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320:. The reduced need for manual labor at harvest contributed as well. The ferry crossing the Snake River at Wawawai made its last trip in 1959. The town's post office closed in 1967. The impending inundation as water rose behind the planned Lower Granite Dam a few miles downstream of Wawawai was known by the 1960s, and most of the town was steadily shuttered, with buildings and orchards removed. On February 15, 1975, water began rising behind the dam, removing Wawawai from the map.
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tribes. Its original name was Wawawa, a Nez Perce term for council ground. Isiah
Matheny, the first white settler, arrived in 1875 and planted an apple orchard. Other settlers soon followed and planted more apple and other fruit orchards around Matheny's. A town site was platted in 1878 but just six
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years later residents requested that the county vacate the town and leave the land for agricultural purposes. By 1885 the informal town had its own post office, and a decade later a school was built. Rail transport reached the community in 1907 with the arrival of the
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word said to mean "council ground." (John Knight, in Names MSS. Letter 225.) The town was platted in 1878 and served a community of orchards along the
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In July of 2023, the town gave its name to the
Wawawai Fire which burned more than 500 acres on the slopes above the river near the former town.
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into the community. These segregated communities existed through the 1920s and into the 1930s when they began to be replaced by students from
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In 1979, Whitman County established
Wawawai County Park on the banks of the Snake River, above the former town and orchards.
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Harvests at the orchards in and surrounding
Wawawai brought groups of laborers from nearby tribes as well as immigrants from
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Decline began with the arrival of automation to the harvest process in the 1930s, and continued with cost increases after
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The area that would become
Wawawai was periodically inhabited for centuries by people of the
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Informative sign at
Wawawai County Park describing the inundation of the community
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is located along the banks of the river immediately above the former town site.
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U.S. Geological Survey
Geographic Names Information System: Wawawai, Washington
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449:"Lightning caused Whitman County wildfire that has burned more than 500 acres"
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396:"Wawawai — Vanished Orchard Community of the Snake River"
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page number 341, Seattle, University of
Washington Press
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355:"Wawawai (historical) (in Whitman County, WA)"
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571:Map of Washington highlighting Whitman County
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447:Brunt, Jonathan (July 26, 2023).
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359:washington.hometownlocator.com
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307:Washington State University
296:Snake River Valley Railroad
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253:. It got its name from a
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371:(Meany, Edmond S, 1923)
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116:46.63667°N 117.37944°W
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422:"Wawawai County Park"
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456:. Retrieved
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430:. Retrieved
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731:Ghost towns
678:communities
518:County seat
458:October 10,
259:Snake River
119: /
107:117°22′46″W
811:Categories
603:Farmington
330:References
309:in nearby
247:Washington
229:feature ID
146:Washington
104:46°38′12″N
47:Ghost town
648:Uniontown
633:Pine City
628:Oakesdale
613:La Crosse
291:Nez Perce
255:Nez Perce
215:ZIP codes
181:Time zone
172:Elevation
759:Interior
754:Elberton
721:Thornton
701:Glenwood
643:St. John
608:Garfield
598:Endicott
769:Wawawai
764:Riparia
716:Johnson
686:Belmont
666:Steptoe
638:Rosalia
553:Pullman
548:Palouse
311:Pullman
287:Palouse
273:History
249:in the
239:Wawawai
232:1510419
164:Platted
158:Whitman
132:Country
18:Wawawai
774:Wilcox
749:Canyon
744:Bishop
739:Almota
711:Hooper
623:Malden
618:Lamont
593:Colton
588:Albion
543:Colfax
535:Cities
525:Colfax
153:County
691:Dusty
676:Other
580:Towns
558:Tekoa
303:China
220:99113
209:(PDT)
207:UTC-7
186:UTC-8
141:State
696:Ewan
460:2023
434:2022
408:2022
289:and
227:GNIS
167:1878
706:Hay
658:CDP
200:DST
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
