Here is an oldie, but a goodie: I took this photo back in the year 2000, maybe even a year or two earlier. The waterfall is called Summer Falls, the lake is named Billie Clapp Lake, and the rocks have no name. Of course, being so dated, this shot was done on film…slide film to be exact.
This lovely scene was only a few miles from my former home in Ephrata, WA…a town of almost 8,000 people. I lived there for several years before leaving and coming south to Tucson.
The name Summer Falls derives from the fact that the falls only run in summer. And not to take the romance out of it, this is a man-made waterfall derived from runoff of irrigation water. There, I spoiled the photo. But, no matter it is still a lovely waterfall…when it’s running.
Billie Clapp Lake is named after Billie Clapp…a former resident of Ephrata and a bit of a local legend. William "Billy" Clapp (1877-1965), was a lawyer in Ephrata. Clapp became convinced that whatever nature had done with ice in prehistoric times modern man could do with concrete.
But the best story about Billie comes from sometime around 1909. A little background first. Grant County, was created by the Washington Legislature in 1909, spun off from the rather large Douglas County. Shortly thereafter, the legislature chose 2 cities as finalists to become the County Seat…Ephrata and Wilson Creek. Both were to present their cases before the legislature in Olympia early one morning.
The Ephrata delegation was led by our friend Billie. He and some of the other Ephrata representatives came up with an ingenious plan. They decided to throw a large party for both delegations the night before the hearing. Billie paid off the bartenders to double up the drinks for the Wilson Creek boys, while the Ephrata reps stayed sober all night.
Well, the Wilson Creek boys were pretty heavy duty drinkers and they caroused all night, with the party going into the early morning hours. The Ephrata boys kept encouraging their rivals to drink up as Ephrata was paying for this party.
As you can guess, at the hearing the next morning, only the representatives from Ephrata showed up and the city was awarded the prize trophy…being named County Seat. Billie obviously new what he was doing.
That decision can be felt even today. Ephrata grew to a population of over 8,000 people, while Wilson Creek today supports a population of just over 200 people. Because it is the County Seat, Ephrata is mainly a government town.
Just to round off the story, there are only 91,000 people in all of Grant County. The biggest city is Moses Lake. The county, located in the dead center of the state, is still quite large in size. Its most notable asset is the Grand Coulee Dam, which supplies irrigation water to farms all over the county. It was the dam that turned Grant County into a thriving farming county instead of a barren, sandy desert.
I don’t know if it is true or not, but I just have a feeling Billie Clapp went back to Washington DC, got President Roosevelt drunk, then got him to approve the building of the dam. Grant County residents owe a lot to Billie.
(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)
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