Ell Alley: Yakima

Monday, April 27, 2015

Yakima

Jordan, Rusty & Steve drove to Yakima on Saturday. It took 2.5 hours. We drove over the Cascade Mountains through Snoqualmie Pass at 3,022 feet. Snow was falling on the mountains above us at higher elevations. The first place we went was Tieton, a very small town in the Yakima area. We visited an old apple warehouse that had been converted into space for artists. Tieton was interesting enough & convenient to our main destination: Cowiche Canyon. We hiked for 2 hours through the canyon. It was fairly warm & mostly sunny. But we were caught in a shower of sleet for a short time, while we huddled under our one umbrella. That evening, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Gasperetti’s. It was quite good. We stayed at a large hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, in downtown Yakima.

Photos of Cowiche Canyon taken on April 25, 2015

Click here for more photos of Cowiche Canyon.

On Sunday we had breakfast at a place called Waffles Caffe, near our hotel. Then we hiked at Snow Mountain Ranch on Cowiche Mountain. That was also quite beautiful, with an even greater abundance of wildflowers, plus views over the hills of the sagebrush steppe. Jordan's camera ran out of battery before we got to the most flowerful area. Since we were near Tieton again, we went there for lunch in a Mexican restaurant called the Tieton Bistro. Then we drove back to Seattle via Chinook Pass near Mt Rainier. That route took 3 hours to reach Seattle. Chinook Pass is 5,430 feet in elevation. The snow was fairly deep there, although the road was clear. Jordan & Rusty had never been to Yakima. We were pleasantly surprised.

Click here for more photos of Snow Mountain Ranch.

Photos of Snow Mountain Ranch taken on April 26, 2015

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About Ell Alley

Ell Alley is the home of Jetta, Jordan, Kitty, Rusty, Steve & Toby. It is named for the alley beside & behind the house that forms an ell: the shape of the letter L. It is located in the Rainier Vista development, in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, which extends 7 miles southeast from Downtown Seattle to Rainier Beach, between Beacon Hill & the lakeside ridges of Mt Baker, Lakewood & Seward Park. Ell Alley is 4 miles from Downtown Seattle, 0.4 miles from the Columbia City Station & 0.7 miles from the center of the Columbia City Landmark District.

Rainier Valley History

The first settlers arrived in the 1850s, but settlement was slow until the forest was cut down & milled, as it was throughout the city. Developers bought logged-off land toward the end of the 19th century. They laid out the communities of Genesee, Columbia City, Hillman City, Brighton & Dunlap.

Cheap land in the valley, just outside the City of Seattle, attracted Italians of rural origins & they planted large, productive gardens. The north end of the Rainier Valley became known as Garlic Gulch. Japanese immigrants also had farms in the valley. The produce filled local markets including Pike Place.

The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway opened the valley to greater development, reaching Columbia City in 1891 & Renton in 1896. In 1907, the City of Seattle annexed most of southeast Seattle, including the Rainier Valley.

At the start of World War II, Japanese residents were forced into internment camps east of the mountains. Tens of thousands of war workers came to Seattle to work at the Boeing Company, the shipyards & the port. The US government constructed thousands of temporary housing units at Rainier Vista, Stadium Homes (now Mt Baker Village) & Holly Park in the Rainier Valley.

After the war, the temporary housing became public, low-income housing. Suburban development took many white residents away from the valley. Blacks moved into the Rainier Valley from the over-crowded, nearby Central Area. Interracial couples found acceptance here. Filipinos arrived in large numbers.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, refugees came from southeast Asia: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao & Mien peoples. Many settled in the Rainier Valley. Chinese continued to arrive, although most settled on nearby Beacon Hill. There was a small influx of Mexicans. Somali immigration began after US involvement in Somalia in 1992.

Work on new housing at NewHolly (formerly Holly Park) began in 1997 & continued for a decade, with 1400 units sold to private owners. The rebuilding of Rainier Vista began in 2003 & still continues. Columbia City rapidly gentrified starting in the late 1990s. Many units of new housing were built in the form of townhouses, condos & apartments.

The current population of the Rainier Valley is about 41,000. The racial breakdown is 34.1% Asian, 26.9% Caucasian, 26% African American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, 1% Native American and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 7.2% of the population.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.

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Monday, April 27, 2015

Yakima

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