Yakima Sportsman State Park History

Yakima Sportsman State Park owes its preservation and its distinctive name to the generosity of a group of waterfowl hunting enthusiasts who purchased lands in the Yakima River floodplain in the 1940s.

Folds, Floods, Meanders and Mines

The park is situated in a geographic area called the Yakima Fold Belt, an area of central Washington where tectonic compression of the layered Columbia River Basalt lava flows results in a series of parallel ridges that run perpendicular to the force of the stress—kind of like kicking a rug creates ridges in the fabric.

The city of Yakima and Yakima Sportsman State Park are situated between Yakima Ridge to the north and Rattlesnake Hills to the south, both a part of the Yakima Fold Belt. The Yakima River has maintained its course even as the folds developed, slowly cutting deep gaps (Selah Gap and Union Gap) in the ridges as they have risen. Between the gaps, the river meanders from side to side, forced to migrate by sediments accumulating on the river bed. Gravel and sand are deposited in the river channel, especially during winter flood events resulting from heavy rain on the snowpack in the higher elevations of the Yakima River watershed. The Yakima River carries up to 250,000 tons of sediment per year, a very large source of material that continually changes the river and accumulates vast sand and gravel deposits.

On December 23, 1933, the Yakima Valley experienced its largest flood in recorded history, damaging or destroying all transportation routes to the area along with many homes and businesses. In response, the US Army Corps of Engineers planned and built a levee system to contain the river between Selah and Union Gaps, building 25,000 feet of river levee on the west side of the river and 10,700 feet of levee on the east side by March 1948, including the levee within Yakima Sportsman State Park.

In the 1940s and 1950s, especially after the levees reduced the frequency of flood events, gravel mining operations increased in the gravel deposits of the Yakima Valley floodplain, including parts of today’s Yakima Sportsman State Park. By the 1970s, more than 10% of Washington’s sand and gravel production came from the reach of the Yakima River floodplain between Selah and Union Gaps. The popular ponds and wetlands of Levy Pond, Cool Lake and the Juan Alvarez Wetlands Trail in today’s Yakima Sportsman State Park are gravel mines that refilled with groundwater after mining operations finished.

Indigenous Lands, Treaty and the Yakama War

Yakima Sportsman State Park lies within the traditional territory of Sahaptin Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. For thousands of years, Indigenous people have lived near the floodplain of the Yakima River between Selah and Union Gaps, especially during the coldest months of the year. In springtime, groups of people would trek into the higher elevations, harvesting plants and animals for food and materials while some returned to the river valleys to take advantage of fish runs at specific times and places. The season culminated with huckleberry gathering in the high Cascade Mountains in the fall before returning to winter communities near the river.

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US Government under duress in the Yakima Treaty of Camp Stevens in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including lands in the Yakima Valley.

At the treaty signing, Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens assured Indigenous leaders that no colonizers would be permitted to enter Indigenous lands until the treaties were ratified by the US Senate. The discovery of gold in the Colville area resulted in numerous Euro-American propsectors illegally entering onto closed Indigenous land, often coming into conflict with Indigenous people. A government agent sent to investigate the incidents, Andrew Bolon, was also killed by Indigenous people.

In response, the US Army sent soldiers into the area to apprehend those involved. Soldiers under the command of Colonel Granville Haller were decisively routed by Indigenous warriors under the leadership of Chief Kamiakin. In response, a large force of the US Army commanded by Major Gabriel J. Rains marched on Kamiakin’s warriors and their families at a traditional winter village site at Union Gap, three miles south of today’s Yakima Sportsman State Park on November 9, 1855.

Surrounded and outnumbered more than two-to-one by the troops, Chief Kamiakin successfully led the group through a snowy night to elude engagement with the army. Ultimately, the conflict, called the Yakama War, broadened into much of Washington Territory, ending with the a decisive defeat of Chief Kamiakin and the allied tribal warriors at the Battle of Spokane Plains on September 5, 1858.

The US Senate ratified the Yakima Treaty of Camp Stevens in 1859.

Privatization of Land

After government land surveys were completed in 1866, the land in today’s Yakima Sportsman State Park was conveyed into private ownership under the terms of federal land disposal laws. In general, lands within the shifting floodplain of the river were the last to be claimed or purchased. Nevertheless, the list of people who initially acquired the land in today’s park includes many prominent colonizers of the Yakima Valley.

The first tract of land within today’s park to be conveyed (including the area south of today’s park campground) was a Military Scrip Warrant, a grant of 160 acres of public domain land offered to veterans with military service before 1855. Charles A. Splawn (1831-1908) received the grant for his 30 days of service in the Oregon Volunteers under Captain William J. Martin. Splawn was appointed as one of the original commissioners of Yakima County when it was established by the Washington Territorial Legislature in 1865. In 1863, he had married Dulcena Thorp (1844-1869) a daughter of the first settler in the Yakima Valley, Fielden Mortimer Thorp, who had arrived in the Yakima Valley in 1860 to graze cattle in the floodplain of the Yakima River. Dulcena passed away in 1869. Charles married her younger sister Melissa (1851-1928) in 1873.

Charles V. Fowler (1824-1906) and his wife Anamila (1823-1890) obtained a patent for land they “proved up” under terms of the Homestead Act in 1888. The Fowlers incorporated the Fowler Ditch Company and developed the Last Chance Ditch in the same year, supplying irrigation water to their homestead and those of their neighbors. A part of their homestead is now occupied by the park’s Levy Pond and the trails that surround it.

The remainder of the land in today’s park was sold as Cash Entry patents, a type of direct sale of public domain lands from the federal government to private owners, by 1891.

A parcel of land that includes today’s park entrance was purchased by Benton Goodwin in 1873. Goodwin was part of a large family that had emigrated to Washington Territory from the Midwest in 1865 and are credited with the discovery of gold in the Swauk Mining District in 1873. The Goodwins are also sometimes credited with establishing the first irrigated agriculture in the Yakima area in 1866.

The area occupied by today’s park campground and picnic area was acquired by “Dr.” George Washington Carey in 1882. Carey was a founder of the Washington Biochemic Medical College in Yakima in 1889, which offered a “Doctor of the Chemistry of Life” degree as a correspondence course that only required the passage of a single exam for graduation. His publications included The Relation of the Mineral Salts of the Body to the Signs of the Zodiac, and he marketed “cell-salts of the blood,” promising  “all diseases cured in a natural manner by supplying deficiencies in the blood.” It is not clear if Dr. Carey ever resided on or planned to develop the property.

Making a Park

In 1940, the Yakima Sportsmen’s Association acquired much of the land in today’s park to develop a recreation area featuring opportunities for club members to enjoy skeet shooting and to transform existing gravel mines on the property into ponds and wetlands that would attract waterfowl.

The Association’s work led the way towards reclamation standards for floodplain gravel mines adopted by the Washington Legislature in 1993, which require mine permittees to “establish a beneficial wetland by developing natural wildlife habitat…”

The Association deeded the land to Yakima County, but the Board of County Commissioners determined that the County was “financially unable to properly develop said real estate for park purposes.” The Board conveyed the property to the State Parks Committee on November 13, 1945.

Initially, park supporters favored calling the park “Sportsmens Memorial Park,” to honor local soldiers killed during World War II. The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission settled on “Yakima Sportsman’s State Park” in 1950, and later dropped the possessive form for simplification.

Juan Alvarez Wetlands Trail

On May 24, 1977, Governor Dixy Lee Ray approved House Bill # 582, recognizing the Yakima River corridor between Selah and Union Gaps as “a uniquely valuable recreation, conservation, and scenic resource” designated as the Yakima River Conservation Area. The law authorized local and state agencies to acquire land and develop recreational facilities to “preserve, as much as possible, the river wetlands in their natural state.”

The accessible wildlife viewing trail and outdoor living classroom developed in the northern section of Yakima Sportsman State Park was named in honor of Park Aide Juan O. Alvarez, after his death in 1997 while trying to save a mallard duck that was entangled in fishing line in one of the park’s ponds.