1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walla Walla

WALLA WALLA, a city and the county-seat of Walla Walla county, Washington, U.S.A., in the S.E. part of the state, on Mill Creek, about 200 m. S. by W. of Spokane. Pop. (1880) 3588; (1890) 4709; (1900) 10,049, of whom 1522 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 19,364. Walla Walla is served by the Northern Pacific and the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co.'s (Union Pacific) railways, and by an inlet urban electric line. In the city are a state penitentiary, Fort Walla Walla (a U.S. cavalry post), a Federal Land Office, a Young Men's Christian Association building, a Carnegie library, the State Odd Fellows' Home, and the Stubblefield Home for Widows and Orphans. Sessions of Federal District and Circuit courts are held here. Walla Walla is the seat of Whitman College (chartered, 1859; opened, 1866; rechartered, 1883), originally Congregational, but now non-sectarian, which was founded by the Rev. Cushing Eells and was named in honour of Marcus Whitman, and includes a college, a conservatory of music and a preparatory academy, and occupies a campus of 30 acres; and of Walla Walla College (Adventist). Here are also St Paul's School (Protestant Episcopal) for girls, and St Vincent's Academy for girls and De La Salle Academy for boys (both Roman Catholic). The city is situated in a farming (especially wheat-growing), stock-raising and fruit-growing region, is a distributing centre for the adjacent territory in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and has a large wholesale business. Among its manufactures are flour and grist-mill products, agricultural implements, lumber, foundry and machine-shop products, leather and malted liquors. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $1,485,791, 54.1% more than in 1900. The municipality owns its waterworks. In 1836 the famous missionary, Marcus Whitman, established at Waiilatpu, about 5 m. W. of the present Walla Walla, a mission of the American Board (Congregational), which in 1847 was broken up by an Indian attack, Whitman, his wife and twelve others being massacred, and the other residents being carried off as prisoners. In 1857 Fort Walla Walla was built by the United States government on the site of the present city, and about it a settlement grew up in 1857-1858. Walla Walla was laid out and organized as a town, and became the county seat in 1859; in 1862 it was chartered as a city. The name “Walla Walla” is said to be a Nez Percé Indian term meaning “a rapid stream.”

See W. D. Lyman, An Illustrated History of Walla Walla County, State of Washington (1901).