Farming in Palouse Country – Circa 1938

Reader Contribution by Farm Collector
Published on April 23, 2012

In the May 2011 issue of Farm Collector, Jack Alexander shared some incredible vintage photos of the wheat harvest in Whitman County in the Palouse Country in eastern Washington. He shared some of the history of working with horses and mules in the hilly region, as well as some background on the Mayview Tram that moved sacks of grain to storage at the bottom of the Snake River canyon.

And while the photos told quite the story, we think these videos will be even more eye opening.


This silent film was digitzed and uploaded at Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University from a film held in the WSU Libraries (Pullman, Washington). It shows farming on the Palouse in 1938 using a horse-drawn combine.

This video, which was also digitzed by at the Washington State University Libraries’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) from film held there (MS2002-15), was originally created by Norman Longhurst. It shows the Mayview Tram in action in around 1935.

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