Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: Farmer says world’s best land for growing potatoes was in Inland Northwest

George J. Cannon, a farmer from Buckeye (near Mead and Chattaroy) claimed that the Inland Empire was equal or superior to any potato-growing district in the world – at least in potential, The Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on Dec. 5, 1919. (Spokesman-Review archives)

George J. Cannon, a farmer from Buckeye (near Mead and Chattaroy), claimed that the Inland Empire was equal or superior to any potato-growing district in the world – at least in potential.

“Our possibilities in this line are so alluring that they seem like a fairy dream,” Cannon said at a Spokane horticultural conference. “And yet we have done absolutely nothing. You can count on your fingers the men who have made real money growing potatoes in the Inland Empire. … Only during the last five or six years have we begun to see our opportunity – most of us do not see it yet.”

He said that the region’s advantages were equal to or superior to any of the world’s potato centers, including Austria, Ireland and Maine.

“The northern and higher portions of this Inland Empire are literally freckled with little valleys, prairies and pockets which the creator fitted especially for, and intended should be, used for the growing of a superior seed potato,” Cannon said.

Cannon’s dream would eventually be realized, but a little farther west. Today, Grant County (Moses Lake) is the No. 1 potato-producing county in the United States.

From the Christmas beat: The Spokane Daily Chronicle was holding a Christmas shop-early contest and asking readers to suggest the best Christmas gifts.

One woman submitted an unusual suggestion: a set of false teeth.

It was difficult to argue with her logic. It was the one gift, she said, that would make a toothless woman happiest.