History of the Greater Irrigon Area

Before white settlement, native Cayuse and Umatilla Indians practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing and root and berry gathering. The Umatilla’s established winter villages along the Columbia River from Alderdale, Washington to the mouth of the Umatilla River, approximately 5 miles east of where Irrigon is now located. During the summer months, the Indians traveled to the Blue Mountains and along the John Day River. Deer, elk and bear hides, Blue Mountain pine and fir bark and Columbia Basin sage provided construction materials. Around 1700, the arrival of wild horses, descended from runaway Southwestern domestic stock, greatly increased Indian mobility, extending their hunting range into the buffalo country beyond the Rockies.

The first phase of white settlement by-passed Morrow County as had the early nineteen century trappers and traders. It was not until shortly before the discovery of gold in the John Day country in 1862 that white stockmen were attracted to the grass of southern Morrow County. Permanent settlements were established in the canyons of Willow and Butter Creek before 1870. After their last uprising in 1878, the local Indians were confined to reservations in 1885, outside what would become the boundaries of Morrow County. Their chief economic legacy was the Cayuse pony, which they had bred for hardiness, endurance, and intelligence.

When white settlement did begin in Morrow County around 1870, the barren sandy sage plain of the Columbia Basin did not attract permanent homesteaders. The northern end of the county between about eight miles north of the Willamette Baseline and the Columbia River was used mainly for seasonal grazing of livestock. The Union Pacific Railroad was completed through this region in 1883 without stimulating permanent settlement and increased economic activity.

In the early twentieth century, it was proposed that a canal be built to carry water from the Umatilla River west to land near the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company’s Stokes siding. The town built here was known as Stokes until about 1905 when the first four letters of irrigation were joined with the last three of Oregon to form the name of Irrigon. The Oregon Land and Water Company extensively advertised land with a water right for $100 per acre and settlers began coming in 1903. At that time, only a very small old Oregon Land and Water Company ditch with water rights covering 100 acres existed. One of the first settlers on this land was George M. Rand who planted 10 acres to fruit.

As more settlers came, the area prospered, and a dam was built on the Umatilla River. Settlers could work constructing the canal for $2.50 for a ten-hour day. In 1904 and 1905 there was a company blacksmith shop, general merchandise store with a dance hall above, a barber shop, hardware store, hotel, drugstore, livery stable, furniture store, feed store, school, railroad depot and telegraph service and weekly newspaper, the “Irrigon Irrigator”. A ferry was established to cross the Columbia from the Irrigon docks, and a stern wheeler provided freight and passenger service from Portland to Lewiston, Idaho. In 1907, Page’s Pool Hall and Confectionery was built. Then financial panic gripped the area as the Oregon Land and Water Company was declared bankrupt. Settlers either sold for what they could get or just left the area until about 50 remained in the community.

In 1915, renewed interest in the area, particularly from Senator Lande, provided impetus for constructions of the high ditch, as it was known. The West Extension District was formed in 1916 and added to the original district so that its ditch reached west and south of Irrigon to where Boardman was to be established. These canals allowed for utilization of return flows within the Cold Springs Reservoir system. Farmers were able to grow a variety of crops in the arid county such as melons, fruit trees (though they were generally ill suited to the soil and climate) and were able to sustain a sizeable dairy industry. The Hermiston District was originally planned for 20,000 acres and the West Extension for 16,300 acres but neither reached these goals.

The attempted reclamation project was an abject failure for several reasons and by 1948 the district owed the government over 1 million dollars. Two of the major faults of the project were lack of a soil survey showing what crops were best to grow and a marketing study to show how best to market produce and where. There were no improved roads until after 1920 and all produce was shipped by rail. With the advent of good roads, however, Morrow County would never again sustain the same variety of businesses as it had in the self-sufficient years, 1870-1920, when the county grew much more of what it needed, and had thriving poultry and dairy industries and flour mills.

In 1920, a new school was built that was still in use as a high school in 1959. A North Morrow County Fair was held for several years starting about 1921, where residents showed local products. World War I provided good markets for Morrow County agricultural products, but the twenties failed to live up to expectations. Production exceeded sales for most agricultural commodities. Farms were consolidated as smaller operations were sold to larger ones.

Land prices increased. The 1924-25 crops were frozen out, but production recovered by 1927, In general, compared with the big wartime expansion, the twenties were drab, but people had gotten into the habit of living on credit.

This tendency complicated the shortage of money during the Great Depression beginning in 1929. Another problem was the universally bad crops of the thirties. The worst year for Morrow County was 1934, when the wheat crop was both low in quantity and poor in quality, selling for 181Zt per bushel, compared with the $2 a bushel price of twenty years before. Banks closed during the Depression decade, and Morrow County gained some notoriety as the place where the local Lions Club issued homemade scrip to spend in the county’s stores. The idea caught on in other Oregon communities.

But the people of the North End were determined and continued trying many crops throughout the depression. None of the crops were successful, partly due to the difficulties in marketing such diverse products. Irrigon and Boardman, like other small towns, expended much energy quarreling over prestige and schools through these and later years.

In the 1940 New Deal, agricultural policies and the creation of state soil and water conservation districts helped to alleviate the worsening condition of Morrow County’s land resources as the high winds and low rainfall of the mid-thirties persisted. As the wheat farmers in the southern part of the county contended with these problems, Irrigon farmers were dealing with increasing alkali problems as continued irrigation caused underlying alkali to rise to the surface where it prohibited growth in the otherwise fertile sand. Though modern farmers know how to leach alkali into low places or the river, it was then, as it is now, an expensive, slow process.

In these years, the Umatilla Electric Cooperative Association, a REA affiliate began merchandizing Bonneville Power Administration electricity to rural and city customers. Paved highways and telephones were also acquired. In 1952, a new grade school was constructed and named for A.C. Houghton, an engineer who was responsible for much of the progress in the West End-North Morrow irrigation projects. Irrigon was incorporated in 1957 and in 1959; Morrow County schools were consolidated to form a countywide school district. McNary Dam was built in the 1950’s upstream from Irrigon about 8 miles. Some construction workers lived in Irrigon and caused the population to increase for a few years.

In the sixties, some of the activity accompanying construction of the John Day Dam and I-80 affected Irrigon, though neither substantially altered the prosperity or patterns of economic activity of Morrow County. The Corps of Engineers brought land along the Columbia, some of which they developed as a park and boat launch. Other land was leased to the State Department of Fish and Wildlife for use as a bird refuge. The area provides excellent habitat for ducks, geese, and pheasants. Irrigon’s population was 232 in 1960 and 261 in 1970.

By 1969, significant additions to the agricultural patterns of seventy or eighty years had begun. On the D.O. Nelson property north of Lexington, five center-pivot irrigation circles of 130 acres each were producing potatoes that year. Though irrigation was not new to Morrow County, the center-pivot systems were a big break through as they were especially well adapted to the level, low elevation, sandy soils of the Columbia Basin in the North End of the county. With this technology, the previously unproductive sage lands could produce specialty or high value per acre crops such as potatoes and alfalfa. This had potential spin-off value for processing. By 1975, the Port of Morrow at Boardman was profiting from the location there of potato plants and farm supply companies to take advantage of expanded irrigation.

Also by 1975, some problems to further expansion of irrigated agriculture had also presented themselves. One was the critical groundwater problem. Drawdown from the proliferation of wells in the Columbia Basin area had threatened irrigators with shutoffs of their water supply. The water being pumped was 20,000 to 40,000 years old and the aquifer was not recharging. The irrigators looked to the Columbia for replacement water.

Another obstacle was the presence in the middle of the North End irrigation zone of the U.S. Navy Bombing Range, land bought in 1940 by the government from Hynd Brothers at $1.42 per acre. The western part of the tract had been purchased by the state with veteran’s funds and leased to Boeing Company in hopes of Oregon’s cashing in on aero-space industry expansion in the early sixties. Boeing recognized the true potential of the land and started growing potatoes and other crops on it. The eastern portion was retained by the Navy. As of 1978, the land was still being used for target practice by planes from Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, despite strenuous efforts by the local leaders to get the Range moved to Washington State. The fate of these 48,000 acres will be settled in Washington, D. C. and not in Morrow County.

Boeing was not the only large company active in northern Morrow County. The amount of capital required to finance center-pivot irrigation on a big scale makes it difficult for some smaller family farmers to prac­tice this form of agriculture. Among North End corporate farms are Sim-Tag, a consortium between long-time potato irrigators from Idaho and Washington; Eastern Oregon Farms, Sabre Farms, and Oregon Potato, Inc., owned by C. Brewer and Company of Hawaii. The increased irrigation and truck cropping made it possible for such food processing firms to locate in the county as Morrow Produce and Gourmet Foods.

Two other major areas of expansion in northern Morrow County have been in transportation and energy. With the construction of the John Day Dam below Arlington on the Columbia in the sixties, Boardman was forced to relocate on higher land to avoid inundation of slack water. Water from the higher river made a smaller impression on Irrigon. Interstate 80 passes through the city limits of the new Boardman, providing the opportunity for tourist commercial development, which the city has grasped. During the late 1960s and into the 1970s several motels, restaurants, and gas stations have added to the processing expansion of the Port of Morrow to keep Boardman busy.

In the seventies, a consortium of power companies led by PGE developed a plan to construct a complex of coal and nuclear power plants in the Boardman area. In 1975, work began on the first of these, a thermal plant using Montana coal to be shipped by rail to the site called Carty (after an 1890 Irish sheep man), nine miles south of Boardman and a few miles east of the Bombing Range. The reservoir for the plant will provide additional irrigation water by damming the runoff from the usually dry reaches of upper Six Mile Canyon.

In March 1975, Alumax Pacific Corporation obtained an option on property at the Port of Umatilla on which to build a $350 million aluminum reduction plant. Construction has been held up by court actions and by concerns over adequate power availability. If the plant is constructed, it would have substantial impact on Irrigon. It is estimated that peak construction employment would be about 1800 with operational employment of 800 upon completion. According to the Alumax Environmental Impact Statement, Irrigon is expected to experience an increase in population of about 50 persons, or 7 percent, in the year construction begins. However, actual population increase would also be dependent on availability of adequate housing and adequacy of public facilities such as city water and sewer facilities and public schools. Whether Alumax or any of the additional projected Morrow County energy plants, or the nuclear plants planned nearby in Gilliam County are constructed remains to be seen. Delays occasioned by environmental impact statement requirements, energy availability, court cases and financial considerations make the future of such development in Morrow County uncertain.

Equally uncertain is what the effect of these developments would be on Irrigon. The city has experienced boom and bust cycles before, but a too rapid expansion of the North End economy may strain the traditional structure of county services beyond the resident citizen’s ability to pay. Irrigon residents should make sure the lag between development of any new facilities and the payment of revenues they produce is not too long.

In the 1990s the Morrow County School District identified a need for additional schools throughout the County with an additional elementary school specific to Irrigon. In 2000 the urban growth boundary was expanded to allow for the annexation of land for the Irrigon Elementary School which opened in 2003. This was followed by the community of Irrigon seeking to regain their high school which was achieved in 2008 when the Irrigon Junior Senior High School became a reality.

In 1993 residents living in the western portion of the City of Irrigon urban growth boundary requested that they be removed, resulting in several acres of homes having city services no longer within the urban growth boundary. In this same time frame, there was a water quality concern identified in the same area resulting in requests from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for the City to provide wastewater services. These two actions have left a significant portion of residentially developed land west of the City’s urban growth boundary receiving city services without paying City taxes.

The Port of Morrow has continued to grow with the addition of more food processing plants and the addition of data centers. New rail loops, spurs and sidings have been added starting in 2005 with more planned growing an area now referred to as the East Beach Industrial Park to the west of Irrigon with a connection to Highway 730. Food processing, warehousing, ethanol production and data centers are filling the East Beach Industrial Park creating additional traffic on Highway 730.

In the late 1990s the City of Boardman and Morrow County formed the Columbia River Enterprise Zone (I) with the Port of Morrow joining the effort in 2009 when the Columbia River Enterprise Zone (II) was created. Since 2015 the Columbia River Enterprise Zone Board has distributed the discretionary funds received from businesses that have taken advantage of the tax abatement program, providing significant opportunity to the City of Irrigon. Investment has been made in the community through the creation of community enhancement programs. These funds should be available for the foreseeable future, concluding in about 2035 (unless the program is extended).

Irrigon’s Water Master Plan was approved in 2006 followed by an increase in storage capacity. Then in 2009 with the relocation of the City wells along the Columbia River to address increased nitrate levels.

In the late 1980s the City initiated the first of many projects improving wastewater management throughout the City of Irrigon. Between 1988 and 1990 the STEP sewer system was installed, moving all users off onsite septic systems. In 2003 further wastewater conversions were initiated resulting in the construction of the wastewater treatment plant, replacing the ‘stinky ponds’ located at the east end of Irrigon north of Highway 730. Work continues in late 2020 as more of the City is moving from the STEP sewer system to the Biolac Facility, the only one installed in Oregon, that treats for nitrate removal.

Irrigon’s City Hall has had several homes including the aging historic schoolhouse. In 2007 City staff moved into the current City Hall sited within the park blocks, continuing the initiative to develop this strip into parks and government offerings. The Irrigon Branch of the Oregon Trail Library was housed for years in a bus. But in 2012 the City Hall building was expanded adding the Library and a community room available for meetings and other gatherings, opening to the public in 2013. Within the park blocks there is a children’s park, skate park, covered community venue, a walking trail, and open green space. The Post Office anchors the west end with the east end planned for expansion beyond A.C. Houghton Elementary School.

Both the Morrow County Health District and Morrow County government have substantial investments in Irrigon. The Irrigon Clinic saw the completion of a major expansion in 2018. Morrow County will complete in 2021 a complete renovation of its site with a new building designed to house multiple county services including Planning, Justice Court, the Sheriff’s Department, Veteran’s Services, Parole and Probation, and the County Clerk.