About the Pullman Plant Materials Center

Updated 09/26/2008

• Description of the PMC Service Area
• Getting to the Pullman Plant Materials Center
• Climate of Pullman, Washington
• History of the Pullman Plant Materials Center

Description of the PMC Service Area

How soil, climate and resources are used varies significantly throughout the area served by the PMC. The annual rainfall ranges from six inches in the Columbia Basin to more than 65 inches in the mountainous regions of Kittitas County, Washington.

Summers are warm and dry. Wind is common in the plains regions or Oregon and Washington resulting in wind erosion of soils in these low rainfall areas. There are many acres of rangeland and irrigated cropland in the 8-14 inch annual rainfall zones, and many acres of dry-land cropland in the 15-20 inch rainfall areas. While wind erosion is prevalent in the 8-12 inch precipitation areas, water erosion predominates in the higher precipitation zones, particularly from water running over frozen ground. The frost-free growing season ranges from 70 days at Pierce, Idaho, to 213 days in Benton County, Washington.

Elevations range from 350 feet in the plains regions to 9,675 feet in the Eagle Cap Wilderness area of Union County, Oregon. Most of the agricultural land is below the 2,800-foot elevation.

Livestock and grain, with logging in the timbered areas, are the major uses in the tri-state region. Orchards and vineyards continue to increase in protected valleys adjacent to streams where irrigation is possible. Apples are the leading orchard crop. Winter wheat is the dominant dry-land crop, with much acreage in summer fallow rotation. There is extensive alfalfa, beans, beets, potatoes, corn and other cash crops in the Columbia Irrigation Project Area.

Climate of Pullman, WA

Getting to the Pullman Plant Materials Center

History of the Pullman PMC

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the spring of 1932, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program was established to do emergency conservation work H.H. Bennett, a leading proponent of conservation, obtained authorization to establish erosion control demonstration projects. Through the influence of the Dean of the College of Agriculture, E.C. Johnson, the Palouse demonstration project was headquartered at Pullman under the leadership of William Rockie with E.C. Johnson as Chief Engineer. Both were former members of the Washington State College faculty.

During the winter of 1933, a need for plant material was contemplated. Harry Schoth, with the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering from Oregon State College at Corvallis was called upon for assistance. He organized a native seed collection program under Dr. Lowell Mullen, a WSC graduate, and also made available seed from 2 foreign plant expeditions to Mongolia and Russia. These were the Westover-Enlow and the Roerich Expeditions. During 1934, four teams of two men each spent the late summer collecting native plant seeds throughout the Pacific Northwest. In the summer of 1935, emphasis was on the collection of tree stands, primarily black locust, Chinese elm, maple, and later, conifer and browse plant seeds . Black locust collections alone reached 85,000 lbs.

Sometime during 1934 and early 1935, negotiations with Dean E.C. Johnson and Edwin Schafer, Agronomy Department Head, were completed for the use of college land. A group of local citizens led by banker George Gannon backed the purchase of 160 acres of land at $75 per acre northeast of the junction of the highway to Moscow and the Airport Road. Through a cooperative agreement, 100 acres of this land plus office space in Wilson Hall was made available for grass and tree testing and production. The agreement also covered work at Lind and Prosser, Washington. Separate agreements were executed for work in Oregon and Idaho.

At the time of purchase, the land was in winter wheat. Virgil B. Hawk, who had a fellowship in the Department of Agronomy, was appointed as a Bureau of Plant Industry agent on April 1, 1935. He had 2 acres of wheat plowed out and with the help of a student, Hedger Priest, planted some foreign plant introductions and a block of slender and crested wheatgrasses. Wheat was grown for the next several years on land not used for nursery work and the land was eventually purchased. Virgil Hawk became manager of outlying nurseries in 1936.

A 200-man CCC camp had been established at the present Pullman Airport and a labor force of 25 men with a foreman was assigned to the Pullman nursery. The Pullman camp was closed in October 1938 and labor was then supplied by the Moscow, Idaho camp. CCC labor was supplemented by hiring as many as 20 high school or college students for summer work. A 2.2 acre building site was purchased by the U.S. government on scabland south of the college land. Government ownership was a prerequisite for the expenditure of building funds. Construction of the residence, seed house and shop was completed in 1937 at a cost of $75,000.

Dr. A.L. Hafenrichter, WSC Agronomy Department Professor, was hired as the Palouse Demonstration projection agronomist in 1933 and in 1935 he was appointed regional nurseryman with Dr. Paul Lemmon, a forester, as assistant early in 1936. In June 1935, Clair Swendby was hired from the WSC Forestry Department to grow more trees than could be grown at the local Clark-McNary Nursery and H.W. Miller, a WSC Forestry senior, became his assistant. Hank Rampton, assistant to Harry Schoth from Corvallis, was hired to make initial plantings and get the nursery started. Dr. Del Tingey, an Agronomy professor on leave from UAC at Logan, Utah was in charge of local planning and operations during 1936. Arthur J. Johnson was the first farm manager. Junior agronomist John L. Schwendiman was employed Sept. 3, 1935 and Roland Sackman May 27, 1936. Harold W. Miller became Junior forester after graduation from WSC in June 193 6. Paul J. Gimlin was farm foreman, Sam J. Heath mechanic, John Thierault clerk July 1937, and Scott Getchell laborer.

Farm manager Johnson lived in the farm residence. The farm staff had an office in the new seed house. The technical nursery staff had offices in Wilson Hall, first floor across from Dean Johnson. The entire SCS project offices were in Wilson for some time. It was only natural that Hafenrichter would hire recent WSC students. Agronomy graduates, Arden Jacklin, Verle Kaiser, R. T. Savage, Don Douglas and others all with the SCS became known as "Hafenrichter Boys." He kept a motto on his desk which read, "There is much good that can be done if you don't worry about who gets the credit."

The winter of 1935-36 was spent threshing and cleaning tree and grass seed, building roads, fences, terraces, and waterway sodding, following a contour plan laid out by Paul McGrew, WSC professor who was project engineer.

By December 1935, the Soil Erosion Service, Department of Interior under which the demonstration project had been started was transferred to the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. This reorganization put Project Supervisor Mr. Rockie in charge of all Demonstration projects in the Northwest. He chose Pullman as headquarters for the Soil Conservation Service. The Regional nursery division was born under Max Hoover of Washington D.C.

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