the
Timeless Palouse
A rich history of agriculture and education in the Palouse has created a thriving community filled with farmers, scientists, engineers, artists and scholars.
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WASHINGTON GROWN MAGAZINE MARCH 2023
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. 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
WASHINGTON GROWN MAGAZINE MARCH 2023
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