Hartline, Washington — Bank Expected a Bigger Town

Hartline's surviving brick commercial buildings remember a period when local institutions expected considerably more people to stick around.

Wheat farming brought money into northern Grant County, and rail transportation gave growers access to distant markets. Stores, grain facilities and banks gathered around that agricultural economy.

The Hartline State Bank was built with the confidence of a town expecting continued growth.

Agriculture changed the forecast. Farms consolidated, machinery reduced the labor required per acre and automobiles made larger commercial centers easier to reach. Hartline's population declined while the surrounding wheat country remained productive.

The old bank is therefore a wonderfully solid monument to a prediction that was only half wrong.

The money stayed in agriculture. Many of the neighbors did not.