GENERAL CAPTION NO. 35
DATE: August 14, 1939
PLACE: Columbia Basin, near Quincy, Grant County, Washington

Deserted homesteads tell the story of the past in the dry lands of the Columbia Basin. The future of these lands depends not only upon plenty of water for irrigation from the Grand Coulee Dam. Refer to the Yakima Valley General Caption No. 33. [Lange attached a clipping with a handwritten note that it was written by Richard Neuberger, published in Survey Graphic; the article appeared in July 1939]

This group of photographs were made about 75 miles from Grand Coulee in the Columbia Basin where soon orchards and alfalfa will grow. They show three abandoned farms, and an ageing couple who have remained on this land through 33 years, although all their neighbors have left the country. This is the area, part of the 1,200,000 acres which the Grand Coulee will irrigate.

Chris Ament, German Russian from the Volga, came to this country in 1899, and settled in Nebraska.

Heard of fine crops and cheap railroad land in the Columbia Basin region, arrived in 1906. By 1912 most of his neighbors who came at the same time he did had left. Many of them went to Canada. He stayed. He now owns two pieces of land, 320 and 480 acres. From one of these he still gets 21 bushels to the acre (higher land). “That held us here — that piece.” He and his wife have raised 9 children in the Columbia Basin, now all grown, all living in the State of Washington, but only two are farmers. Chris Ament says –
“I’m 67 years old and won’t be able to get the benefits of the water, but I hope to be able to see it. If the government handles it right it will be a good thing, but my boy has a good piece of land down in the Yakima valley, he’s a good farmer, plenty of water, good soil, and he can’t make a go of it.”

“Speculators and owners have come in here lately and bought up lots of this land for taxes. Some of it they got for a few cents an acre by way of back irrigation tax. One place over here was owned by a neighbor of mine. He went to Canada, paid his taxes here, but lost his place (160 acres) because of a $9 back payment on irrigation district tax. He never even knew about the tax—2¢ an acre.”

Mrs. Chris Ament: has lived in this county since 1899 on an isolated lonely farm in the Columbia Basin. She raised 9 children. She can speak no English. In the early days she stacked wheat in the fields, Chris and the older children on the header [a machine for harvesting], all day long.