TECHNOLOGY

Excerpts from an Essay

By Kenny Pearce

Our modern world is filled with technology.  Everywhere we look we can easily see how it affects our lives.  However, technology also has indirect effects on groups of people, which can be harder to see.  While we could go back several hundred years examining the use of technology by the Indians and the early settlers of the area, for the purpose of this paper we will be concentrating on the technological advances made after the founding of the city of Palouse.  This story starts with railroads.

The first railroad company to reach this area was the Northern Pacific which was given land to build a railroad to the Pacific Northwest by an act signed by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1864.  The railroad grew.  In 1883 the first Columbia & Palouse train arrived in Colfax.  Around the year 1885 it was connected to Albion, then called Guy.  In 1889 the Columbia & Palouse was connected to the Union Pacific main line.

Railroading had a major effect on Palouse City, as it was then called.  While Palouse was originally a mining community, even this early in its history, it was primarily peopled by wheat farmers.  Prior to railroading, the economy was almost completely internal.  Farmers traded with each other and with merchants in the city by a barter system.  Almost all goods were made locally and anything that wasn't had to be brought from the east by stage coach, which was very expensive.

With the advent of railroading, goods could be cheaply imported from the east.  In order to avoid leaving Palouse empty, railroad trains would be filled with Palouse wheat.  The newest farming technology also could be transported from the east by rail and Palouse farmers could travel throughout Whitman County quickly and efficiently.  In fact, people traveled by railroad to Palouse to shop.

In the 1890s and 1900s there was a huge rush of modernization in the region.  It began around the year 1890 when Palouse was first wired for electricity.  Then around the year 1897, a sewer was connected to Main Street and portions of the north hill.  While this did improve public health significantly, sewage still poured into the Palouse River.

Another significant advancement to come during this time was the appearance of the first automobile in Whitman County.  It arrived in the city of Colfax in about 1904, the year Washington Water Power began to service the area.  The immediate effects of the arrival of the car were negligible, as road quality was poor and cars were slow, but eventually this led to the ability of Palouse farmers to travel to other cities to purchase goods.  In the 1930s another wave of technological advances swept the region.  During this time, gas-powered tractors appeared, replacing horses previously used to pull farm implements.  Additionally, millions of dollars in federal funds were appropriated for Pacific Northwest public power projects, giving electricity to people in rural areas.

With these new developments, farming became much more efficient.  What had previously taken several local farmers and a huge transient labor population to do, could now be done by one man.  Family size decreased.  The number of jobs available decreased. Population decreased.  Palouse shrunk.