Toppenish

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Water tower in Toppenish

Toppenish is a place in Yakima County in the US state of Washington , which had exactly 8,946 inhabitants in 2000. It is located in the Yakama reserve , around 30 km southeast of the city of Yakima . Around 6.5% of the population are of Latin American or Spanish origin, just under 8% stated in the 2000 census that they belong to an Indian tribe, today around 15% do so.

The origin of the name is unclear. It is derived either from the Yakama word "Xuupinish", which can mean "sloping" or "scattered", or it goes back to "Thappahnish", which means "people on the path that comes from the foot of the hills".

The high number of large-format paintings on 70 house walls is unusual . They are taken care of by the Toppenish Mural Society , which they present and comment on on their homepage. There is also the only hop museum in the United States and the Yakama Nation Cultural Heritage Center .

history

After the Whitman massacre of 1847 and the following war against the Cayuse , 14 peoples and groups were forced to relocate to the Yakima Indian Reservation and merged into the Treaty of Walla Walla in 1855 .

The area now Toppenish appeared in 1853 on the map of Captain George McClellan under the name Sahpenis , but he changed on later maps in Toppenish .

Under a land allocation program under the General Allotment Act of 1887, Josephine Bowser Lillie, who had Native American and white ancestors, received 80 acres of land . Today she is considered "the mother of Toppenish". They parceled out and sold half of their land, creating private land ownership in the Yakama Reserve for the first time. Other families, such as the French, Olney, Robbins and Spencer, also took part in the private land acquisition that was permitted for the first time. The previously common type of land appropriation, which consisted of simply occupying free land, was called squatting and so the lands were initially called squatter's claims .

The place was elevated to a city and formally founded by Johnny Barnes on April 29, 1907. In 1911 she was connected to the railway network of the Northern Pacific Railway (until 1961). In 1989 the Yakima Valley Rail and Steam Museum Association was founded, which built a museum from the remaining holdings.

Since 1933 rodeos have been held annually , which were of great importance for the Indians in the area, because numerous representatives of the tribes met in east Washington for four days.

In 1980 the Yakama Nation Museum , one of the oldest indigenous museums in the United States, opened. The Heritage University was founded around this time, with the aim of improving education in the poorly equipped area. This mainly attracted students of Indian and Spanish descent.

literature

  • Toppenish ... from Sagebrush to 1997 , ed. Vd Toppenish Historical Society, Washington: Color Press 1997

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Nick Perry, A small-town university fulfilling big-time dreams , in: Seattle Times, October 29, 2006 .

Web links