Walla Walla County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 62,584. The county seat and largest city is Walla Walla. The county was formed on April 25, 1854 and is named after the Walla Walla tribe of Native Americans.
Walla Walla is a city in and the seat of government of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,927 as of 2021. The population of the city and its two suburbs, the town of College Place and unincorporated Walla Walla East, is about 45,000.
Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the U.S. to require comprehensive exams for graduation.
Marcus Whitman was an American physician and missionary. In 1836, Marcus Whitman led an overland party by wagon to the West. He and his wife, Narcissa, along with Reverend Henry Spalding and his wife, Eliza, and William Gray, founded a mission at present-day Walla Walla, Washington in an effort to convert local Indians to Christianity. In the winter of 1842, Whitman went back east, returning the following summer with the first large wagon train of settlers across the Oregon Trail. These new settlers encroached on the Cayuse Indians living near the Whitman Mission and were unsuccessful in their efforts to Christianize the tribe. Following the deaths of many nearby Cayuse from an outbreak of measles, some remaining Cayuse accused Whitman of murder, suggesting that he had administered poison and was a failed shaman. In retaliation, a group of Cayuse killed the Whitmans and eleven other settlers on November 29, 1847, an event that came to be known as the Whitman massacre. This led to continuing warfare between settlers and the Cayuse which reduced their numbers further.
The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease and settlers to the region, the immediate start of the conflict occurred in 1847 when the Whitman massacre took place at the Whitman Mission near present-day Walla Walla, Washington when thirteen people were killed in and around the mission. Over the next few years the Provisional Government of Oregon and later the United States Army battled the Native Americans east of the Cascades. This was the first of several wars between the Native Americans and American settlers in that region that would lead to the negotiations between the United States and Native Americans of the Columbia Plateau, creating a number of Indian reservations.
Narcissa Prentiss Whitman was an American missionary in the Oregon Country of what would become the state of Washington. On their way to found the Protestant Whitman Mission in 1836 with her husband, Marcus, near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, she and Eliza Hart Spalding became the first documented European-American women to cross the Rocky Mountains.
Dorothy Marie "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger is a retired American astronaut. In 2000, she married Jason Metcalf-Lindenburger, a fellow Whitman College graduate and educator, from Pendleton, Oregon, and they now have one daughter together. She was a science teacher at Hudson's Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington when she was selected in 2004 as an educator mission specialist. Her parents are Joyce and Keith Metcalf, who reside in Fort Collins, Colorado. She was the first Space Camp alumna to become an astronaut.
The Umatilla National Forest, in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, covers an area of 1.4 million acres (5,700 km2). In descending order of land area the forest is located in parts of Umatilla, Grant, Columbia, Morrow, Wallowa, Union, Garfield, Asotin, Wheeler, and Walla Walla counties. More than three-quarters of the forest lies in the state of Oregon. Forest headquarters are located in Pendleton, Oregon. There are local ranger district offices in Heppner and Ukiah in Oregon, and in Pomeroy and Walla Walla in Washington.
Otis Halbert Holmes was a U.S. Representative from Washington state, serving a total of eight consecutive terms, from 1943 to 1959. He did not stand for re-election in 1958, retiring to his ranch.
John W. Stanton is an American businessman. He is the chairman of the board of Trilogy International Partners, as well as the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB).
Robert Allen Skotheim is an American educator who has served as president of several colleges and institutions.
Frances Shipman Penrose Owen was a community volunteer in Seattle, Washington, a 22-year member of the Seattle School Board and the first woman on the Board of Regents of Washington State University, the state's land-grant research institution, serving from 1957 to 1975.
The Walla Walla Symphony is an orchestra based in Walla Walla, Washington. Founded in 1907, the Walla Walla Symphony is the "oldest continuously operating symphony west of the Mississippi". Yaacov Bergman was music director from 1987 until his death in 2023. The Walla Walla Symphony performs most of its concerts in Cordiner Hall located on Whitman College Campus and provides several different types of concerts throughout the year.
Gretchen Miller Kafoury was an American politician, who served in the Oregon House of Representatives, the Multnomah County Commission, and the Portland City Council. She served in the legislature from 1977–82, the Multnomah County Commission from 1985–91, and the Portland City Council from 1991-98.
Borleske Stadium is a multi-purpose outdoor athletic stadium in Walla Walla, Washington, United States. It has served as the home for a variety of professional and amateur teams in both football and baseball since it opened in 1926.
Osterman and Siebert was an American architectural firm in Walla Walla, Washington. Henry Osterman was senior partner.
John Dale Wilcox is a former American football defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Soaring Stones, also known as Rouse Rocks, Soaring Rocks, and Stones on Sticks, is a 1990 granite-and-steel sculpture by John T. Young. It was first installed in the Transit Mall of Portland, Oregon, and was later sited as Soaring Stones #4 at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. The sculpture was commissioned for $100,000 to replace a fountain that was removed during construction of Pioneer Place.
Lela Loren is an American television and film actress. Known for her leading role as Angela Valdes on the Starz television series, Power, Loren notes in interview that it took time to land her first audition, and that her early roles were in The Shield, Gang Related, and shows of the CSI franchise. Further television roles followed, including in Cold Case, and Ghost Whisperer, and she went on to film roles, including in The Hangover Part III and Reign Over Me. In 2019, Loren joined the second season of the Netflix science fiction series, Altered Carbon as a series regular, playing the character of Danica Harlan.
Marcus Whitman in Buckskins is a 4/3 life-size bronze sculpture by Avard Fairbanks that depicts the American physician, missionary and frontiersman Dr. Marcus Whitman striding resolutely into the future, holding a Bible in one hand and saddlebags and a scroll in the other hand. It was donated by the U.S. state of Washington to the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection and was unveiled and dedicated there on May 22, 1953.. Washington state Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation on April 14, 2021 to have it removed; and it was subsequently given to Walla Walla County.
