http://yakimaherald.com/stories/2009/02/01/02-02-09-grandviewhistory
GRANDVIEW -- That 1916 photo of Grandview's first Fourth of July festival. Is your great-grandmother standing in the background?
The old airport north of town where stunt pilots performed in 1929. Does anybody know what happened to it? Besides giving way to houses, that is.
And surely, somebody around here must know when Grandview got its first saloon.
Leaders of this Lower Valley city, which turns 100 years old this year, want help not just celebrating history but writing it.
"Everybody has a story, whether you came here in 1950 or 1910," said Barbara Olmstead, 61, an unofficial historian who has written a local newspaper column about historical events for roughly 25 years.
For years, she and others have been collecting photos and family profiles to chronicle the history of this city, platted and built as a railroad terminus at the turn of the 20th century.
It has grown slowly, Olmstead said, from a total of seven residents in 1906 to 8,700 residents now. Mostly, it's hung its hat on agriculture with fruit and produce warehouses anchoring the town's industry.
Its commercial heyday was in the 1970s, when downtown shopping included multiple pharmacies, furniture stores and clothing retailers.
The construction of Interstate 82 in the 1980s siphoned away some of that downtown shopping, but it never stopped growth. In 1990, Yakima Valley Community College opened a Lower Valley campus, and in 2003 Wal-Mart built a new 900,000-square-foot distribution center. It created more than 600 jobs and triggered a short spike in housing development over the next three or four years.
Organizers of the celebration want Grandview folks to participate, to step forward and share little details they might know, whether they fill in certain blanks or not.
If Tuesday night was any indication, the community is happy to help.
Olmstead, flanked by projected historic photos, led a presentation about Grandview's first white settlers. It was just the first of six such seminars, scheduled for 7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of every month at The Vineyard meeting hall, corner of Second Avenue and Division Street.
The idea is not just for people to listen, but to share some recollections and shed the light of detail on some of the old photos. Mayor Norm Childress tapped City Councilmen Mike Bren and Jesse Palacios, both former mayors themselves, to organize the project.
"If you see somebody you know
, that's great," said Bren. "We'd like to have their names."
Organizers didn't know what to expect for a turnout, but the 55 people who attended surprised them. They scrambled to set out extra chairs to make room for everybody.
The curious onlookers got into it. Over coffee and cookies, they pointed and laughed at black-and-white photos spread out on three tables and offered comments after Olmstead's talk.
One man shared how his bus driver used to floor it when he crossed the bridge over the train tracks on Main Street, just east of where the YVCC campus stands today.
Olmstead's grandfather-in-law, Don Olmstead Sr., remembers riding a horse to school and taking his first plane ride in 1929, when Grandview dedicated its airport.
"I didn't take any other plane rides for another 30-40 years," said the 91-year-old member of a five-generation Grandview family.
This community likes its history. The city owns a museum but opens it only for tours now after budget cuts last summer. Plans are under way to refurbish the downtown with an eye toward preserving the antique look of many of the buildings. Seven sites in and around town are on the National Historic Register.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary, community leaders have planned activities for all year. Those include a communitywide photograph in April, T-shirts, cookbooks and more photo displays, as well as the monthly history presentations. They may cut a birthday cake in September.
Olmstead enjoys history but does her research as a form of community support. Two of her biggest helpers, Barbara and Daniel Christensen, do it for fun, she says.
"They're a little different, but that's what makes them good at what they do," Christensen said. "The average person wouldn't do this."
The Christensens research genealogies for friends and family members. They even have helped create a genealogical library for a local Mormon church, though they aren't Mormon.
"It's just a fun type thing," Daniel Christensen says.
The Christensens peruse old newspaper clippings, scour obituaries and even visit University of Washington libraries. They scan old census indexes and look up Social Security numbers of dead people. They also interview people.
"A lot of times you're just talking to people on the street," Barbara Christensen said.
For Grandview's Centennial, the Christensens created framed story boards about several of the city's founding fathers. They hang in City Hall.
But they also have been filling in many archival blanks and clearing up a few folk tales. For example, common belief dates a fire that destroyed several downtown city blocks in 1911. The Christensens suspect that may have happened about five years later.
Barbara jokingly says she spent 500 hours on Grandview's history, but they really have no idea. A lot of the information they already knew, and they unearth new details all the time.
History is fluid to them, constantly changing and growing. Projects never reach completion. The story of one community overlaps with another.
"You just keep finding more information and it just keeps going, guiding you," Barbara said.
Palacios, the city councilman and former mayor, agrees. He told the crowd Tuesday that learning about previous generations should inspire the current ones to build a better Grandview tomorrow.
"It's great looking back," Palacios said. "Personally I think we need to look forward."
...the front said...
Congrats you two! We're looking forward to the wedding and celebrating!!
