Orchards of Eden: White Bluffs on the Columbia, 1907-1943
by Nancy Mendenhall
ISBN 10: 0-967-8842-2-5
ISBN 13: 978-0-9678842-2-6
Edition number one
470 pages
Trade Paper
Published in January, 2006
$26.95
To order contact Far Eastern Press
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America's early 1900's dream of greening the desert through irrigation drew hundreds of would-be farmers to the Columbia River hamlet of White Bluffs. Yearning for a healthy, possibly lucrative life in the magnificient setting, they struggled with nature, railroads, power companies, commission houses, water systems and the ever-disappointing market. The Shaw-Wheeler family tells the story of how, despite all these adversities, the orchardists build a remarkable, thriving community until it was cut short by events of World War Two.
"At last--the little-known story of the orchard-based communities of the Priest Rapids Valley of Washington State before the devastating effect of the World War II Hanford Project. Told mainly through the letters and recollections of one very articulate family and assembled with extensive research material by a member of that family.
Drawn to the Valley and held there by the hope of the adequate power and water supply that would bring success, as well as by a growing love for the beauty of the river, the bluffs and the desert, the orchardists found that the realization of that hope made their beloved Valley the prime candidate for a secret plutonium plant needed for the atomic bomb. This book needed to be written for everyone who loves the Pacific Northwest and cares about its history."
-- Marthiel O'Larey,
historian and descendant of White Bluffs settlers
"Reads like a novel...Tells in vivid detail the birth, maturation and death of a tiny desert town through the eyes of one family. Their dream lasted from 1907 until the confiscation of their land for the Manhattan Project. An economic balance sheet would say that their dream failed, but this richly woven human story...tells a different tale."
-- William Keep,
college professor (ret.), desert gardener and Hanford Reach devotee
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