Wanawish/Horn Rapids Dam

The Wanawish/Horn Rapids Dam was key to irrigation efforts along the lower Yakima River.

HANFORD HISTORY PROJECT

Article written by James Schroeder

At the turn of the nineteenth century, farmers and entrepreneurs dreamed of large irrigation projects to transform Washington’s arid Priest Rapids Valley into a fertile breadbasket rivaling California. Soon irrigation ditches and canals both real and planned crisscrossed the region. Constructed in 1892, the Horn Rapids Dam (renamed Wanawish Dam in 1997) was the cornerstone to irrigation efforts along the lower Yakima River, controlling water levels and enabling the communities of Kennewick and Richland to thrive.

Horn Rapids Dam derives its name from its location on the Horn Rapids, a short strip of the Yakima River that makes an abrupt north-south U-turn before emptying into the Columbia. The Rapids are a traditional salmon and whitefish fishing ground for the Yakama and Wanapum Indian tribes.A 1994 federal report clarifies that Wanawish in fact means “rock dam fishing place.” Tribes gathered food throughout the valley during seasonal migrations. Wanapum Chief Johnny Buck’s brother Frank remembered that the Wanapum Tribe often stopped at Horn Rapids during the middle of the summer. Men fished off of wooden fishing platforms using spears and dip nets, while women on the shore sliced fish open to dry on poles. Although Whites forced many Washington tribes onto reservations, rights guaranteed by the Yakama Treaty of 1855 allowed Native Americans to continue fishing the Horn Rapids. These rights remain in effect today.  Tribal fishing platforms can still be seen along the Yakima River. White settlers also fished the Yakima River , and even in 1914, lucky fishermen caught 30-pound salmon. 

Whites soon saw the Horn Rapids as an important location for agriculture. Although construction of Northern Pacific (NP) rail lines during the 1880s facilitated settlement, farmers needed irrigation. The Yakama Irrigation and Improvement Company (YI&I) first tried to address this need. New York entrepreneurs founded the YI&I in 1888 and purchased thousands of acres of NP holdings in the Yakima Valley. Initial plans were to construct an irrigation canal near Kiona and two canals originating on either side of the Horn Rapids, one to irrigate Kennewick to the south and one to irrigate farmland in the north (this northern community became Richland in 1905). The YI&I purchased water rights to the Horn Rapids in 1891, and in November 1892 superintendent I. W. Dudley announced the construction of a concrete dam to “extend the width of the riverbed [for] 600 feet.” This dam raised the height of the Yakima River to ensure canals received water throughout the year.

Despite the YI&I’s optimism, construction on its canal network progressed slowly, and the company faced persistent financial problems. Although they successfully extended the southern canal to Kennewick in 1893 it was expensive to operate and maintain. Seepage caused by loose soil was a constant problem. Even a decade later some canals in the region still lost over 25% of their precious water to leaks. These plans came to naught when financial instability, exacerbated by the national economic crisis of 1893 and damage from severe flooding in 1894, collapsed the YI&I.

Large scale irrigation projects were thus put on hold until NP employee Thomas Cooper arrived in the region in 1901. Cooper and other NP officials were optimistic about irrigation’s potential. The NP could make money selling water and the increased agricultural production would simultaneously increase rail traffic. That year the Northwestern Improvement Company (NWI), an NP subsidiary, purchased what was left of the Kennewick Canal and the Horn Rapids Dam. NP officials worried about putting all their eggs in the NWI basket however, and so in 1902 the NWI transferred its Kennewick assets to the Northern Pacific Irrigation Company (NPI), a separate subsidiary. In addition to repairing the Kennewick Canal the NPI extensively renovated the Horn Rapids Dam, constructing a more “permanent dam” in 1903 to provide water for its irrigation holdings. The new Horn Rapids Dam was constructed out of wood and rock using a timber crib design that remained unchanged for a century. Only after 1996 flooding severely damaged the structure did engineers install a concrete dam. 

The Horn Rapids Dam is an example a successful early irrigation projects in the arid West, providing vital water to farming communities on both sides of the Yakima River. Kennewick grew quickly over the next three decades as a result of the dam. Administration changed in 1918 when the newly formed Columbia Irrigation District (CID) assumed control of NPI’s holdings, including the Kennewick Canal and Horn Rapids Dam. On the north side of the Yakima River developments followed a similar trajectory under the direction of local entrepreneurs. The Lower Yakima Improvement Company and the Benton Water Company both tried to irrigate farms along the lower Yakama and in 1908 used their joint resources to construct the 15 mile (24 km) Richland Irrigation Canal. This canal serviced farms around Richland until the town was annexed by the United States government in 1943. Land near Horn Rapids Dam was put to additional use when, in 1944, the US military constructed a facility called Colombia Camp to house the Hanford Site’s supplemental workforce of 250 to 290 federal prisoners from the McNeil Island Penitentiary in Puget Sound. Even today Horn Rapids Dam remains vital to Yakima River irrigation and serves as a valued fishing ground for area tribes. 

Bibliography

• Ted Van Arsdol, Desert Boom and Bust: The Story of Irrigation Efforts and Town-Building in Benton County, Washington, 1888-1904 (Vancouver, WA., 1972), 54. 
• Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted, “Reclaiming the Arid West: The Role of the Northern Pacific Railway in Irrigating Kennewick, Washington,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 84, no. 4 (1993): 131-132. 
• US Department of Transportation and Washington State Department of Transportation, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Twin Bridges Replacement Project, Grosscup Road, Benton County, Washington (Benton County, WA, 1994), 3-138. 
• Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander, Exploring Washington’s Past: A Road Guide to History. rev. ed. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 119.  
• Nancy M. Mendenhall, Orchards of Eden: White Bluffs on the Columbia, 1907-1943 (Seattle: Far Eastern Press, 2006), 72. 
• Kate Kershner, “West Richland: Thumbnail History,” Historylink.org, August 29, 2013, https://www.historylink.org/File/10441. 
• Stephen Emerson, “Wanapum People After Smohalla,” HistoryLink.org, September 15, 2010, https://historylink.org/File/9524.  
• Martha Berry Parker, Tales of Richland, White Bluffs & Hanford, 1805-1943, Before the Atomic Reserve (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1986), 76.
• Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities, “Interview with Catherine Finley,” Hanford History Project, accessed July 18, 2020, http://hanfordhistory.com/items/show/65.