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    Quincy Valley
    Quincy Valley
    Quincy Valley
    Ebook194 pages1 hour

    Quincy Valley

    By Karen Murray

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    About this ebook

    The Quincy Valley is a unique place with a distinct environment. In the beginning, not even the local Columbia River tribes could find a use for the sagebrush desert, home to jackrabbits, coyotes, and rattlesnakes, but by 1910, immigrants from more than 20 nations called it home. Today the technology of the 21st century knocks on its door. From the early days of dry-land farming, to the abundant orchards and crops nourished by the Grand Coulee Dam, to the data-server farms of major Internet companies, the Quincy Valley provides food and information to the entire world. It is a community of people whose faith, families, and farms have provided physical sustenance and prosperity to its descendants. Their influence extends far and wide as they have spread across the world, serving in both military and civilian careers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439640517
    Quincy Valley

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      Book preview

      Quincy Valley - Karen Murray

      me.

      INTRODUCTION

      Ten miles north of Interstate 90 in the middle of Washington lies a small community that is mostly unnoticed by the world at large. Yet over 27 different ethnic groups have made their home here throughout the first 100 years of its existence, and its native sons and daughters have extended its influence throughout the nation and the world.

      The story of the Quincy Valley is the story of families working together and with their community to make a sagebrush desert blossom as a rose. A rose indeed, since apples are of the genus Malus, in the same biological family (Rosaceae) as roses and can be grafted to grow and bloom on apple rootstock. Imagine what the valley might look like if all of its apple trees also sprouted roses.

      In the beginning, not even the indigenous tribes could survive the waterless expanse of sagebrush desert that covered the Quincy Valley. Jackrabbits and coyotes were the only creatures to thrive, even when the population was diminished by early farmers. Their reputation for tenacity remains today, as evidenced by the Quincy High School Jacks. The valley is a product of the cataclysmic Glacial Lake Missoula floods that swept across eastern Washington several times thousands of years ago, leaving behind rich fertile soils as deep as 50 feet in some places, and the more recent 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, when several inches of volcanic ash stranded residents and travelers for several days.

      During the 1880s, only cattlemen and sheepherders roamed with their herds and flocks through the area, the animals feasting on abundant cheatgrass while the men sated their hunger with the ever-present jackrabbits. By 1892, the Great Northern Railroad had founded the whistle stop of Quincy, named by the daughter of Great Northern owner, Jim F. Hill, or by a brakeman from Quincy, Illinois. Not even a search of the James F. Hill Reference Library reveals a clue to this puzzle. A hundred years later, the sound of passing trains as they rumble through the night on their never-ceasing task of bringing goods to and from the ports in Seattle still disturbs sleeping Quincyites. Products from Quincy’s own industrial and food production plants are among these items being distributed in a global economy.

      The first great migration began in 1904, when Samuel F. Reiman built a home, later to become the Reiman-Simmons House Museum. By 1910, nearly 20 nations from South Africa to Wales were represented among the residents of the Quincy Valley, including Austrians, Belgians, Bohemians, French and English Canadians, Danes, English, Germans, Irish, Japanese, Macedonians, Norwegians, Russians, Scots, Swedes, Swiss, and Turks. Americans from 37 states and territories could also be found living here, according to the 1920 U.S Census. One can add Kryzghistanis, Cambodians, Ukranians, Peruvians, Guatemalans, Mexicans, East Indians, Chileans, Pacific Islanders, and many others to the list of people living peaceably in Quincy—a microcosm of the world in small town America.

      What has brought the world to Quincy? Three values hold the most prominent places in the hearts of the people of Quincy: faith, family, and farming. Everything about Quincy grows out of these concepts. Early families, many of whom were descendants of the Volga Germans, formed a core around which a town and a community were built. The first church was a nondenominational community church with services in German where all were welcome. This church, now known as the Old Pioneer Church, was moved from its original location to a site adjacent to the Reiman-Simmons House—a fitting place since one of its early pastors, Rev. Simon Reiman, was brother to Samuel Reiman, builder of the house. In this one place, a visitor can see the merging of the three foundations upon which the Quincy Valley was built and continues to thrive.

      The one thing the Quincy Valley lacked was water. Rich, fertile soils are unproductive without water. The early settlers hauled water from Willow Springs or from the Columbia River. Dryland wheat was the major cash crop. A major drought in the 1920s forced many families to move to wetter pastures. That all changed in the 1950s with the completion of Grand Coulee Dam and the formation of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. Lands once empty and barren could now be abundant and prosperous. And so the second great migration to the Quincy Valley began.

      The second great migration to the Quincy Valley was very different than the first. In the 1900s, land was homesteaded or bought and sold in a free market fashion. After the irrigation project began in the 1950s, land was allotted to military veterans by means of a lottery run by the U.S. government. Many of the farmers came from Idaho and Utah, bringing a new religion into the mix, the Latter-day Saints. They joined the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Free Methodists, Friends, Seventh-day Adventists, Nazarenes, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Foursquare Church, Christian Reformed, and others. Many of these churches now conduct their services in both English and Spanish. Not only is the Quincy Valley ethnically diverse, it is also religiously diverse.

      The future of Quincy remains to be written. It has a history of successfully withstanding economic financial adversity, weather extremes, and current events. Each struggle has made the community stronger and better able to present a united front against the next challenge to come. With the planting of data server farms by Internet companies, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, it adds yet another piece to its economic portfolio as a hedge against hard times.

      A diversity of faith, a diversity of families, and a diversity of farms, from dryland crops to orchards to data server centers, these span the history of American times, all growing together, each in its own time, like a fine wine. The pages of this book will serve as a brief glimpse into the richness and variety that is the Quincy Valley.

      One

      JACKRABBITS AND SAGEBRUSH

      Two things were certain when early settlers arrived in the Quincy Valley: one, there was a lot of sagebrush, and, two, there were even more jackrabbits. Both had their benefits. Sagebrush provided a fuel source, and though it was not considered clean-burning, it was good for cooking when nothing else was handy. Jackrabbit could taste pretty good roasted on a spit.

      Wild horses, cattle, and sheep found good grazing on the bunchgrass growing underneath the

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