordinary stock for the times, and the enterprise and industry of Mr. Ritz became a great factor in the development of the fruit business as well as many other things. There are several interesting items later on in 1863, showing that gardening, particularly the raising of onions, was advancing rapidly. In the spring of 1865 A. Frank & Co. shipped 40,000 pounds of onions to Portland. In the Statesman of July 4, 1863, it is stated that John Hancock had corn fifteen feet high. During 1863 and 1864 there was much experimenting with sorghum. T. P. Denny is mentioned as having brought a bottle of fine sorghum syrup, and it is stated that Mr. Ritz was experimenting with Chinese and Imphee sugar cane. Mr. Ritz was succeeding well with sweet potatoes, and a fine quality of tobacco was being produced. The biggest potato story was of a Mechannock potato from Mr. Kimball's garden on Dry Creek, which weighed four and one-half pounds. In several numbers in September, 1863, mention is made of delicious peaches brought in by A. H. Reynolds.

In short, it was well demonstrated that conditions were such that it might be expected that Walla Walla would become, and it has for some years been known as, the "Garden City."

In the '60s and '70s a considerable amount of land south and west of Walla Walla was brought into use for gardening, and in various directions orchards were set out. One of the finest was that of W. S. Gilliam on Dry Creek. Everything looked encouraging for fruit raising at that early day, but in 1883 there came a bitter cold day, twenty-nine degrees below zero, far colder than ever known at any other time in Walla Walla, a most disastrous dispensation of nature, for many orchards, especially peaches and apricots, perished.

FIVE REGIONS