Columbia/Yakima/Seattle Prep Session

& Wine-Tasting Social

UI Business/Technology Incubator

May 8, 2003

Notes by Nancy Cheney

Mary: General overview of trip; update on itinerary; introduction of speakers

Nick: “Place, Time, & Imagination in a Bottle”

Nick began by explaining that wines from France are so intrinsically tied to place that their names are based on their places of origin. Wines are literally tied to place in that they draw much of their character or terroir from the soils in which they are grown, and Nick described the distinctive petroleum undertones in wines from vines grown in slate soils. In the United States, however, we know our domestically produced wines by the names of the grapes from which they are made. Grape growing and winemaking contribute significantly to the economy of Washington, and are increasingly important to place identification in places like Walla Walla, Tri-Cities, and the Yakima Valley. By way of an introduction to the wines to be tasted tonight and to the part of Washington we will be visiting, Nick told us about Red Mountain, at the east entrance to the Yakima Valley, where the climate is hot and dry, the soils are productive, and the microclimate is unique. It is located at the same latitude as Bordeaux, has long days with lots of sunlight, but not such intense heat, cool nights, and relatively benign winters. The combination makes for wines that have a good balance between acid and sugar. Nick noted that a wine lacking acid might be called ”flabby.” For the evening’s function, he selected three Columbia Basin cabernets or cabernet blends, reflecting three sub-appellations and three wineries in the region (1999 St. Michelle 100% cabernet, Sagelands Cabernet/ Cabernet Franc, & Waterbrook Cab/Merlot). We closed with a late harvest Riesling from Kiona. Bread, cheese, and fruit complemented the tasting.

Wendy: “Profiles of Town-Making: Railroad Town Development”

            Wendy demonstrated what a profound influence railroads had on the ways towns developed. Many towns (such as Bruce, WA) sprang up, she said, around railroad water stops, and sometimes simply had names like “Well Stop #7.” Wendy drew on the British system of urban morphology to identify particular elements of railroad town morphology. First, there were plats. Paha was an example of a bi-lateral plat that didn’t work well because it quite literally divided the town. That form evolved into the square town as an ideal plat. Cle Elum remains more or less an example of such a well-defined town, where delineation of “where landscape began and town ended” is distinct. Another form is the linear plat, such as that of Thompson Falls, MT, wherein the town’s structure is constrained or “pinched” by topography.

Streets were also influenced by the railroads. According to Wendy, the “perfect,” most “comfortable” width of a Main St. was determined to be 100 ft. from storefront to storefront. The ideal width for secondary streets was 60 ft. Wendy showed a photograph storefronts along the main street in Roslyn WA—We’ll visit there on our rolling seminar—demonstrating the consistent 25 ft. (rail car) width of each parcel allowed for most every business to face the main street. Sanborn fire insurance maps clearly show how the buildings “hugged together,” she said. Wendy contrasted the early social composition and resultant town morphologies of Cle Elum and Roslyn, pointing out that the Cle Elum was “full of entrepreneurs” and Roslyn was a culturally subdivided company town, owned by the Northern Pacific. Interestingly, in 1889, the population of Roslyn was 2,500+ and in 1989, it was 800.

A third element of town morphology and associated growth patterns has to do with orientation of a town’s main street to the railroad. Several forms could develop, including bi-lateral expansion, the I form, the II form, the T-town (e.g. Priest River ID), and the park square form (e.g. Whitefish MT). Wendy says that the T-town is the most “viable,” “sustainable” form, even in modern times.

Fixation lines also affected a town’s development. Wendy offered Sandpoint ID as an example of a bi-lateral plat that evolved into a “Double I” (I-I) town. The established Northern Pacific line forced the Great Northern to the edge of town, and the original plat was distorted by an oddly diagonal street and subsequent addition of houses along it. Wendy spoke briefly about plans to bypass downtown Sandpoint by shifting the highway along Sand Creek. Several in the audience expressed concern over the environmental, social, and historic ramifications of that plan.

Rula: “Migrants in the Valley”

            Rula addressed the treatment of immigrants and migrant workers in the Yakima Valley, where the Hispanic population has increased 75-100% since 1990. (She cited a report in the Seattle PI that indicated today, one in five people in the state of Washington is an ethnic minority, versus one in eight ten years ago.) Rula offered a sociological/demographic overview of the place, including healthcare statistics (and conflicting anecdotal impressions of those figures by local Latinos). She addressed the sense of displacement and specialization relating to the regional economically motivated shift from growing fruit trees to growing grapes.

            One local informant in Rula’s study remarked that there may be gangs in Yakima, but there are “hoodlums” in Toppenish, for lack of having anyone there to organize them. She spoke of ethnic divisions in the town’s structural layout, and demonstrated that segregation of neighborhoods with a map devised by two of her students from that place. A particularly powerful slide in Rula’s PowerPoint program diagrammed a quote from a local informant who addressed the social division, even at downtown parades. The colorful, boisterous, beer-drinking Hispanic revelers clustered on one side of the main street (where, she said, someone usually “got knifed”), while the more sedate, mostly white parade observers stood on the other. It wasn’t until just recently, at age 55, that Rula’s local informant finally decided to “cross the street” to have a beer. Rula’s diagram simply and effectively had the description of each group on opposite sides of a double line that depicted the street and years of ethnic division there.

            Bill McLaughlin studied opinions about breaching dams on the Columbia, and found that, in general, migrants were opposed to breaching because their lifestyles and job security were so closely connected to place.

            Rula contrasted “high context cultures” with “low context cultures” and explained that cultures with all sorts of formal, written rules and rich sometimes mythical pasts last longer than their “low context” counterparts. The persistence and growth of the Hispanic community in the Yakima Valley is an example of the success of  “high context culture,” she said.