From the desk of Evan Robb

Washington Rural Heritage is pleased to announce one of several new digital collections being published this month.  From southeast Washington’s Franklin County, the Connell Heritage Collection marks the completion of a year-long grant funded project led by the Connell Branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries. In partnership with the Connell Heritage Museum and the Franklin County Graphic, this collaborative effort resulted in the digitization of more than 200 unique resources documenting a century of the town’s history.

Among the materials that are now digitized and full-text-searchable for the first time is The Beginnings of Connell.  This local history document that the story of Palouse Junction, a remote point along the Northern Pacific Railroad line in the 1880s which would later be renamed as Connell.  Most of Connell’s growth came after 1900, as more settlers began to move into the area.  Otto Olds’ reminiscences, Memories of a Pioneer, describe a challenging existence for early homesteaders:

 “I don’t remember much that happened that first year, only that we got a house and barn built out of 1 by 12’s standing on end. Dad managed to plow about 15 acres with a walking plow or ‘foot burner’ as they are called, and planted it to oats in the fall. We had to sell one of the cows as it took most of the daylight to haul water and cut sagebrush to clear the land. Dad and Uncle Ed got a harvest job by driving to Lind, thirty miles away. Dad got $3.50 a day, himself and four mules, so was able to buy our winter groceries.  Dad had arrived in Washington with $1,400. With this he had been able to pay the filing fee on 160 acres—which was about the same as the government betting it was impossible to live on the homestead five years without starving to death. If you survived, the 160 acres were yours.”

Additional highlights from the Connell Heritage collection include:

• Photos of an August, 1907 cloudburst which sent a flash flood through town.
• Photos of February, 1956 flood, demonstrating the effect of a “pineapple express” event in this Eastern Washington community.
• Digitized negatives from the collection of the Franklin County Graphic, documenting community life in Connell across the decades.  Paisley shirts, black-rimmed glasses, and an “I Hate Girls” button all make an appearance on this photo of boys participating in a 1966 pie-eating contest.
• Photos from the Connell Heritage Museum, depicting the aftermath of destructive 1905 and 1909 fires in Connell.
• An early promotional map depicting areas to be irrigated as a result of the Columbia River Basin Project. This map includes canals serving Connell, Mesa, and areas east; these were never constructed.
• A series of street murals from present-day Connell.  These have been geo-referenced along with other materials in the collection, and can be explored on an interactive map.

Congratulations to the Connell Heritage partners—they join more than 80 cultural institutions in 30 communities throughout the state that have digitized material with assistance from the Washington Rural Heritage initiative. Washington Rural Heritage sub-grants are made possible with Library Services and Technology Act funding provided by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.