Yakima, Washington

Yakima (/ˈjækɪmɑː/ or /ˈjækɪmə/) is a U.S. city located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Mount Rainier in Washington. Yakima is the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, and the state's eleventh largest city by population. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 91,067 and a metropolitan population of 243,231.[5] The unincorporated suburban areas of West Valley and Terrace Heights are considered a part of greater Yakima.[6]

Yakima is situated in the Yakima Valley, an extremely productive agricultural region noted for apple, wine and hop production. As of 2011, the Yakima Valley produces 77% of all hops grown in the United States.[7] The name Yakima originates from the Yakama Nation, located south of the city.

The Yakama people were the first known inhabitants of the Yakima Valley. In 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition came to the area and discovered abundant wildlife and rich soil, prompting the settlement of homesteaders.[8] A Catholic Mission was established in Ahtanum, southwest of present-day Yakima, in 1847.[9] The arrival of settlers and their conflicts with the natives resulted in the Yakima War. The U.S. Army established Fort Simcoe in 1856 near present-day White Swan as a response to the uprising. The Yakamas were defeated and forced to relocate to the Yakama Indian Reservation.

Yakima County was created in 1865. When bypassed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in December 1884, over 100 buildings were moved with rollers and horse teams to the nearby site of the depot. The new city was dubbed North Yakima and was officially incorporated and named the county seat on January 27, 1886. The name was changed to Yakima in 1918. Union Gap was the new name given to the original site of Yakima.

Yelm, Washington

Yelm /jɛlm/ is a city in Thurston County, Washington, US. Its population was 6,848 at the 2010 census. It ranked 10th of 279 eligible incorporated communities in Washington for population growth from 2000–2010.[citation needed]

Yelm is in southeast Thurston County, Washington. It is a suburban city, surrounded by other suburban cities and pockets of unincorporated Thurston County. It is near the major transportation routes of Interstate 5 and State Routes 507, 510 and 702, which connect it economically and socially to the greater Puget Sound Region and provide a gateway to Mount Rainier.

The word "Yelm" is said to come from the Coast Salish word shelm or chelm, meaning "heat waves from the sun",[7] referring to heat mirages.[8]

The Yelm Prairie was originally inhabited by the Nisqually and provided good pasture for their horses. The first permanent non-indigenous settlers came in 1853 to join the Hudson's Bay Company sheep farmers who already conducted business in the area.

Zillah, Washington

Zillah is a city in Yakima County, Washington, United States, with a population of 2,964 as of 2010 census. Tourist attractions include the Teapot Dome Service Station, the fortuitously named Church of God Zillah and the local wineries.

Zillah was founded in 1891 following the completion of the Sunnyside Canal project, an irrigation scheme delivering water from the Yakima River to the arid lower Yakima Valley. Walter Granger, superintendent of the canal company, chose the town site in 1892. The town was named for Miss Zillah Oakes, daughter of Thomas Fletcher Oakes, who, as president of the Northern Pacific Railway, had backed the building of the canal. The town was named after Miss Zillah because she would scream and cry on the way to the new town, while on the trip her father promised to name the town after her if she would stop. Granger housed the headquarters of the Washington Irrigation Company in Zillah, giving it economical advantages for a time. He also made his residency in Zillah, becoming its mayor after retiring from the irrigation company. Zillah was officially incorporated on January 5, 1911.[7]

Zillah is located on Interstate 82 about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Yakima.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.78 square miles (4.61 km2), all of it land.[2]

University Place, Washington

University Place is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. Its population was 31,144 at the 2010 census.

Based on per capita income, University Place ranks 81st of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked.

University Place received its name in the 1800s when the University of Puget Sound, a private liberal-arts college in North Tacoma, purchased land along the primary north-south route of Grandview Drive. The school sought to build a new campus there, but ended up selling the land back to the city for about $11,000. University Place remained an unincorporated part of Pierce County until the City of University Place was formed on August 31, 1995.[citation needed]

Today, University Place is largely suburban in character and functions as a mixed business and residential area with waterfront on the Puget Sound. The town is home to Curtis Senior High School and Charles Wright Academy.

White Swan, Washington

White Swan is a census-designated place (CDP) in Yakima County, Washington, United States. The population was 3,033 at the 2000 census.

White Swan is an unincorporated community located on the Yakama Indian Reservation, presumably named after Chief White Swan of the Yakamas[3] around the start of the 20th century. The town was on the Mt Adams Highway (an overland road between Yakima and The Dalles beginning in the 1850s) between Union Gap and Fort Simcoe. In September 1921, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ.) (DOC) opened the Yakima Indian Christian Mission. For an accurate history of the Mission see the book by Keith Watkins titled God's Presence. In 1967, the former child-care facilities of the Mission were leased to the Sundown M Corporation. Using the registered cattle brand of the Mission (from the years it owned cattle),ima the Sundown M Ranch began serving recovering alcoholics in 1968.[4]Pacific Power & Light Company first brought electricity to the community in 1928. The White Swan Library (a branch of the Yakima Valley Regional library) was established in 1947. It was moved to a donated facility in 1969 where it stands today. White Swan is part of the Mt Adams School District #209, and home of White Swan High School. The town has never been formally incorporated.[5][6][7]

White Swan is located at 46°23′40″N 120°42′11″W / 46.39444°N 120.70306°W / 46.39444; -120.70306 (46.394444, -120.702958).[8]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 103.3 square miles (267.6 km²), all of it land.

Maple Valley, Washington

Maple Valley is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 22,684 at the 2010 census. The population was 25,686 at the 2015 estimate.[3]

The area was settled in 1879 by three men who were improving a trail and brought their families in. When a name for a future community was proposed, the names Vine Maple Valley and Maple Ridge were suggested. A vote was taken by writing the names on slips of paper and placing them in a hat. Vine Maple Valley won by 2/3, but the word "Vine" was later cut by the post office because it made the name too long.

The town's early history mainly had to do with coal, lumber milling to build homes, and a railroad which ran through town. Coal was brought in from Black Diamond to the south, but the town itself also mined coal from Cedar Mountain. The mine was used as late as 1947. Rail workers for lines like the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Cedar River Watershed, closed off by the City of Seattle, meant more workers for those things. More residents meant more lumber milling. More lumber milling meant more workers. Suquamish tribe chairperson Martha George was born near Maple Valley in Sheridan in 1892, at a logging camp where her mother and grandmother worked as cooks."[5]

The town grew inward. Blacksmith shops, hotels, saloons and stores took up the town in the 1910s and 1920s. Schools went up as well. Early schools were shacks at best. A two-room school went up in 1910, but a larger school was quickly needed. Tahoma High School, a three-story brick building, went up in 1920. Students made up the name by combining the first two letters in the town names Taylor, Hobart and Maple Valley.[6] The school still serves the Tahoma School District as an elementary school.

Wilbur, Washington

Wilbur is a town in Lincoln County, Washington, United States. The population was 884 at the 2010 census.

Just prior to the construction of the Central Washington Railroad line in 1889, no towns existed west of Davenport in Lincoln County. One place along the line, "Wild Goose Bill's Ranch", run by Samuel Wilbur Condin, was assigned a post office by the Federal government. Condon (also seen as Condit or Conden) was 62 years old and known throughout the region as Wild Goose Bill when he and another man shot each other to death on Jan. 21, 1895.[6] Condon platted the town that bears his middle name "Wilbur," though he didn't have anything to do with the naming. Goosetown was a consideration, until the blacksmith's wife complained that she would never live in a place with such a silly name. Instead, the name Wilbur was chosen by townsite surveyors.

It had been located on the stage line between Davenport and the Mines in northern Washington and with the speculation of the railroad arriving soon seemed a likely place for a town. The town grew in earnest and was platted in April 1889 by Condin. With the arrival of the railroad later that year, Wilbur's growth increased rapidly with the establishment of bigger hotels, a bank, a lumber mill and countless other businesses. After several failed attempts to incorporate in 1889, Wilbur was officially incorporated on August 11, 1890. The boom had slowed by 1891 and came to a halt with the Panic of 1893.[7] A fire in October of 1891 caused damage to the town, killing 4.

Wilbur was brought out of the hard times of the 1890s during a record wheat harvest in 1897 which brought over $1,000,000 to circulation in the town. The construction of a road to Republic then a flourishing mining camp in what was to become Ferry County was expected to increase traffic to Wilbur, but the expected benefit never materialized. After a fire July 5, 1901 destroyed several city blocks, causing $155,000 in damage ($3.9 million in 2017 dollars), a water works was established in 1903. Wilbur was electrically lighted in October 1903 by the Wilbur Electric Company.[7]

Spokane metropolitan area

The Spokane–Spokane Valley Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of Spokane, Stevens, and Pend Oreille Counties in Washington State, anchored by the city of Spokane and its largest suburb, Spokane Valley. As of 2016 the MSA had a population of 556,634. The Spokane Metropolitan Area and the neighboring Coeur d'Alene metropolitan area, make up the larger Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area. The urban areas of the two MSAs largely follow the path of Interstate 90 between Spokane and Coeur d'Alene. In 2010, the Spokane–Spokane Valley MSA had a gross metropolitan product of $20.413 billion.[1]

As of 2013, there were 535,189 people and 208,513 households residing within the MSA. The racial makeup of the MSA was 86% White, 2% Black, 1% Native, 2% Asian, 0% Islander, and 5% Hispanic. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives' 2010 Metro Area Membership Report, the denominational affiliations of the Spokane MSA are 64,277 Evangelical Protestant, 682 Black Protestant, 24,826 Mainline Protestant, 754 Orthodox, 66,202 Catholic, 31,674 Other, and 339,338 Unclaimed.[2]

The median income for a household in the MSA was $47,485. The per capita income for the MSA was $24,559.[3]

Wilkeson, Washington

Wilkeson is a town in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 477 at the 2010 census.

Wilkeson was officially incorporated on July 24, 1909 and boasts an elementary school building dating from 1909. The town is named for Samuel Wilkeson, father of journalist and pioneer settler Frank Wilkeson.

The following passage is from an online biography of Frank Wilkeson:

"[In] his 1869 report of the Cascades mountain range, Frank [Wilkeson]'s father, Samuel, wrote: 'these forests of trees — so enchain the senses of the grand and so enchant the sense of the beautiful that I linger on the theme and am loathe to depart — surpassing the woods of all the rest of the globe...' Like many writers of that time, Samuel indulged in hyperbole, but his love of the Cascades seems very genuine. Sometime in the period of 1876-78, four large coal veins were discovered and mined near a region known as Carbonado in the Cascade foothills. A small village formed and was named for Samuel after NP extended a rail line there from Tacoma in 1877. He was appointed secretary of the NP board in March 1869. The area became well known for its coal coking ovens as well as the natural sandstone formations that were the source of material for facing the new capitol in Olympia. At one time the town of Wilkeson had a population of about 3,000, but today it hovers around 400. Many of the same principals of the Wilkeson operation built the coking ovens at Cokedale, about 80 miles north in Skagit County, which led to the creation of the town of Sedro, now Sedro-Woolley. As far as we can determine, neither Frank nor any member of his family actually ever lived in the namesake town, but his brother, Samuel G. Wilkeson, invested substantially in coal companies that operated there...

Vancouver, Washington

Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. State of Washington, and the largest suburb of Portland, Oregon.[6][7][8][9] Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state, with a population of 161,791 as of April 1, 2010 census.[10] Vancouver is the county seat of Clark County and forms part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, the 23rd largest metropolitan area in the United States. Originally established in 1825 around Fort Vancouver, a fur-trading outpost, the city is located on the Washington–Oregon border along the Columbia River, directly north of Portland. In 2005, Money magazine named it No. 91 on its list of best places in America to live.[11] In 2016, WalletHub ranks Vancouver the 39th best place in the US for families to live.[12]

Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver in southern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 300 mi (480 km) to the north. Both cities were named after sea captain George Vancouver, but the American city is older; Vancouver, B.C., was incorporated 29 years after the incorporation of Vancouver, Washington, and more than 60 years after the name Vancouver was first used in reference to the historic Fort Vancouver trading post on the Columbia River. City officials have periodically suggested changing the U.S. city's name to Fort Vancouver to reduce confusion with its larger and better-known northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as "Vancouver, B.C." and the United States city as "Vancouver, Washington," or "Vancouver, USA." Local nicknames include "Vantucky" (though this is often used as a derogatory term)[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and "The 'Couv(e)".[20] In 2013, the nickname "Vansterdam" surfaced as a result of the legalization of marijuana in the state of Washington; this is a reference to the cannabis-legal city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.[21]

The Vancouver area was inhabited by a variety of Native American tribes, most recently the Chinook and Klickitat nations, with permanent settlements of timber longhouses.[22] The Chinookan and Klickitat names for the area were reportedly Skit-so-to-ho and Ala-si-kas, respectively, meaning "land of the mud-turtles."[23] First European contact was made in 1775, with approximately half of the indigenous population dead from smallpox before the Lewis and Clark expedition camped in the area in 1806.[22] Within another fifty years, other actions and diseases such as measles, malaria and influenza had reduced the Chinookan population from an estimated 80,000 "to a few dozen refugees, landless, slaveless and swindled out of a treaty."[22]

Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was "the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains." The first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. From that time on, the area was settled by both the US and Britain under a "joint occupation" agreement. Joint occupation led to the Oregon boundary dispute and ended on June 15, 1846, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, which gave the United States full control of the area. Before 1845, American Henry Williamson laid out a large claim west of the Hudson's Bay Company (including part of the present-day Port of Vancouver), called Vancouver City and properly registered his claim at the U.S. courthouse in Oregon City, before leaving for California.[24] In 1850, Amos Short traced over the claim of Williamson and named the town Columbia City. It changed to Vancouver in 1855.[25] The City of Vancouver was incorporated on January 23, 1857.[26]