Ben Snipes, Northwest Cattle King



Walter N. Granger

Granddaddy of Western Irrigation

By Roscoe Sheller

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Walter N. Granger built and long operated the original Sunnyside Canal System. He guided, pushed and led the project thought several companies and reorganizations, gave his personal fortune to the cause and operated for some 18 months on “funny money”, when no other was obtainable.

It brought Yakima River water to Sunnyside and the north slope of the Yakima Valley.

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or nearly two years, The Sunnyside Canal had been clearly in his mind. He envisioned an expanse of beautifully gardened homes, where prosperous people were producing untold new wealth from an arid waste that had yet to sprout its first green.

He’d been called, “an optimistic visionary”, blindly pouring good money into a dust hole.

Water a desert? Rubbish! The creator had made it a desert. Who was mere man to defy His plan?

But Granger would hear none of that. Through trials and tribulations, he formed a company, The Northern Pacific, Yakima and Kittitas Irrigation Company. The new ownership built the canal to what would be Sunnyside. Granger located and engineered its route.

During the next year, Granger formed a townsite company, platted section 25, and proceeded to carry out his vow of five years before, made from the crest of Snipes Mountain, “A city should be someday be built at the base of this mountain.”

Now, in early spring, 1891, the first actual construction was starting, like the first tottering step of an infant. He was radiant.

Walter N. Granger, watched from ankle-deep dust from the bank as the first horse-drawn, slip-scrapper shaved the ash-fine soil from his ditch-to-be.

His vision showed though the dust clouds, raised by a hundred laboring Cayuse horses, brawny men and primitive equipment that filled his eyes, nostrils and long bushy beard.

He climbed above the blowsand cloud. For as far as his eyes could see, stretched the drabness of a sagebrush desert. His mind’s eye saw past the present into a verdant panorama of lush growing crops and orchards that irrigation would bring.

Granger turned back to reality. He watched contractors Stobie and Mathieson and crew of many sweating men and straining horses. Power cranes or shovels were only ideas dozing in some inventor’s mind.

Men and animals strained to load the scrappers, and haul the load, seesawing it up the bank to dump the powdery soil. Fill and empty, fill and empty, without stop from 7am to 6pm, 7 days a week, for a dollar a day – when available.

His construction plan called for a grade of one foot per mile, twisting like a lazy snake along the contours of the dusty land.

Several years earlier, in 1884, the Northern Pacific Railroad ran tracks through the valley, along the south side of the Yakima River.

To encourage the building of a transcontinental road, the United States offered a land subsidy -- every odd numbed section of land was deeded to the railroad, for 20 miles each side of its tracks.

Consequently, NP, owned half the land in the valley, arranged like a checkerboard of land sections, each containing 640 acres.

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On an inspection tour of over the newly built track, Thomas F. Oakes, President of the NP (above), spied several small plots, hardly more than gardens, growing exceptional crops, both in quality and quantity.

He stopped his special train to investigate and discovered several “squatters” had hand dug a common ditch to supply irrigation for their crops.  They called their ditch the “Konewock”.

It occurred to railroad president Oakes that a canal to deliver water to his company’s all but worthless land, could increase its value and add tonnage to his business.

Oakes knew Granger as a dedicated irrigation engineer without peer. He knew that Granger had abandoned a highly lucrative former position to build some small projects in Montana and that he’d lost both his fortune and his health in the attempt.

He’d seen Granger’s systems, small as they were, add business to his own railroad, and determined to seek expert advice, he sent for Granger.

After an exhaustive conference, Oakes offered an option of 90,000 acres of valley railroad land at $1.25 an acre, if he found the valley suitable and would undertake its irrigation development. “I’ll look it over and let you know.”

It was June 1889, when Granger dropped from the train, at the tiny station of Yakima City (now Union Gap). He hired a saddle horse and supplied himself with provisions for several days and rode through the gap in the lower Yakima Valley, making his bed on the ground whenever night caught him.

During the second day, he found himself in the broad valley north of Snipes Mountain. His canteen was empty. He knew the Yakima River flowed somewhere south of the mountain and headed across.

Reaching its top, his horse spied the river, and taking his bit in his teeth, he raced uncontrollably down the hillside, not stopping until he stood belly deep in the refreshing current. Thirst quenched and canteen refilled, Granger continued his explorations until his engineering mind took him from his horse to take a soil test.

He dug a miniature canal with his bare hands and filled it with the contents of his canteen, to ascertain water-holding qualities of the soil.

In telling of his experience later, Granger recalled,

“When we reached the lower, or east end of the ridge, the vast area of practically level land below, plainly indicated that we were in the heart of the region. As I gazed in the scene, I, then and there, resolved that a city should be someday be build at the base of the mountain, for the site was ideal”.

He continued his explorations for several more days before returning to Yakima City. Enthusiastic over his findings, he caught the next train to North Yakima and wired Oakes to accept his offer and sent for his favorite Montana engineers.

His next move was to build his dream into a reality. It was incorporated under the name, “The Yakima Canal and Land Company” December 4, 1889, with Granger President; James Millisch, Secretary, and Albert Kleinschmidt of Helena Montana, treasurer, and $1,000,000 in principal.

Granger’s business made him a frequenter of the North Yakima land office where he became a close friend of registrar, J.H. Thomas, who took him home for home cooking and long evenings of companionship. Thomas has a daugher, just home from Annie Wright’s Seminary, in Tacoma, after graduation.

Soon Granger’s calls at the Thomas home grew increasingly frequent, and his conversation with Thomas about sagebrush land and irrigation, rapidly shifted from canal business to more personal business with his daughter, Maud.

A romance was born. It bloomed and flourished, and on June 2, 1891, Miss Maud Thomas changed her name to Mrs. Walter N. Granger. Walter was 36.

Canal digging was progressing; Granger had acquired important water rights along with the only feasible head gate site, owned by the Konewock people, in exchange for perpetual water rights to their lands.

Now he was busy building a combination office/dwelling, 20 miles down-valley in the sagebrush, where Zillah now stands. It was finished barely in time to receive the newlyweds, when canal building reached that point in March 1892.

Finally the first section was done. Railroad President Oakes, his wife and 18 year-old daughter stopped their special train opposite Granger’s new head gates on March 26, 1892. Granger met them with a horse-drawn wagon, and drove his important guests to the canal intake where a crowd of officials waited in deep dust for his arrival.

The first water was to be released into Granger’s Sunnyside Canal with suitable ceremonies.

Oakes, Granger and Paul Schulze, and NP officials spoke on “Great and glorious future that will soon burst from the desert”.

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Miss Dora Allen, broke a bottle of champagne over the head gates, and Paul Schulze opened them wide, sending the first irrigation water on its life-giving mission, that was destined to turn the county into one of the richest agricultural counties in the entire nation.

The thirsty ash-like soil drank deeply.

Granger then drove his guests along the canal bank to his newly created home, where dinner awaited the celebrants.

“What’s the name of your town to be?” Oakes asked, referring to the one lone building perched in the sagebrush.

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“With Oakes permission”, I’d like to call it Zillah, honoring your charming daughter.” And so it was that a drab dot, alone in an expanse of brush and dust was given identity.

Buyers shied away from raw land requiring irrigation. Digging his canal as far as Zillah, had strained his company’s finances. Suave Paul Schulze stepped forward with a plan. Granger expected to retain half ownership, but was forced to settle for one third, for which he paid with his option land.

Then a panic in 1893, struck the nation. The NP, already deep in troubles of its own, informed Granger, it could no longer undertake any part of his company’s financing.

NP withdrew and turned its stock over to him. Granger accepted and instituted a unique plan of his own when practically everyone else connected with it was ready to toss in the sponge.

Merchants and bankers who had cast their lot with Valley Irrigation, were dependent upon its continuance for survival, and eagerly gave an attentive ear to ANY plan that offered hope.

They accepted Granger’s plan.

He would issue time checks for payroll and supplies in lieu of cash he couldn’t get. Merchants agreed to accept time checks at face value, and in turn, Granger would accept any and all time checks for payment on any company land.

He was able to operate under his cashless system for 18 months. Stores and banks began choking with the Time Checks, redeemable only though the purchase of raw sage brush land that no one seemed to want.

Workers, no longer able to trade them for the necessities of life, marched on Granger’s office, armed with guns and clubs, threatening violence.

Granger sent them away as friends. Before the money-less era ended, many Time Check owners, turned into unintentional land owners as their only option, but lived to profit greatly because Granger carried and forced his irrigation dreams though their darkest hour, and made the land they were forced to buy worth many times the cash a solvent company might have paid.

The NP was swept into receivership, followed by Granger’s NPY&K company. The company, who held the mortgage of the town site of Sunnyside, foreclosed, and the few settlers left.

The last penny of Granger’s financial interest in the irrigation and the town site was wiped out.

But the strong man, whose faith remained unshaken, was continued as manager though receivership and managed the new company that followed.

Opportunist, Paul Schulze, organized a new corporation to take advantage of the new sale, to be named The Washington Irrigation Company. Named incorporators were R.H. Denny, Seattle banker; D.P. Robinson, and O.F. Paxton. Stockholder E.F. Blaine, attorney, and was to play a highly important role, later.

Flagrant irregularities, never completely exposed, were uncovered by probing receivers. They pointed an accusing finger at Paul Schulze, who’d long claimed friendship with Granger, although it’s doubtful whether the feeling could have been mutual.

When Schulze saw he could no longer hide discrepancies, upward of half a million dollars, and the source of wealth that permitted him to live in lavish splendor, and entertain so elaborately, he removed himself from the scene by means of a pistol.

Granger was retained as manager for the new Washington Irrigation Company, and extended the canal from the canal’s termination near Sunnyside, at a point near Prosser.

It caused additional demands for water, already growing scarce from the many newer projects springing into being above the Sunnyside, until there were more claims than water in the river.

From the first he’d seen the need of storage reservoirs to store the spring melt, as settlement increased. He bought land at Cle Elum and prepared timbers for a crib dam. But the legislature under pressure of other interest, refused him the right saying, “No obstruction of stream flow will be permitted.”

Other water claimants were damming the river to divert water, such as E.F. Benson’s power plant at Prosser Falls.

Then another new canal, just above his heading, reached into the river for its supply, and during low water, ran a diversion dam that starved Granger’s canal.

He sent men with dynamite. By morning, water filled his canal as usual.

Another, asking permission of no one, used Granger’s timbers to build a crib dam across Lake Cle Elum’s outlet on Granger’s land.

“The no stream obstruction should apply to everyone”, he reasoned, and sent his engineer, R.K. Tiffany to correct the water stoppage.

As Tiffany explained:

“The explosion produced geysers and blasted debris skyward, leaving a 20 foot gap. It also landed four powder men in jail and socked me with a $500 fine.”

Benson’s power plant whirred again. But dynamite wasn’t the answer. Two provisions were necessary, to provide storage, and to allocate water justly. No laws had been made to apply to Western irrigation.

President Theodore Roosevelt signed the irrigation act into law in 1902, empowering the United States Reclamation Service (USRS), to handle irrigation with funds from western lands and timber. The department looked with favor on the Yakima Valley, for its fertile irrigable land and storage facilities.

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The Governor appointed a water code commissioner, with Harold Preston, an experienced attorney, with Granger and W.B. Bridgmen, then mayor of Sunnyside on the Commission, serving without compensation.

The Yakima chapter, raised some $10,000 to buy out a few die-hards whose rights could be obtained no other way, and the Washington Irrigation Company offered to sell their Sunnyside Canal System to the USRS.

E.F. Blaine was selected to negotiate with the USRS for the sale of the Sunnyside System. To familiarize himself with every detail of the physical property, he packed supplies in a canoe to travel the length of the canal. Where the canoe wouldn’t take him, he traveled on horseback or on foot. When he had the knowledge firmly fixed in his mind, he went to Washington DC, where the Secretary of the Interior, affixed his signature to the document that transferred ownership to the USRS.

Walter Granger was again retained as manager.

The Reclamation Service proceeded with construction of storage reservoirs in the mountains, greatly enlarged the canal and extended and improved it.

A new oversight director from Washington DC, ruled that any land owner under the project must be limited to 40 acres, but only 20 acres could be orchard, to prevent large landowners from becoming wealthy off the government’s subsidy.

Landowners were furious. They begged congressman for relieve that never came. Then, as they had often done before when seeking help, they begged Granger to intercede. Granger convinced lawmakers of the folly of damaging restrictions, and the law was changed. Shortly afterward, the oversight director was removed, and Granger was again in full charge until his retirement on March 1, 1910.

“I built the Sunnyside Canal,” he said at his retirement, “The idea was mine. I was partner with the Northern Pacific, in its construction, and I have been with it ever sense. The job after 20 years is done.”

Grangers Sunnyside project has been the guinea pig, the laboratory where irrigation, means and methods, as well as management policies have been tested and developed.

Many men have played important roles in its phenomenal success as it transformed a desert into one of the richest agricultural counties in the country.

But no one can deny that the Sunnyside Canal System is Granger’s dream come true. He conceived it and envisioned its potential greatness.

He selected its route, engineered its development, construction and operation.

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He guided it from birth from four different ownerships, beset with turbulence and many near disasters for twenty years of determined fatherhood, until he could place it in the hands of a worth successor.

Today many thousands of people enjoy fine homes and prosperity because there is a Sunnyside Canal.

Many millions of dollars of new wealth spring annually from a once barren waste because of the water it brings, and because there was a Walter N. Granger.

He saw beyond the sagebrush, envisioning the miracle that irrigation could perform. Walter N. Granger transformed the dream into reality and possessed an indomitable drive to carry it though to its notable success.

 - Roscoe Sheller, Sunnyside, Washington

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