Walla Walla ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. It is one of the largest cities in Southeastern Washington with a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,339 as of 2023. The combined population of the city and its two suburbs, the town of College Place and unincorporated Walla Walla East, is about 45,500. Walla Walla is located near the Palouse and Blue Mountains, approximately from the Oregon border to the south.
The city lies within the historic territory of several Indigenous Northwest Plateau peoples, among which were the Walawalałáma (Walla Walla). The settlement's name, Walla Walla, is derived from a Nez Perce word for "place of many waters". The Lewis and Clark expedition reached the Walla Walla Valley in 1806 and were followed by a trading post founded by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1818. The Whitman Mission was established in 1836 and closed after a massacre at the site in 1847. The modern settlement of Walla Walla was founded as Steptoeville in 1856 around Fort Walla Walla and incorporated as a city on January 11, 1862. Walla Walla became the most populous city in Washington Territory but was later eclipsed in the 1880s, remaining a regional hub.
Walla Walla is home to the Washington State Penitentiary, Whitman College, and Marcus Whitman Hotel. The surrounding area has a significant agricultural industry, including a wine-growing region with over 120 wineries. The city is located on U.S. Route 12, a major regional highway, and has a commercial airport.
History
Native history and early settlement
alt=Old Mission, Waiilatpu|left|thumb|Old Mission, Waiilatpu
Walla Walla's history starts in 1806 when the Lewis and Clark expedition encountered the Walawalałáma (Walla Walla people) near the mouth of Walla Walla River. Other inhabitants of the valley included the Liksiyu (Cayuse), Imatalamłáma (Umatilla), and Niimíipu (Nez Perce) indigenous peoples. Abandoned in 1855, it is now underwater behind the McNary Dam.
On October 16, 1836, after news of a Nez Perce expedition to learn about Christianity and a deal was brokered between the Cayuse people for the use of the Waiilatpu region, Calvinist missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established the Whitman Mission. A deep distrust of the settlers was cultivated between the Cayuse and the settlers as the Whitmans struggled to convert the natives, failed to fulfill promises, and shifted their focus to whites passing through along the Oregon Trail.
Catholic missionaries also arrived in the 1840s, and the Catholic ceremonies resonated with the tribe.
thumb|Fort Walla Walla, 1874
In 1855, the Walla Walla Treaty Council was held at Waiilatpu between the Washington Territorial Assembly and the tribal leaders of the surrounding area. Despite the indigenous people citing Tamanwit (natural law), the following year the natives agreed to surrender millions of acres of land for a native reservation and $150,000. The Umatilla Indian Reservation's boundaries eventually shrunk to less than .
Founding
The Walla Walla treaty remained unratified for four years, during which time the conflict between the natives and settlers was increasing due to frontiersmen encroaching on the promised reservation and the Walla Walla and Umatilla peoples' refusal to move to the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The United States Army established a presence in a series of military forts beginning in 1856. A community named "Steptoeville" grew around Fort Walla Walla, named for Lieutenant Colonel Edward Steptoe, and later his name was bestowed upon Steptoe, Washington. The fort has since been restored with a museum about the early settlers' lives.
Growth in the region was limited due to a ban on immigration to the area due to the constant warring with the natives from the Department of the Pacific's General John Ellis Wool, who was sympathetic to the natives. In 1858, the department was split, leaving Washington territory under the command of General William S. Harney, who lifted the ban on October 31, 1858.
On March 15, 1859, Walla Walla county held its first county commission and election in the community's first church, St. Patrick's Church, which still serves as the city's parish. Following the ratification of the Walla Walla treaty, the commission voted to name the settlement Walla Walla, on November 17, 1859 and the military carried out the forced displacement of the remaining natives, under the threat of hanging.
alt=Whitman College, Memorial Building, 1906|thumb|Whitman College, Memorial Building, 1906
On December 20, 1859, the first educational charter was granted to Whitman Seminary, a high school, which opened on October 15, 1866. In 1882, the institution's name was changed to Whitman College, and the legislature issued a new educational charter as a four-year private college.
The Mullan Road, the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific Northwest, tied Walla Walla to more mining opportunities, and after gold was discovered in 1860, the area became the outfitting point for the Oro Fino, Idaho mines. The nearest part of the road followed the modern approximate path from Spokane to Walla Walla via Interstate 90, U.S. Route 195, and U.S. Route 12. The population swelled due to the gold rush, resulting in an unsuccessful proposal to Congress to split Walla Walla from Washington into its own territory.
Gold rush and growth
alt=Bird's eye view of Walla Walla, Washington Territory 1876|thumb|upright=1.3|Bird's eye view of Walla Walla, Washington Territory, 1876|left
Walla Walla was incorporated on January 11, 1862. The first election was held on April 1, 1862, and Judge Elias Bean Whitman, Marcus Whitman's cousin, was elected as the city's first mayor. The population exploded over the following decade, increasing by 300%, making it the most populous city in the territory, slating it to be the capital until cities surpassed it again, after it was bypassed by the transcontinental rail lines in the 1880s.
During the 1860s, the city established its first businesses and community gathering spaces, a number of which served as the first in Pacific Northwest. The city's first newspaper was one of the first between Missouri and the Cascades, the Washington Statesman, was founded in 1861. The first bank, Baker Boyer Bank, was the first in the state, was founded in 1869 by one of the city's first council members, and as of March 2022, still served as the oldest bank in state. The Pioneer Meat Market, run by partners John Dooley and William Kirkman, was opened during this time and remained there until they sold it to Christopher Ennis in 1882 and founded the Walla Walla Dressed Meat Company.
One of the first brick buildings in the city was also Walla Walla's first store, Schwabacher Brothers Store on Main street, which served as the city's grocer, builder supply, and clothes shop. Sigmond Schwabacher, one of the brothers, also served in the city's council. The city's first book store was opened in 1864, and an academic community formed around the city's book collection as the Calliopean Society and later incorporated as the Walla Walla Library Association. The city also had one of the region's first breweries, Emil Meyer's City Brewery, that also served as a bakery.
During the gold rush, large populations of Chinese settlers arrived in the city from Portland, Oregon, creating a neighborhood referred to as "Chinatown". The Chinese settlers mainly worked in commerce, mining, and railroad contracts. After Mullan was unable to lobby the state to make Walla Walla a major railroad stop, and a fire in Chinatown destroyed most of the neighborhood, the immigrants left to find work elsewhere, including Eng Ah King, who was informally known as the "mayor of Chinatown" for revitalizing Seattle's Chinatown.
In 1886, while Washington was lobbying for statehood, local business man Levi Ankeny donated 160 acres of land to the city to serve as the site of a new prison. Legislators approved the site, and in 1887, the state began transferring prisoners to the Washington Territorial Prison from Saatco Prison, a privately owned facility that was shut down in 1888 because of its poor living conditions. The first inmate was a local, William Murphy, who was serving an 18-year sentence for manslaughter. In 1887, the prison took in its first woman inmate, and had to improvise accommodations until a separate facility was built nearby. When Washington became a state in 1889, the facility officially became the Washington State Penitentiary, but inmates nicknamed it "The Hill", "The Joint", "The Walls", and "The Pen". One of the main contributions of the Italians to Walla Walla commerce was their vineyards, and soon after, wine tasting rooms, the first two opened in the 1880s by Frank Orselli and Pasquale Saturno. the Walla Walla sweet onion. The SDA population was followed by hundreds of Volga Germans, whose Old Lutheran and Mennonite religions were connected to SDA in Prussia. The immigrants had relied on dryland farming of wheat crops in Volgograd, Russia. The neighborhood built around the Russian-German immigrants is known as "Germantown" or "Russische Ecke (Russian Corner)" to locals, referring to the creek that runs through it as "Little Volga". The area around Walla Walla College eventually incorporated as its own city, College Place, Washington.
German immigrants also grew hops and the city was home to several breweries.
As the city became dependent on its wheat production, merchants in the town financed a railroad to Wallula, Washington, to connect Walla Walla to the Columbia River, completed in 1875. In 1990, became Walla Walla's first privately renovated building as a Bon-Macy's. Bon-Macy's parent company, Federated Department Stores, rebranded all of its subsidiaries to Macy's, which operated in the Liberty building until 2020.
In 1927, the Real Estate Improvement Company of Seattle invested $300,000 toward the construction of the Marcus Whitman Hotel. The 174-room hotel was designed by Sherwood D. Ford and opened in 1928. It fell into disrepair in the 1960s, until it was restored in 1999 and reopened in 2001. , the hotel was still open.
Mill Creek overflowed into Walla Walla and College Place on March 31, 1931, causing $1 million in damages. Community volunteers jury-rigged makeshift levees to divert water from buildings during the cleanup which cost roughly $100,000. The United States Army Corps of Engineers built the Mill Creek Dam and Bennington Lake in response to the disaster. The dam and lake were instrumental in preventing damage from flooding in 1964, 1996, and 2020.
During the Great Depression, a Canadian import duty cut off the main market for Walla Walla's fresh agriculture. John Grant Kelly, who owned the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin at the time, opened the area's first cannery, Walla Walla Canning Company. In 1939, Walla Walla produced roughly $5 million of the country's $30 million canned green pea industry, and TIME magazine referred to Kelly as the "Father of Peas". Kelly also owned Church Grape Juice Company, a concord grape farm in Kennewick, Washington. Workers went on strike for better wages in September 1949, and Kelly had two employees arrested for speaking to the Tri-City Herald. Church was one of four juice companies in the region to be charged with violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 for price-fixing grapes. Welch's bought Church from Kelly in 1952.
In 1936, Walla Walla and surrounding areas were struck by the magnitude 6.1 State Line earthquake. Residents reported hearing a moderate rumbling immediately before the shock. There was significant damage in the area, and aftershocks were felt for several months following.
in the 1970s and 1980s, Leonetti Cellar, Woodward Canyon, L'Ecole 41, Waterbrook Winery and Seven Hills Winery pioneered a resurgence of Walla Walla's viticulture.
In 1997, Gary Johnson founded the first brewery in Walla Walla since prohibition, Mill Creek Brewpub. In July 2011, USA Today selected Walla Walla as the friendliest small city in the United States. Walla Walla was also named Friendliest Small Town in America the same year as part of Rand McNally's annual Best of the Road contest. In 2012 and 2013, Walla Walla was a runner-up in the best food category for the Best of the Road. Downtown Walla Walla was awarded a Great Places in America Great Neighborhood designation in 2012 by the American Planning Association.
In the 2010s, Walla Walla's brewery industry experienced a revival. The first hops farms since prohibition were planted in 2018, and in 2019, Washington State Department of Corrections announced a plan to bring a vineyard and hopyard to Washington State Penitentiary, along with agricultural science education to prepare inmates for careers in the field. The program would offer inmates state-wide minimum wages, a practice only legally enforced by state law at private institutions. The city hosted its first beer festival in February 2020.
In 2017, and annually, Walla Walla's mayor signed a proclamation making the third Saturday of September "Adam West Day", to honor the actor, who was born and raised in the city. In 2020, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the organizers announced that the city approved the erection of a statue in West's honor and a GoFundMe fundraiser to cover the costs of the statue. The statue will be placed in Menlo Park on Alvarado Terrace, part of Historic Downtown Walla Walla.
Etymology
Walla Walla is Nez Perce for "Place of Many Waters", because the original settlement was at the junction of the Snake and Columbia rivers. The slogan was coined by Al Jolson, who had visited the city in the early 1900s in The Keylor Grand Theater. He had also said the same of New York, New York.
Some locals and Walla Walla natives often refer to the city in text form with "W2".
Geography and climate
thumb|upright=1.2|Climate chart for Walla Walla
Walla Walla is located in the Walla Walla Valley, with the rolling Palouse hills to the north and the Blue Mountains to the east of town. Various creeks meander through town before combining to become the Walla Walla River, which drains into the Columbia River about west of town. The city lies in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, so annual precipitation is fairly low.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Walla Walla has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate according to the Köppen climate classification system (Köppen: Csa; Trewartha: Doak). It is one of the northernmost locations in North America to qualify as having such a climate. In contrast to most other locations having this climate type in North America, Walla Walla can experience fairly cold winter conditions, though they are still relatively mild for its latitude and inland location.