e machinery for doing all the business naturally coming to a town
[Page 59]
of its size. It has a fine high school and graded schools, churches,
newspapers, banks, warehouses, big stocks of goods, fire department,
cet.

GRANT COUNTY

Grant county occupies about 2,700 square miles of what was formerly
Douglas county, comprising the lands southeast of the Grand and
Moses coulees, bordering on the southwest on the Columbia river,
with Adams and Lincoln counties on its eastern border.

Ephrata is the county seat, on the Great Northern railway. The
northern part of the county is traversed by the Great Northern
railroad, and has developed into a vast region of grain production
without irrigation, although originally supposed to be valueless
for cereal-raising.

The southern part is new and comparatively undeveloped, but is
crossed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, just now
giving this new county great impetus. The southern portion of the
county has long been a grazing ground for herds of cattle and horses,
but it is thought now it will be turned into a prosperous region
of small farms.

While the county is cut by several coulees, it is chiefly composed
of large areas of bench lands, comparatively level, barring a range
of hills in its southwestern corner called Saddle mountains. There
is considerable water in the county, Moses lake being quite a large
body of water with bordering swampy lands, about in the center,
and Wilson creek, in the northern and Crab creek, in the southern
part, furnishing considerable stock water.

LANDS.

The lands tributary to the Great Northern railway already produce
great quantities of grain and livestock, and these will continue
to be its staple crops until irrigation may come in and stimulate
fruit production, for which it is thought much of the lands will
be suitable.

TRANSPORTATION.

Both the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railway systems are in
the grain fields of the northern part of the county. The Milwaukee
road crosses the southern part, the N. & S. is projected along its
western border, paralleling the Columbia river, which is navigable,
thus affording all the county, excepting the central portion, good
facilities for marketing its products. As the county develops,
beyond question branch lines will penetrate this portion, and Grant
county will become as well supplied as any other portion of the
state with facilities for commerce.

CITIES AND TOWNS.