Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/377



EARLY FARMING IN UMATILLA COUNTY 349

One of the first men to engage extensively in grain growing west of Athena was Moses Woodward. Others were the Stones, Gerkings, Walker, Scotts, Keen, Grass, Johnson, Russell, Will- oby, Howell and Wilson.

In the territory west of Adams, the first farmers to con- struct a board cabin and break sod were James Damford and William Judkins, about 1874.

The first person to grow potatoes on the bunchgrass hill land west of Adams was Bob Warren, who, in 1860, had sold out at Weston to Andrew Kilgore. These potatoes were raised on what is now the Ralston farm, in 1874 or 1875. Some of the early grain growers west of Adams were the Reeders, Hales, MacKenzie*, Morrison and Howells. Americus Hale and William Reeder were two of the earliest bonanza farmers of the county, being located northwest of Adams.

Not until the completion of the railroad between Pendleton and Blue Mountain station, in 1884, and of the Hunt road from Wallula to Athena and Pendleton, about the year 1887, did the main wheat belt become fully developed.