Walla Walla ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. It is one of the largest cities in Southeastern Washington with a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,339 as of 2023. The combined population of the city and its two suburbs, the town of College Place and unincorporated Walla Walla East, is about 45,500. Walla Walla is located near the Palouse and Blue Mountains, approximately from the Oregon border to the south.
The city lies within the historic territory of several Indigenous Northwest Plateau peoples, among which were the Walawalałáma (Walla Walla). The settlement's name, Walla Walla, is derived from a Nez Perce word for "place of many waters". The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Walla Walla Valley in 1806 and were followed by a trading post founded by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1818. The Whitman Mission was established in 1836 and closed after a massacre at the site in 1847. The modern settlement of Walla Walla was founded as Steptoeville in 1856 around Fort Walla Walla and incorporated as a city on January 11, 1862. Walla Walla became the most populous city in Washington Territory but was later eclipsed in the 1880s, remaining a regional hub.
Walla Walla is home to the Washington State Penitentiary, Whitman College, and Marcus Whitman Hotel. The surrounding area has a significant agricultural industry, including a wine-growing region with over 120 wineries. The city is located on U.S. Route 12, a major regional highway, and has a commercial airport.
History
Native history and early settlement
Walla Walla's history starts in 1806 when the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Walawalałáma (Walla Walla people) near the mouth of Walla Walla River. Other inhabitants of the valley included the Liksiyu (Cayuse), Imatalamłáma (Umatilla), and Niimíipu (Nez Perce) indigenous peoples. In 1818, Fort Walla Walla (originally Fort Nez Percés), a fur trading outpost run by Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), was established and operated as an important stopping point in Oregon Country. Abandoned in 1855, it is now underwater behind the McNary Dam.
On October 16, 1836, after news of a Nez Perce expedition to learn about Christianity and a deal was brokered between the Cayuse people for the use of the Waiilatpu region, Calvinist missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established the Whitman Mission. A deep distrust of the settlers was cultivated between the Cayuse and the settlers as the Whitmans struggled to convert the natives, failed to fulfill promises, and shifted their focus to whites passing through along the Oregon Trail. In 1847, following a deadly measles outbreak, and reports of the Whitmans poisoning the Cayuse, the Whitmans were warned to leave the area because of the Cayuse custom of killing medicine men whose patients died. They refused to leave, and were killed by the Cayuse, along with 12 others. The site was later designated as Whitman National Monument, a National Historic Site.
Catholic missionaries also arrived in the 1840s, and the Catholic ceremonies resonated with the tribe. On July 24, 1846, Pope Pius IX established the Diocese of Walla Walla. Augustin-Magloire Blanchet was appointed the first Bishop of Walla Walla, but fled shortly after the Whitman massacre. The Diocese of Walla Walla is now a titular see held by Witold Mroziewski, an auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn, New York.
In 1855, the Walla Walla Treaty Council was held at Waiilatpu between the Washington Territorial Assembly and the tribal leaders of the surrounding area. Despite the indigenous people citing Tamanwit (natural law), the following year the natives agreed to surrender millions of acres of land for a native reservation and $150,000. The Umatilla Indian Reservation's boundaries eventually shrunk to less than .
Founding The Walla Walla treaty remained unratified for four years, during which time the conflict between the natives and settlers was increasing due to frontiersmen encroaching on the promised reservation and the Walla Walla and Umatilla peoples' refusal to move to the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The United States Army established a presence in a series of military forts beginning in 1856. A community named "Steptoeville" grew around Fort Walla Walla, named for Lieutenant Colonel Edward Steptoe, and later his name was bestowed upon Steptoe, Washington. The fort has since been restored with a museum about the early settlers' lives.Josephy, The Nez Perce, p. 367 (likely referring to)
Growth in the region was limited due to a ban on immigration to the area due to the constant warring with the natives from the Department of the Pacific's General John Ellis Wool, who was sympathetic to the natives. In 1858, the department was split, leaving Washington territory under the command of General William S. Harney, who lifted the ban on October 31, 1858. Thousands of pioneers swarmed to the area, creating a burgeoning farming and mining community.
On March 15, 1859, Walla Walla county held its first county commission and election in the community's first church, St. Patrick's Church, which still serves as the city's parish. Following the ratification of the Walla Walla treaty, the commission voted to name the settlement Walla Walla, on November 17, 1859 and the military carried out the forced displacement of the remaining natives, under the threat of hanging.
On December 20, 1859, the first educational charter was granted to Whitman Seminary, a high school, which opened on October 15, 1866. In 1882, the institution's name was changed to Whitman College, and the legislature issued a new educational charter as a four-year private college.
The Mullan Road, the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific Northwest, tied Walla Walla to more mining opportunities, and after gold was discovered in 1860, the area became the outfitting point for the Oro Fino, Idaho mines. The nearest part of the road followed the modern approximate path from Spokane to Walla Walla via Interstate 90, U.S. Route 195, and U.S. Route 12. The population swelled due to the gold rush, resulting in an unsuccessful proposal to Congress to split Walla Walla from Washington into its own territory.
Gold rush and growth
Walla Walla was incorporated on January 11, 1862. The first election was held on April 1, 1862, and Judge Elias Bean Whitman, Marcus Whitman's cousin, was elected as the city's first mayor. The population exploded over the following decade, increasing by 300%, making it the most populous city in the territory, slating it to be the capital until cities surpassed it again, after it was bypassed by the transcontinental rail lines in the 1880s.
During the 1860s, the city established its first businesses and community gathering spaces, a number of which served as the first in Pacific Northwest. The city's first newspaper was one of the first between Missouri and the Cascades, the Washington Statesman, was founded in 1861. The first bank, Baker Boyer Bank, was the first in the state, was founded in 1869 by one of the city's first council members, Dorsey Syng Baker and his brother-in-law John Franklin Boyer, and as of March 2022, still served as the oldest bank in state. The Pioneer Meat Market, run by partners John Dooley and William Kirkman, was opened during this time and remained there until they sold it to Christopher Ennis in 1882 and founded the Walla Walla Dressed Meat Company.
One of the first brick buildings in the city was also Walla Walla's first store, Schwabacher Brothers Store on Main street, which served as the city's grocer, builder supply, and clothes shop. Sigmond Schwabacher, one of the brothers, also served in the city's council. The city's first book store was opened in 1864, and an academic community formed around the city's book collection as the Calliopean Society and later incorporated as the Walla Walla Library Association. The city also had one of the region's first breweries, Emil Meyer's City Brewery, that also served as a bakery. Downtown also hosted a post office, several hotels, restaurants, a bathhouse and shaving saloon, a liquor store, a drugstore, and several manufactories.
During the gold rush, large populations of Chinese settlers arrived in the city from Portland, Oregon, creating a neighborhood referred to as "Chinatown". The Chinese settlers mainly worked in commerce, mining, and railroad contracts. After Mullan was unable to lobby the state to make Walla Walla a major railroad stop, and a fire in Chinatown destroyed most of the neighborhood, the immigrants left to find work elsewhere, including Eng Ah King, who was informally known as the "mayor of Chinatown" for revitalizing Seattle's Chinatown.
In 1886, while Washington was lobbying for statehood, local business man Levi Ankeny donated 160 acres of land to the city to serve as the site of a new prison. Legislators approved the site, and in 1887, the state began transferring prisoners to the Washington Territorial Prison from Saatco Prison, a privately owned facility that was shut down in 1888 because of its poor living conditions. The first inmate was a local, William Murphy, who was serving an 18-year sentence for manslaughter. There have been many prison escapes attempted in the prison's history. In 1887, the prison took in its first woman inmate, and had to improvise accommodations until a separate facility was built nearby. When Washington became a state in 1889, the facility officially became the Washington State Penitentiary, but inmates nicknamed it "The Hill", "The Joint", "The Walls", and "The Pen".
Agricultural center
As the gold rush died out, the city developed into an agricultural center referred to as the "cradle of Pacific Northwest history", and the "garden city", a popular source for onions, apples, peas, and wine grapes.
Italian settlers from Lonate Pozzolo and Calabria regions formed the core of the gardening industry, and settled in neighborhoods known as "Blalock" and the "South Ninth". One of the main contributions of the Italians to Walla Walla commerce was their vineyards, and soon after, wine tasting rooms, the first two opened in the 1880s by Frank Orselli and Pasquale Saturno. The Italian Walla Walla population was also responsible for growing Washington State's official vegetable, the Walla Walla sweet onion.
It was the technique of dryland farming, though, that made Walla Walla the region's breadbasket known for its wheat exports. The cultivating of grains brought hundreds of Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) to the city, building Walla Walla College and the Walla Walla Sanitarium. The SDA population was followed by hundreds of Volga Germans, whose Old Lutheran and Mennonite religions were connected to SDA in Prussia. The immigrants had relied on dryland farming of wheat crops in Volgograd, Russia. The neighborhood built around the Russian-German immigrants is known as "Germantown" or "Russische Ecke (Russian Corner)" to locals, referring to the creek that runs through it as "Little Volga". The area around Walla Walla College eventually incorporated as its own city, College Place, Washington.
German immigrants also grew hops and the city was home to several breweries. By the 1890s, wine, beer, liquor, and tobacco taxes accounted for 90% of the city's revenue, but the alcohol industries died out with Prohibition in the United States.
As the city became dependent on its wheat production, merchants in the town financed a railroad to Wallula, Washington, to connect Walla Walla to the Columbia River, completed in 1875.
20th century
In 1911, Walla Walla adopted a mayor–council government referred to as a "commission" form of government. In 1954, after Sunnyside, Washington adopted another form of government, council–manager government, voted down a change to council-manager, but on November 4, 1959, the city's residents voted to adopt the government form.