
5 minute read
the Timeless Palouse
Rolling hills, sweeping vistas, towering buttes and low-lying creek beds all teeming with life, no matter the season; these are just a few of the things you can observe on the Palouse. Whether you call this region your home, you fondly return to visit your alma mater, or you simply have had the pleasure of driving through, you know the Palouse offers so much more than beautiful views. An agricultural hub and educational destination, the Palouse plays a pivotal role in the production of food, research and technology.
The Palouse region of Washington state and Idaho covers over 4,000 square miles of rich loessy hills with an even richer history. At the heart of the Palouse, the City of Pullman flourishes at the junction of three small rivers and creeks flowing through the ancestral homelands of the Upper Palouse and Nez Perce tribes. Settled by nonindigenous communities in the 1870s, the Pullman area quickly became home to a few hundred small farmers and ranchers. The first train arriving in 1885 kicked off a century of continual growth and the establishment of the Agricultural College, Experiment Station, and School of Science of the State of Washington in 1892. Artesian wells were also discovered in the Pullman area, which fed the growing city until they went dry in the 1970s.
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Pullman drew in more farmers as word of the darkly colored, nutrient-dense soils spread towards Walla Walla and the Columbia Basin. The bunchgrass prairies had served as excellent pasture lands for several generations prior, but now, the rolling hills of the Palouse were growing wheat and other
Nobody is quite sure who should get credit as being Pullman's first settler. One popular story goes like this: grains as well. As the 20th century progressed, pulses, like peas and lentils, also gained popularity. population clocked in at nearly 33,000 residents.
In 1875, a man named Bolin Farr, in search of a homestead site, camped beside a Palouse meadow where three creeks were joined together. All night long, the gurgling water lulled his sleep. “Here,” said he, “is where I’ll stake my homestead, and call it Three Forks Ranch."
Farr set aside a tract of land and platted it to town lots, after which he cast about to find a name befitting such a place. George Pullman of the Pullman Company chanced to be a friend, so in his honor, Three Forks was renamed Pullman.
In 1890, the state legislature picked Pullman as the location for the new state college.

In 1941, near Palouse, Washington, Raymond A. Hanson conceived of a self-leveling mechanism for hillside combines. Tiltinghead hillside combines had been invented in the 1890s, and leveling was absolutely necessary on the steep hills of the Palouse. But before the Hanson invention, manual leveling required a person to stand on the combine platform and adjust the machine to the lay of the land – a tedious, dangerous job.

The decision followed a lengthy and controversial site selection process lasting more than a year. 1890 1889 1941 2015 1910 1980
In 1889, workers drilling a well for the Palace Hotel on Main Street struck liquid gold when they discovered a pressurized water supply and dug the first of several artesian wells.

Every home in Pullman had clean running water by 1891, according to the Pullman Herald. Pamphlets touting Pullman’s “everflowing springs of pure, abundant cold water” were distributed to lure potential residents to the area.
Innovations like this have helped to unlock the Palouse hills as the best land in America for growing dryland wheat.
Lentils have ancient roots stretching back thousands of years to the Fertile Crescent. First cultivated by J.J. Wagner near Farmington, Washington, in 1916, the success and value of lentils was well known to Palouse farmers and seed companies alike. Production increased further with the introduction of new technologies developed by the Hume-Love Company in 1932 making it easier to harvest the lentils. By 1937, the first commercial crop of lentils was harvested and sold for $30,000. As prices and global demand fluctuated over the years, the lentil industry on the Palouse ebbed and flowed. Reaching its peak in 1980, 160,000 acres of lentils were cultivated.
Although technology and research have become a driving force in the development and growth of the region, the agricultural roots of the Palouse have created a patchwork of color and culture across Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. Pullman has always remained true to its agricultural history and celebrates one particular pulse each year. Since 1989, Pullman has hosted the National Lentil Festival. Although the region no longer produces 98% of the nation’s lentils, the community continues to come together and appreciate the agriculture around them. The Lentil Festival falls on the first weekend of the WSU academic year, bringing together all parts of the Pullman community.
By 1910, the college had more than doubled its enrollment, developed its campus, and continued to widen its offerings in both liberal arts and the natural sciences. Pullman, with an additional 2,600 permanent residents, was decidedly a college town. An influx of new residents came to join the growing faculty and administrative staff.
As the population grew, the town experienced an unprecedented boom in residential and commercial construction, which resulted in several new neighborhoods and the development of Grand Avenue, Pullman's main drag.

The lentil industry peaked in 1980, when 163,000 acres were harvested, yielding 163 million pounds of lentils, worth about $43 million. That constituted 98% of the nation's lentil crop. Since then, due to the introduction of additional rotation crops and increasing lentil acreage in other states, Washington's lentil production has steadily decreased.
Meanwhile, the City of Pullman continued to grow alongside the now named State College of Washington. World Wars I and II both slowed progress in the area, but after the introduction of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or G.I. bill, hundreds of veteran students came to the campus in Pullman. By 1959, the school graduated to the title of Washington State University (WSU) through technological advancement and expansion. WSU graduate, Edmund O. Schweitzer, made Pullman his lifelong home and founded Schweitzer Engineering Labs. After the tech boom of the 1980’s, Schweitzer Engineering has grown to employ nearly 2,000 Pullman residents, making digital relay equipment for power companies. By 2022, Pullman’s
It’s indisputable that the Palouse is a magical place. Few places can compare to the beauty, abundance and culture of the Palouse and Pullman. From an agricultural settlement in the late 19th century to a booming college hub, Pullman has not lost its small-town feel. Farmers, scientists, engineers, artists, scholars and countless others call the Palouse their home. Wheat, lentils, chickpeas and many other crops are sowed and harvested on the rolling hills of the Palouse. Washington State University continues to bring in thousands of new students and conducts invaluable agricultural research each year. While all of these unique aspects are special on their own, it’s the culmination of all of them that make the Palouse what it is today.
The rolling hills of the Palouse are world renowned for their loamy soils, perfect for growing a variety of crops. In the late summer, you can drive through Palouse country and find golden green fields of wheat, garbanzo beans, and peas. The wheat’s whispy heads blow in the wind while bushy pulse crops stand solid. Have you ever wondered why and how farmers choose to grow one crop instead of another? We took a visit to Mader Farms in Whitman County to learn more.