Panel 4 - Farming Begins | Long Before Apples: The First Harvests of Manson

When people think about farming in Manson, they usually picture apple orchards, cherry trees, vineyards, and pear orchards stretching across the hillsides. Those crops helped build our community and remain an important part of our identity today.

But the story of farming in Manson began long before the first orchard was planted.

Thousands of years before irrigation systems, tractors, and fruit packing sheds, the Chelan people relied on a remarkable native plant called wapato. Growing in the shallow wetlands and marshy shorelines of the Columbia River Basin, including areas around ancient Lake Chelan, wapato was one of the most important food sources for Indigenous communities throughout the region.

The name wapato comes from Chinook Jargon and was commonly used for a potato-like

root. The plant itself, known scientifically as Sagittaria latifolia, is also called duck potato,

arrowhead, or arrowroot. Its green arrow-shaped leaves rise above the water while

nutritious tubers grow beneath the muddy bottom. Those tubers provided a dependable

source of carbohydrates, much like potatoes do today.

For generations, the people of the Chelan Tribe carefully stewarded the lands surrounding

Lake Chelan. They fished, hunted, gathered native foods, and managed important plant

resources. Wapato became a cornerstone food because it could be harvested in quantity,

stored for future use, and traded with neighboring tribes for salmon, shells, obsidian, and

other valuable goods.

described wapato as one of the principal trade items

they encountered along the Columbia River in the winter of 1805-1806.

Harvesting wapato required skill and patience. Women often waded into the water and

loosened the tubers with their feet. Once freed from the mud, the buoyant roots floated to

the surface, where they were gathered by hand or canoe. Lewis and Clark recorded seeing

women harvesting this way, sometimes standing in water nearly to their necks while

collecting the valuable roots.

Wapato was more than food. It was also part of a healthy wetland ecosystem. The plants

helped stabilize shorelines, supported waterfowl and muskrat populations, and provided

habitat for numerous species that depended upon thriving wetlands. Long before the word

"ecology" existed, Indigenous communities understood the importance of maintaining

these productive environments.

Today, wapato has become much less common. Wetland drainage, river damming,

changing shorelines, and invasive carp reduced populations throughout much of its

historic range. Fortunately, restoration projects are helping re-establish native wetland

habitats and protect this culturally important first food. Visitors can even see examples

nearby at the Beebe Springs Wildlife Area, where native wetland ecosystems continue to be

restored and protected.

Now here's where our story takes an interesting turn.

If you've spent much time around Manson, you've probably noticed the word Wapato

everywhere. There's Wapato Point, the Wapato family, and numerous reminders of this

important name throughout the valley. Manson’s historic “Main Street” is even named

Wapato Way.

Many people assume Wapato Point and Wapato John were named directly after the plant.

The truth is even more interesting.

Wapato John, born around 1825 and living until 1911, became one of the most respected

leaders in the Lake Chelan region. Historical accounts describe him as a rancher, trader,

diplomat, and agricultural pioneer who spent his life helping guide his people through a

time of tremendous change. Before returning to the Chelan area, he learned farming

techniques in Oregon's Willamette Valley and later brought those skills home. After the

massive Ribbon Cliff earthquake in 1872 destroyed his home, the north shore of Lake

Chelan in the Manson area became his home.

According to a 1904 biography, Wapato John became the first Indigenous farmer in the

local area to plant crops and successfully raise potatoes. Because the Chinook trade

language used the word wapato for potato, local residents began calling him "Wapato

John," and the name stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Think about that connection for a moment.

The wapato plant represented one of the earliest food crops harvested by the Chelan

people, while Wapato John became known for growing one of the first cultivated potato

crops in the region. One story comes from ancient wetlands. The other comes from fields

planted by hand. Together, they represent two chapters in the beginning of agriculture

around Manson.

Wapato John's contributions extended well beyond potatoes. He operated a ranch, traded

goods throughout the Columbia Basin, and later became involved in some of the earliest

agricultural development in the Chelan Valley right here in what we know as Manson. His

family became one of the most recognizable names in local history, and descendants of

the Wapato family continue to be tied to the community today. Wapato Point itself became

part of the family's allotment lands following the Moses Agreement of the 1880s.

So where did farming begin in Manson?

You could make a strong case that it began twice.

First, in the wetlands where Indigenous families harvested wapato from the shallow waters

of ancient Lake Chelan.

Then later, in the fields and farms of pioneers like Wapato John, who planted the first crops

and helped usher in a new era of agriculture.

The apples, cherries, pears, and grapes that define Manson today all followed these earlier

harvests. Long before the orchards, before the vineyards, and before the town itself, there

was a humble wetland plant called wapato and a remarkable farmer named Wapato John.

And together, they helped sow the seeds of Manson's agricultural story.