A walking tour of downtown Kennewick is available as an Adobe PDF file. Just download the file to your computer and print it out and you will have an instant tour guide to all of the historically significant buildings and homes in downtown Kennewick. If you don't have the Acrobat reader program, you can get it from Adobe's Acrobat download page. Please note that the tour guide is meant to be printed out on legal (i.e., not the normal letter sized) paper in landscape (as opposed to the regular portrait) mode. Before printing, make sure you have a legal sized paper, and choose the "page setup" option in Acrobat to print on a landscape, legal sized paper.

Click here to download the walking tour now.

Kennewick, WA town site

Settlements in the area of Kennewick began as early as 1863. However, major growth did not start until ample irrigation water was brought in by the Benton Land and Water Company in 1892. Completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad a decade earlier, in 1883, and a bridge across the Columbia River in 1888, helped bring farmers to the area and ship their agricultural products to market.

The City was incorporated in 1904 and named after the Native American word, "ken-i-wak", or "winter heaven", which was used to describe the area's particularly mild winters. In 1908, according to the Kennewick Reporter (January 30th), residence lots in the Kennewick Highlands (the most desirable area) originally sold for $100.00. A "new cottage and two lots" was advertised for $1400.00. Most of the early growth of the City occurred from 1904 to about 1920, when falling agricultural prices put a damper on growth. It was not until the US Government formed the Hanford project north of Richland in 1943 that growth dramatically picked up, bringing a city of only 2000 people to 10 times that number in only a few short decades.

Unfortunately, many original pre-WWII downtown buildings were "modernized" or demolished because they were deemed unfashionable in an "atomic age" city. Compared to the downtowns of other outlying towns of similar size, the Tri-Cities in general have few original standing structures. To help remedy this situation and to bring economic growth the downtown area, the City of Kennewick is currently undertaking a revitalization project, starting with the restoration of building facades and the removal of a 1970s streetscape with elements more appropriate for a town that has stood for nearly a century.

-Article written by Jeremy Wells

Click on the thumbnail images for a full-sized picture.

1908
	Downtown Kennewick in 1908. Note the many empty lots and the dirt street and wood sidewalks.

1908
	Two residential street scenes from 1908. Note the rustic condition of the yards and the lack of paved streets and sidewalks.

1915
	Kennewick now has concrete sidewalks and electrical street lighting. Many new buildings are in place, including a new hotel, bank and hardware building.

1923
	The roaring 20s hit. Note that the streets still don't appear to be paved.

1925
	This photograph was taken May 8th, 1925.

1947
	Kennewick, post WW-II. Note that the streets are now still paved and the buildings are still in fairly original condition.

1949
	Mid-century Kennewick. Most of the original buildings in downtown Kennewick have survived to this point. In the following decades, a wholesale alteration of the downtown scene will take place. Most buildings will have their original facades destroyed and covered with a veneer (metal was very common) or simply torn down to be replaced with more "modern" structures.

Source material from the EBCHS archives. Do you have anything to add or correct? Please e-mail the EBCHS at ebchs@gte.net