A Look at the Past – The History of
Community Trees in the Mid-Columbia
Marilyn Hyde
Kennewick Parks and Recreation Board
Mid-Columbia Community Forestry
The planting and care of
trees in the Mid-Columbia region was paramount in the minds of our first
settlers. In 1904, the year
Kennewick was incorporated, one of the first ordinance was to fine anyone $50
for damaging a tree. They also
included jail time but that was dropped.
The town planted trees on every plotted street and for sometime they
were watered by hand.
Only six years later in
the Feb 9, 1910 issue of the TWIN-CITY REPORTER an editorial stated that we
had already started the damaging practice of topping those precious trees.
"At a meeting of the Commercial Club last night, C. A. Lundy, Geo
F. Richardson and G. E. Hanson were appointed as a committee to wait upon the
City Officials and protest against their
method of pruning the shade trees along the
streets. Although the club
had no expert advice it was the opinion of the members that the trees are
being cut back too much."
On July 23, 1935 those
trees that had been pruned to be wind catchers did just that and Kennewick
lost over half of those trees. The debate arouse again and again, the proponents of the
Tri-City Chop won. The pruning job done after this windstorm was extremely
severe. In the summer of 1949 we
had another very high wind and very few trees that had endured this pruning
practice were still standing.
Because the only trees
growing in this area were planted by the settlers, Arbor Day was a big
occasion. This article was in the
April 12, 1912 edition of the Kennewick Courier.
"WHOLE CITY
OBSERVES ARBOR DAY It is to
be doubted if ever an Arbor Day was observed more fittingly and systematically
than was the day in Kennewick yesterday. The task of planting 8,000 trees of
various kinds along ten miles of the river front from the Hoyt place west of
the city to the O. R. & N. bridge five miles east was taken up and carried
through without a hitch.
Practically every
able-bodied man in the city took advantage of the general holiday which had
been declared and nine o'clock found the gangs marshaled at their stations
along the river front ready for
business.
The work was in charge
of ten captains, with
R. A. Oliver as marshal of the day.
Each captain had a mile of the stretch to oversee and each knew just
what was to be done and how they were to do it, so there was no confusion.
The trees arrived from the Montana nursery on Wednesday morning in
plenty of time to be sorted, apportioned and distributed to the various
captains.
As if in commendation of
the effort at beautifying our environs, old Mother Nature smiled and sent as
perfect a day as one ever enjoyed. It was a day to create in the cooped-up businessman a desire
to grab a shovel and get out-of-doors, even at the expense of a few blisters and
a lame back the next day.
Generous lunches of
sandwiches, hot coffee and doughnuts had been prepared by the women's clubs and
were taken to scenes of the action in auto loads at noon s that none of planter
had the opportunity to go home for lunch and forget to come back.
So far as possible the
trees were set just inside the property line where in a majority of cases they
will be watered, sprayed and properly cared for during their infancy.
All in all it was a job to be proud of and five or ten years from now, we
may all drive along the river boulevard in our autos and swell with pride as we
point to the magnificent ten-mile row of shade trees and say: "I helped put
them there."
The committee on the
Arbor Day plans made just one mistake---that of planning a big basket social as
a wind-up of the day's celebration. They did not stop to reason that the average
man, unused to manual labor, would have had about
all the festivities he could stand for one day, by the time he had
finished digging holes and
planting a hundred or so
trees.
So the basket social was
very lightly attended and no attempt was made to auction off the baskets that
had been prepared. After a short
band concert and some speech making the lunches were shared with the visiting
Pasco delegation and everyone went home to get a well earned rest.
Due to many reasons these
trees were lost, mainly an extremely cold winter when coal was in very short
supply and not delivered to Kennewick. Consequently
the trees were used for fuel. High
water and beavers also took their toll and McNary Dam construction finished off
all but a very few. One thing that
hasn't died is the love of trees, the need for trees in our desert and the
resolve to plant them.