Tieton: The Apple Town That Artists Saved
Washington
Tieton, in the Yakima Valley, was built by irrigation. In the early nineteen hundreds, canals turned high desert into orchard country, and apple growers built a real town here: a railroad link, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a dance hall, banks, churches, and a soda fountain. The name comes from a Yakama word for the river.
By the nineteen fifties the town was thriving. Then consolidation took hold, bigger shippers in Yakima absorbed the market, the railroad stopped mattering, and the storefronts went empty. By the end of the century Tieton was a shell.
Latino families who came for the orchard work moved in and kept the community breathing. Then in two thousand seven, a revitalization effort called Mighty Tieton converted an old warehouse district into studios for printmakers, glassblowers, and winemakers. The town still has only about fourteen hundred people, but the warehouse district draws visitors from across the Northwest.
