Tieton

From Mt. Cleman's majestic vantage point these trees, predominately apple, are contrasted by patches of golden wheat in the warm days of mid-summer. A closer view reveals evidence of the terrain that greeted pioneers who battled their way up the Cascade Mountain foothills to the bench land.
Homesteading was a rugged undertaking for those first Tieton residents. Sagebrush, the plague of all Yakima Valley settlers, had to be grubbed. Jagged lava rock, spewed over the land centuries before had to be removed to another resting place.

It was back-breaking and sometime heart-breaking work for those first few of whom Philande Kelley was one of the first. His homestead site was filed around 1880 followed by those of Louis Lanch, John French, Tom Donnelly, Angus French, John Koempel, Fred Bealy and Tom and Frank Weddle.
Land upon which these first men erected their homes, was not the location of Tieton today. The community was first located about two blocks east of the present site.
In 1916, J. E. Madsen and D. H. Dreessen of the Tieton Townsite Corporation gave the town a square of land 200X175 feet to be used as a park and playground, forever. It was around this plot, Tieton City Park, that the settlement moved and grew.

Surveying and mapping the townsite was accomplished the same year. The new town's first streets - Market, Maple, Elm, Oak, Washington, Minnesota, Tieton and Wisconsin - still comprise the main thoroughfares. The idea for building a town around a park was patterned after a small Wisconsin community.
A building boom got underway after the move. A. C. Alderman sold his two lots to D. V. Morthland who erected a bank. Swissler built what is now Stromme's store and lumber yard. The Horticulture Union and box shed now stand on the original lumber yard site. Fred Milliron erected the store that is now Radford's Market. The Red and White Store is operated in what was the first hotel, constructed by Mr. and Mrs. William Hatten.
These stores did not comprise Tieton's first business district. There were three business operated in the old settlement, W. H. Schenck erected the first business, a dry goods grocery, and Postoffice. The building's second floor was used as a dance hall.

A blacksmith shop and meat market comprised the two other businesses.
The property on which these businesses operated was sold in 1912 to Charles J. Flaig of Mount Angel Oregon. In fact his purchase of 20 acres, according to a story in the Yakima Herald, December 11, 1912, "including the townsite of Tieton village excepting the church and school sites."
Early homesteaders laid a solid groundwork toward the permanent establishment of their town. One of their first moves was the organization of a school. They joined forces with others in the Highland to establish the North Cowychee School district No. 27 in 1882.
By the middle 1880's a small cabin was built about one mile southeast of Tieton. The life of this first schoolhouse was short because a few years later it burned.
Classes continued. They were conducted in various homes until 1905. A school was then constructed north of the present building. It soon began to bulge with students, necessitating the purchase of a third school site from Herman Froemke. That building today has been converted to the Tieton Grange Hall.
Children now begin their education in a stone masonry buildinng constructed in 1912.
Although the first church was not erected until the early 1900's well-worn pages in Tieton pioneers' Bibles indicated they had brought their faith to the new land. The Tieton Presbyterian Church grew from a Sunday School organized in 1906. Two years later the Highland Evangelical United Brethern Church was constructed and the Pentecostal Church started a building in 1930.
Residents felt their community was as modern and progressive as any in 1907 when the first telephone was installed. The Tom Donnelly family received the first instrument installed in Tieton by Cowiche Telephone Company.
Although proud of their telephones, settlers had to wait until 1910-1911 for their most sought commodity, water. There was water available for domestic use and irrigation but it had to be hauled from the two springs, Donnelly spring east of town and Horse Camp, west of the community.
Because it took long hours of hauling to irrigate any amount of acreage, crops were mainly confined to those that would survive on the natural rain and snow. Therefore cattle, wheat, barley and rye were the first crops.
A few orchards were planted after the start of work on the Tieton Irrigation project in 1906; the orchardists daily hauling water to the fields during the growing months.
The first contract water arrived through tunnels and concrete flume five years before the community was moved.

Now pear and apple trees cover approximately 90 percent of the surrounding countryside. Apples head the list with close to 1,500 cars of the fruit shipped annually. Pears come second with 160 cars shipped by rail and truck each year.
It wasn't until 1913 that the first commercial packing plant, the Yakima County Horticultural Union, was built.
Other packing houses have come to the area, - Washington Fruit and Produce, Inc., F. H. Cubberley Fruit Company and Richey and Gilbert. Outside the city are warehouses operated by Perham Fruit Company, Hamilton Webert, A. D. Strand and Ericson and Wagner.
The Hort Union remains the largest in the community. It has a capacity of 500 boxes with 150 workers employed at the season's peak. Annually payroll averages $195,000.
Coming of the railroad was another red letter day for the area. It eliminated hauling fruit down the treacherous grade to Naches. Orchardists and shippers looked forward to the day the tracks would reach town.

They were soon disappointed. News arrived that the tracks were to be laid to within three miles of town because of the high price of right of ways through the bottom lands.
Instead of taking the news as their fate, they elected H. L. Hull and C. G. Garey to investigate. The two men went to railroad officials at Seattle and learned that in addition to money put up by the company another $1,800 was needed to buy right of ways.
Garey and Hull, confident they had full support of their neighbors, put up their farms as security. When the two returned to Tieton, the situation was explained. Each farmer agreed to pay 75 cents an acre or as much as he could afford. They raised $1,850 and in 1917 the line was completed into Tieton.

Tieton has progressed even more since 1917. In 1948 townspeople voted for self government and incorporated their one-time village. They elected W. E. Newland, mayor of their first council; Ed Wutke, treasurer; Ivan Glenn, C. Chappell, R. C. Freimann, Ralph Brooks and G. H. Stromme, councilmen, and Stub Stubsjoen, city clerk. Chris Larson, present police judge, was appointed first marshal.
Council meetings were held in the Wutke Building until a City Hall was constructed in 1949. Incorporated in the city building is the jail and Volunteer Fire Department.
The history of the Tieton Volunteer Fire department dated back to the early 1900's. A water tank on two wagon wheels comprised the first fire fighting equipment. However, the first fire run was not recorded until October, 1934. Three fire trucks and a resuscitator comprise the department's equipment today.

Like so many towns in the west this is how Tieton began. Many people are proud of what it is today, but none are more proud than those who can remember back to how it used to be.

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