Cunningham, Washington — Wheat Boom Lasted About Fifteen Years

Cunningham grew with the confidence of a town convinced the boom would continue.

William R. Cunningham platted the settlement beside a Northern Pacific station in 1901.

Stores, blacksmiths, churches, a newspaper, school and three grain elevators appeared quickly.

By the early 1910s, roughly five hundred people lived there while surrounding farms shipped large quantities of wheat.

Then drought hurt agriculture.

A major fire in 1916 added another blow.

Population declined, schools closed and the commercial center gradually thinned.

The wheat country remained productive, but it no longer required a town of Cunningham's early scale.

Boomtowns do not need gold.

Grain works perfectly well.

So does drought.