Celebrating Centuries of Walla Walla’s Evolution

Walla Walla is known for its amazing crops, whether it’s the plentiful wheat sprawling on the rolling hills, the Walla Walla Sweet Onion — Washington’s official vegetable — or the local grapes that produce delicious wines. With all this bounty, one thing is for certain: Walla Walla’s farms are something to be proud of.

"Agriculture is the center of life in this community," said Mike Denny, the former president of the Fort Walla Walla Museum board of directors, as he led Washington Grown host Val Thomas–Matson on a tour of the museum’s grounds and a step back into history.

The name "Walla Walla" comes from a Nez Perce word meaning "running waters" or "place of many waters," and for thousands of years before the first onions were planted and the first vineyards erected — "since time immemorial," according to the City of Walla Walla’s website — the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla tribes lived here. They lived off the land, in harmony with its resources, as they fished for salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers, hunted for elk and deer, and gathered roots and berries.

In 1805, the Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, arrived in the area, inspiring fur traders to expand their business into the Pacific Northwest and build a trading post in 1818 called Fort Nez Perce (renamed Fort Walla Walla) near present–day Walla Walla. In the 1830s, New Yorkers Marcus and Narcissa Whitman built a religious mission near the fort, which included an orchard and a wheat farm — the first major inland farm in the region, according to HistoryLink.

In 1855, local tribes and the U.S. government entered into a treaty that opened up the territory to an influx of settlers, which accelerated after the discovery of gold in Idaho in 1861. Walla Walla was officially incorporated as a city in 1862 and continued to grow, with thousands of acres of farmland in operation within a few years. Dryland wheat farms were the most prevalent during this time, and "wheat became the backbone of Walla Walla’s economy," according to HistoryLink.

In the late 1880s, a soldier named Peter Pieri found a sweet onion seed in Corsica, Italy, and brought it to Walla Walla. Pieri and his neighboring farmers cultivated the onion to create a bigger, sweeter version that would be less likely to make you cry than other onion varieties. In 1900, the first Walla Walla Sweet Onion was harvested.

"They started selling like mad, and it was like, whoa, give us some starts," said Denny. "And before it was all over, there were 92 Italian onion farms here."
In 2007, the Walla Walla Sweet Onion was designated the state’s official vegetable, and an annual festival in Walla Walla celebrates the vegetable every summer. Today, according to the Walla Walla Sweet Onion website, approximately 20 farms grow these onions on roughly 500 acres in the Walla Walla Valley.

At the Fort Walla Walla Museum, Denny walks to a display garden that shows visitors some of the crops grown here. He points at rows of delicate green shoots growing from the ground.

"These are Walla Walla Sweet Onions," he says. "You can eat them like an apple."

By the 1950s, Walla Walla County had become one of the country’s highest-earning agricultural areas, according to HistoryLink, producing crops like onions, wheat, barley, corn, potatoes, asparagus, peas, and grapes. But while grapes had likely been grown in the area since the 1820s, commercial winemaking didn’t begin in Walla Walla until the 1970s. The first commercial winery, Leonetti Cellar, was founded in 1977; now the valley boasts more than 120 wineries.

Winemaker Kate Derby’s family has been around for most of the area’s agricultural history. Derby and her family own Spring Valley Vineyard north of Walla Walla, and her great-great-grandfather, Uriah Corkrum, began farming wheat here in the 1800s. In an effort to make sure the farm would stay in the family, Derby’s grandparents began growing grapes for local wineries in 1993, and they started making their own wine in 1999.

"We planted 45 acres of grapes, and they were getting really high acclaim," said Derby. "And so we were like, hmm, maybe we should try making this wine. It was really because of my grandparents saying, what else can we do to keep this in the family?"

Derby celebrates how far Walla Walla has come, even in her lifetime. She remembers when she could walk down the middle of Main Street and only see a few cars.

"I loved Walla Walla then," she said, "but the fact that Walla Walla has embraced this new-to-us industry but kept the character that Walla Walla has always been — it is so fun to see, and it’s really fun to be a part of."