Saturday, January 07, 2006

Ida Powell


In southeast Yakima is a Carpathian walnut tree. It was planted long ago and the trunk is now 3-4 feet thick. It towers over the expansive 1895 farmhouse that it shades. Beneath its spreading branches, four huge picnic tables wait patiently for spring. That is when the neighbors will return, as they have every year since the early 1980's, to work alongside church and trade school volunteers to reawaken the proud building at the corner of Spruce and Union (Union is where 9th St. would be). Others work to rejuvenate the 1 acre of pioneer planting that helped qualify this Estate's placement on the State's Register of Historic Places. Restoring the property to the community is the vision of the South East Neighborhood Improvement Committee (SENIC), a 501c(3) non-profit corporation. SENIC's unofficial motto is "we can do more good with nothing than others accomplish with thousands." In support of SENIC's efforts at the Historic Ida Powell estate, a PayPal donations link is provided below. Please make a donation and please visit this summer to share in the project. Parcheesi players are especially welcome for late summer evening games in the shade of the walnut tree.




(Historic Property Inventory Form for this site - PDF )
(If you have MS Internet Explorer you can get to a nice write up and picture using the query function at the State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation's WISAARD site, but it takes some doing to get there. "Query" (lower Left) for POWELL HOUSE)

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that the POWELL HOUSE is also on the National Register of Historic Places)





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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

good work phil. let's gete some action on city council to identify money or at least focus our efforts to get the doors open and managed to serve the neighborhood.

Neil McClure