During our week in Walla Walla (more properly, the adjoining smaller town of College Place) I took a lot of photos during my early morning perambulations. I was fascinated, looking at the place with eyes of an outsider. The town started in the 1890s with the construction of a Seventh-Day Adventist College, truly out in the middle of nowhere. It is in high desert, not dissimilar to parts of Arizona or West Texas, for those of my readers more familiar with those landscapes. You wouldn't know that from these pictures, because the area is HEAVILY irrigated. I tried to capture lots of pictures from around town which contain the water tower - a central landmark which the locals probably give very little thought to, but is the only thing making the town a green and even agricultural oasis, rather than hardscrabble desert where nothing grows taller than the tumbleweeds and grass. The church is a central influence, and this particular university church is more progressive in its traditionally conservative SDA theology, with its quirky 19th-century eschatology and emphasis on holy and practical living. It is certainly, also a college town, with lots of small rentals. A third influence, which I did not get a photo of, is the Super Walmart which has invaded the town in recent years and is open until quite late. And a fourth is the Fort with its canons, which was built to defend White invaders (aka settlers) from the Natives whose land they stole. (Again, no picture.) The town is so small that in only a few blocks of walking you are not "in town" but in rural agricultural areas. Then you are in the Interior American West with its Go West Young Man concept of limitless land and limitless resources for the exploiting (and keep your hands off my business, buddy.) College Place has had homes built in it from every decade from the 1890s through the present. Truly fascinating.
Currently abandoned, my best guess is that this was the very first house of worship built in town:
The tallest building in town, by far, is this dormitory:
Seventh-day Adventists have their own scouting organization called Pathfinders:
In town, there are alleys between all the houses pre-1940s:
Someone has found a way to harness the sunshine which is in full supply here to subsidize modern life:
The cemetery here is called New Hope, and was founded in 1892, just a year after the college. Life and death go on and on. I walked in it last year, but I couldn't bear to do it again, because I can't stop myself reading headstones, and the headstones of children are particularly heartbreaking.
And a little piece of family history. Nancy's grandparents lived in this house, and she visited them here frequently as a child. I captured all the descendants in front of it.
