Skip to main content

Prosser Falls and Priest Rapids Canal Co. - $1,000 Gold Bond from Washington State

Inv# CN1012   Bond
Prosser Falls and Priest Rapids Canal Co. - $1,000 Gold Bond from Washington State
State(s): Washington
Years: 1894

$1,000 Gold Bond. 28 of 30 coupons present. Printer-Louis Dentz, Litho. NY. Rare!

Prosser (/ˈprɑːsər/) is a city in and the county seat of Benton County, Washington, United States. Situated along the Yakima River, it had a population of 5,714 at the 2010 census.

Prosser was long home to Native Americans who lived and fished along the river. They called the area "Táptat" (alternatively spelled Tap-tat, Top tut, etc.), which translates to "long hair in front, short hair on the sides", referring to a style of headdress.

Colonel William Farrand Prosser first surveyed the area in 1879, then claimed homestead in 1882. The Northern Pacific Railroad laid tracks through the area two years later. A town plat was filed by Colonel Prosser in 1885, and in 1886 he was elected Yakima County Auditor. He moved to North Yakima to attend to these duties, and never returned to the town that he founded.

Lewis Hinzerling built a flour mill at Prosser falls in 1887, encouraging further settlement of the area. The first irrigation canal was completed in 1893 by the Prosser Falls Land and Irrigation Company. Prosser was officially incorporated in 1899 with a population of 229 people.

In 1905, Benton County was carved out of the eastern portions of Yakima and Klickitat Counties. The new town of Prosser was chosen as county seat. In 1907 a power plant was added and began delivering electricity to the town. The following year, a new high school was built, followed a year later by a telephone exchange. In 1910 the city received a grant from Andrew Carnegie for a public library.

Throughout the 1910s and 1920s various companies drilled in this area for oil and natural gas. There were no large findings and the Great Depression put an end to exploration.

On November 5, 1912, Benton County voters held a referendum to move the county seat from Prosser to either Kennewick or Benton City. Intense rivalry and war of words between Benton City, Kennewick, and Prosser preceded the vote. Despite getting a majority of the vote, Kennewick did not receive 60 percent of the vote as required by law. To date, Prosser remains the county seat.

In 1919, Washington State College (later WSU) established the Irrigation Experiment Station at Prosser. The program's mandate is to study the problems faced by farmers, orchardists, and ranchers in the dry central part of the state. The station originally employed scientists from the college in Pullman, who partnered with scientists from the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The station is still currently in use, and offers a number of agricultural education programs.

Prosser at one point had three newspapers, which were consolidated in the 1920s into the Prosser Record-Bulletin, and a permanent courthouse was built in 1926. The Benton County Historical Museum was dedicated in 1968.

In more recent years, Prosser's location on a major river (the Yakima) and highway access has encouraged a growing wine business and associated tourist industry. Several Prosser wineries are located within the Yakima Valley appellation.

Priest Rapids was a narrow, fast-flowing stretch of the Columbia River, located in the central region of the U.S. state of Washington. It was flooded by the construction of the Priest Rapids Dam in the 1950s.

Before the dam's construction, the river dropped 20 feet (6 m) over a short distance. In total Priest Rapids consisted of seven separate cataracts along a 9-mile (14 km) stretch, over which the river dropped 72 feet (22 m) altogether.

It was given the name Priest Rapids by Alexander Ross of the Pacific Fur Company in 1811, for a native shaman. Ross wrote of his visit to the "strong and rocky rapid" where he met a man "called Haquilaugh, which signifies … priest." Haquilaugh was an influential Wanapum leader, for whom Ross gave the rapids its English name.

At Priest Rapids the Columbia River narrowed and flowed quickly, making it an ideal salmon fishing site. There were several rapids and fishing sites, and a dozen or so Wanapum villages along the west bank of the Columbia River at Priest Rapids.

Priest Rapids Dam, built in the 1950s, submerged Priest Rapids, taking advantage of the river's drop for hydroelectric power production. Thus today there are no rapids at Priest Rapids.

Read More

Read Less

Condition: Excellent

A bond is a document of title for a loan. Bonds are issued, not only by businesses, but also by national, state or city governments, or other public bodies, or sometimes by individuals. Bonds are a loan to the company or other body. They are normally repayable within a stated period of time. Bonds earn interest at a fixed rate, which must usually be paid by the undertaking regardless of its financial results. A bondholder is a creditor of the undertaking.

Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: $140.00