Home is a gem from Selah Heights' heyday

It was a teeming time -- new construction everywhere, fruit trees being planted by the thousands, churches and mercantiles popping up side by side in nearly every town.

The Yakima Valley was on fire 100 years ago.

Mary Shinn wasn't there then, but her memories of some pioneers are vivid. Standing chief among those remembrances is a stately home, part of her ancestors' legacy.

And it's still there.

The old homestead sits atop the rolling hills of Selah, near the intersection of McGonagle and Speyers roads, built by Shinn's grandfather, Emery Powell, a century ago.

Powell arrived in Selah on March 22, 1908, filled with enthusiasm for a land of plenty, where settlers were told "anything grows and anything goes."

A mechanical engineer from Pennsylvania, Powell headed west for health reasons, buying 20 acres in Selah Heights, where he planted apple trees and constructed a two-story, frame house.

He certainly wasn't the only builder at the time. The early 1900s was an era of national expansionism, an age of great promise. By 1908, that spirit had coalesced into achievements such as a two-hour airplane flight by Wilbur Wright and the Model T beginning production in Detroit.

That was the year America was entering the modern world, according to the January 2008 edition of the Smithsonian magazine. With its cars, railroads, telegraph, telephone, electricity and gasoline, the country was becoming a global power "confident in its genius and resourcefulness."

The Yakima Valley was certainly emblematic of that exuberance.

"There were so many things happening here in 1908," says Yvonne Wilbur, local historian. "Everything was booming; it was a real growth spurt."

Growth in large measure because railroad companies were eager to sell land in the West, luring pioneers to venture out, plant crops and, eventually, become enduring railroad customers.

According to Wilbur, land in the Valley sold for as little as $1.50 an acre 100 years ago. By the end of 1908, there were about 30,000 acres planted with fruit trees here.

"It was a real promotional time, and it was wonderful," she says. "They were bringing Easterners out by saying there was good land that could grow anything."

Meanwhile, what is now downtown Yakima was exploding, too: the YMCA, Christian Church and Donald House (Woman's Century Club) were all completed in 1908.

Selah was still on the outskirts of most commercial growth; on the heights there weren't telephones, electricity or even a general store.

A month after Powell set foot here, his wife, Elizabeth, and children arrived on the train, ready to start their new life.

"What's so amazing to me," says Shinn, "is that my grandfather worked so hard planting onions and potatoes and an orchard, built a house and then took time to write down what he did every day."

Shinn still has a copy of that journal, where her grandfather chronicled tribulations, such as rabbits eating his new trees (he applied wax to the trunks to discourage them) and the baby's case of measles, as well as attending ice cream socials, sharing a pair of haircutting clippers with another family (which inadvertently got used on a cow's tail), digging fence post holes and battling high winds.

Along with farming, parenting and serving as justice of the peace, Powell delivered mail. A photo of him, in his horse and buggy on his mail route, graces the back cover of "The Selah Story," a book written in 1984 by Robert Lince.

Sometime after the Powells settled in Selah Heights, they were asked to give $25 toward building a Grange hall. But times were hard for the family, so they gave land instead.

"They had more land than money," Shinn explains. The Grange still sits just west of the home.

The Powells raised five children: the oldest, Mary, was Shinn's mother, a teacher and writer; Charles, who became a U.S. District Court judge; Ted, who earned a law degree; Helen, whose husband, Pete Wick, was an early Yakima radio personality, and Emery Jr., a hop rancher.

The Powell home changed bit by bit through the years: a porch built, an indoor bathroom installed, extra space added to the main floor. Some original touches can still be seen: old metal doorknobs, wooden lintels over the doors and a built-in bench in an alcove in the living room.

Sadly, the Powells lost the house in the Depression; a bank foreclosed in 1937.

As Shinn says, "I don't think my grandfather was ever meant to be a farmer."

Shinn, who was born in 1934, remembers her grandfather remained in the house even after the foreclosure -- Elizabeth had died by then -- but finally left by 1941.

"I remember my grandmother's ginger cookies -- I'd run right in the door straight to cookie jar -- and the pie-cherry tree and the mulberry."

One day Shinn found several orchard mice the Powells' pet terrier had killed, which the little girl became determined to revive. So she lined up the carcasses on the back porch. Even some 70 years later, Shinn can still recall her grandmother's horror when she saw the dead bodies.

Shinn's grandfather was quiet, a little gaunt, with deep blue eyes, she recalls. He liked to garden and take long walks. During World War II, he parlayed his engineering degree into a teaching post at Yakima Valley Community College. He died in 1955 at the age of 87.

In 100 years, only three other families have owned the Powell House. One, the R.W. French family, still lives nearby. The current owners, Coy and Sandy Patterson, moved in five years ago.

Like Shinn, Sandy Patterson appreciates the history of the house. "I love old things, particularly old farm-style homes," she says.

As for Shinn, it pleases her that the house has thrived for 100 years and continues as a symbol of early Selah days.

"I don't want the past to be forgotten," she says.

Of all the Powell aunts, uncles and cousins, only Shinn, her husband Guy and their son Mike still live in the area.

As she once told her young nephew, "People should be grateful that some people stay put in a community. They care about it and develop its character."

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