Othello was founded on May 23, 1910.

On May 23, 1910, three years after it was designated as a terminus of the Coast Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, the town of Othello was incorporated. Despite the railroad’s ongoing financial problems, Othello’s railroad yards remained busy as trains swapped crews and locomotives on the outskirts of the bustling city. The 1950s would see a new infusion of economic activity as water from the Columbia Basin Project began to irrigate area farms and orchards. The establishment of potato processing facilities on the outskirts of town in the 1960s ensured its continued prosperity—today, about 15 percent of the nation’s frozen French fries are processed in Othello.

From farm to railway town

The area around Othello was one of the last parts of Eastern Washington to be settled by wheat farmers, who looked at the particularly dry panhandle of Adams County and wondered if they could make a living from the land. In 1903, a group of farms gathered on the edge of a broad plateau overlooking the Crab Creek drainage where it meets the Saddle Mountains and turns west toward the Columbia River. The settlers saw the need for a post office and held a contest to generate suggestions for a name. The winning entry was not based on Shakespeare’s play, at least not directly, but on a now-vanished Tennessee town where one of the pioneers had lived happily as a girl.

The location was fortunate. In 1906, surveyors for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad established a route for a new transcontinental line that would run a few hundred yards from the pioneer farms. Farmers, struggling with the lack of rainfall, hired railroad crews to build roadbeds and lay track. The following year, railroad officials announced that Othello would become the eastern end of the railroad’s Coast Division, meaning that the town would be the place where trains would switch crews and locomotives coming from the plains to the east and the mountainous regions to the west.

The result was the town’s first economic boom. In the years just before and after incorporation, when the population was about 400, hotels, restaurants and cafes, saloons, churches, hardware and grocery stores, lumber mills, a schoolhouse, a bank, a barbershop, newspaper offices, a tobacconist, and a theater were built. Railroad facilities grew to include section houses, cattle markets, ice and coal houses, freight and passenger depots, a roundhouse, a wheel shop, and fueling and sanding stations. Crews slept in hotels, bunks, bunks, and boarding houses. Schoolboys, known as “call boys,” kept track of railroad workers’ schedules and knocked on their hotel doors to wake them and make sure they got to work on time.

The opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 and the steady growth of automobile and truck traffic helped end the railroad’s golden age. But Othello’s railroad yards remained busy, especially when the Milwaukee Road electrified its Coast Division, which meant trading westbound steam and diesel locomotives for electric ones for the trip over the Boylston and Cascade Mountains. Electricity reached the town in 1931 from a railroad substation. Although the population gradually declined—from 649 in 1920, to 558 in 1930, to 420 in 1940, with perhaps another 150 living on nearby farms—the town was stable.

The arrival of irrigation water

In May 1953, many Othello residents gathered on the western edge of town to watch the first drops of water make their way through the newly constructed Potholes Canal. It was the culmination of a decades-long dream. Since the early 1900s, advocates and politicians from Eastern Washington had lobbied the federal government to build the infrastructure needed to extract water from the Columbia River and irrigate the arid Columbia Basin plateau. Their efforts were a major force behind the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam from 1933 to 1941 and the initiation of the Columbia Basin Project in 1943. In 1951, six of the largest pumps ever built began pumping water from Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake behind the dam to an old coulee south of the river. From there, the water traveled through thousands of miles of canals, tunnels and siphons, ultimately draining more than 1,500,000 acres of thirsty farmland.

The arrival of irrigation water ushered in Othello’s next economic boom. Farmers began growing potatoes, sugar beets, alfalfa, corn, canola, peas, asparagus, carrots, mint, grapes, and many other crops. Apple, pear, peach, and cherry orchards dotted the nearby hills. New farms sprang up to serve the needs of farmers and townspeople. From a population of 526 in 1950, the town grew to 2,669 in 1960, 4,122 in 1970, and 4,454 in 1980. In 1961, a frozen food company on the edge of town called Othello Packers began processing peas, carrots, and corn. Three years later, farmer Peter J. Taggares opened the Chef Ready French fry factory. It was the beginning of a French fry empire. In the decades that followed, more plants were built to process and freeze French fries, hash browns, and tater tots. In 2023, Othello produced about 1.5 billion pounds of frozen potato-based processed foods, including about 15 percent of the French fries consumed in America. Farm workers, many from Mexico, moved to the area to work on potato farms, in the processing plants, and for associated companies.

As the population continued to grow over the next few decades—from 4,638 in 1990, to 5,847 in 2000, to 7,364 in 2010, to 8,549 in 2020—the demographics changed. Anglo-Saxon children growing up in the city often moved elsewhere after high school and never returned. When they had children, many of their retired parents moved as well, to be closer to their children and great-grandchildren. Meanwhile, Hispanic children growing up in Othello tended to stay close to their families as they grew older, even if they left temporarily to attend college. At the same time, new Hispanic residents arrived from other parts of the United States, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. By 2020, the Hispanic population had grown from 30 percent of the city’s residents in 1980 to more than 75 percent, and business in the city was conducted in Spanish as much as in English.

Continuity and change

In 1980, the Milwaukee Road ceased operations west of Miles City, Montana. By then, Othello’s agricultural sector was strong enough that the railroad’s closure had minimal economic impact. In most of Washington, the Milwaukee Road route was rebuilt as what is now the Palouse to Cascades Trail, which extends west from the Idaho border to Cedar Falls outside North Bend. However, the tracks from Warden, about 12 miles northeast of Othello, to Smyrna, about 32 miles to the west, still exist and are used by the Columbia Basin Railroad to transport agricultural and industrial products.

Other Milwaukee Road legacies remain. In 1975, a local group purchased an abandoned hotel built near the tracks in 1912 and converted it into an arts and crafts center. Since then, the Old Othello Art Gallery has served as a center for art and art education, welcoming visitors with a 1946 Milwaukee Road cab car featuring exhibits on the city’s railroad history. Three blocks away on Larch Street, the 1908 First Presbyterian Church building serves as the city’s historical museum and contains extensive information about the railroad.

In 2002, a Walmart supermarket opened on the edge of town. Within a few years, many of the small shops that had served Othello for years were gone, their owners largely relocated. As the city became more Hispanic, it also became younger. In 2020, about 40 percent of the population was 17 or younger, compared to the state average of 22 percent. Schools were again overcrowded as new housing developments sprang up on the outskirts of town. Adams County still needs thousands of farmworkers, and their relatively low wages help keep Othello’s average income below the state average. But the city, with its wide, freshly paved streets, sprawling parks, and verdant farms, is thriving.

Sources:

“Climatic Tables and Graphs for Major Locations in Eastern WA and Northern ID: Moses Lake, WA,” National Weather Service website accessed May 1, 2024 (https://www.weather.gov/otx/CliPlot); Adams County Historical Society, History of Adams County, Washington (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1986), 45; Guy Reed Ramsey Postmarked Washington: Lincoln and Adams Counties (VN Anderson, 1977); Laura Tice Lage, Sage Brush Farms (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1999), 82–83, 141–142, 175; Stanley Johnson, The Westward Extension of the Milwaukee Road: The Construction of a Transcontinental Railroad (Coeur d’Alene, ID: Museum of North Idaho Publications., 2007), 409; Gladys C. Para, “A History: 1912–1995” (Othello: The Old Hotel, 1995); “Starting from Scratch. Early Business of Othello, a 1984 Calendar,” (Spokane: Hulett Printing, no date); “Othello History Timeline” website accessed May 1, 2024 (https://www.othellowa.gov/othello-history-timeline); “Grand Coulee Dam Statistics and Facts,” Bureau of Reclamation website accessed May 1, 2024 (https://www.usbr.gov/pn/grandcoulee/pubs/2024-03-CGD-Stats-and-Facts.pdf); Timothy Egan, “In The Land Of French Fry, Study Finds Problems,” New York TimesFebruary 7, 1994, p. A-10; Matthew Weaver, “French Fry Capital: How Othello, Wash., became the biggest producer of frozen potato products,” Capital PressMay 4, 2023 (https://www.capitalpress.com/); Robert T. Nelson, “Potato Baron Peter Taggares Dead at 67 — Powerful Player in State Politics,” The Seattle TimesFebruary 23, 1999, p. B1; James Hanlon, “Heart of the Columbia Basin: Othello is Young, Spanish, and Growing Fast,” The Spokesman ReviewOctober 25, 2022 (https://www.spokesman.com/); Eli Tan, “A French-fry boomtown emerges as a climate winner – as long as there’s water,” The Washington PostAugust 21, 2023 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/).

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