Monitor, Washington — Civil War Ironclad Ended Up in an Orchard

Monitor was named for the USS Monitor, the Union ironclad famous for its Civil War battle with the Virginia.

Nothing about a Wenatchee Valley orchard community particularly demanded a naval reference.

Residents chose one anyway.

The area had earlier been called Brown's Flat. Great Northern rail service and the Peshastin irrigation ditch later helped turn surrounding dry ground into productive orchard land.

Fruit warehouses gathered near the tracks, while bridges connected farms across the Wenatchee River.

The 1931 Monitor Bridge remains a conspicuous piece of concrete engineering in a place otherwise identified with agriculture.

The orchards make geographic sense.

The ironclad is the part somebody had to choose.