Photo courtesy of Benton County Museum & Historical Society

Whether you’re from Prosser or the Yakima Valley, or just like looking at old black and white photographs, you’ll want to take a look at the new digital collection of historical photographs documenting the early years of this town located along the Yakima River.

The photo above shows a farmer operating a combine that is pulled by a horse team on the Horse Heaven Hills in 1907.

The collection, entitled Prosser Heritage, became available thanks to a partnership between the Prosser branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries and the Benton County Museum & Historical Society. The State Library’s Washington Rural Heritage program published the collection and provided a grant to fund it. Prosser Heritage is the 20th collection published by the rural heritage program.

Washington Rural Heritage is a collection of historic materials documenting the early culture, industry, and community life of Washington State. The collection is an ongoing project of small, rural libraries and partnering cultural institutions, guided by an initiative of the State Library. The initiative provides the infrastructure and training to both digitize and serve unique collections to a widespread audience.

Go here to learn more about Washington Rural Heritage and see its digital photo collections.