A century ago, town had big hopes for hops

Originally published Saturday, September 13, 1997

By JACK HOPKINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Antiques go hand in hand with the town's longtime promotion of its ties to years gone by. Puyallup is rich in history and the town has preserved all it can of the past.

Perhaps no building is more revered that the Meeker Mansion, home to pioneer Ezra Meeker in 1890 and now a national historical site.

Meeker is best known for his ties to the Oregon Trail, which he crossed in covered wagons several times. An adventurer, farmer and businessman, he was known as the "hops king of the world" at a time when growing hops was the biggest thing going in Puyallup.

Meeker is partly responsible for some of the city's current traffic woes. He platted the original town on one side of the railroad track and another man platted the town on the other. Because the two men didn't like each other, they made sure their streets didn't meet. Over the years, the city has reconstructed some of the streets but some crossings are still out-of-whack.

Growing hops was big locally only for a short time. But it was long enough for local visionaries to decide the crop ensured the town's future growth and to start building a grand hotel -- the best in the state -- in 1890.

They were well on the way to constructing 83 luxurious units, each with its own fireplace, in the three-story structure when the hops boom went bust in 1891. The hotel was never completed and the building was torn down in 1900. Now just a sign about shattered dreams stands on the site.

The loss of the hops trade turned out to be the forerunner to gradual loss of most agriculture in the Puyallup area.

But Washington State University has maintained a research and extension center in Puyallup for almost as long as the town has existed. The center -- opened in 1894, four years after the town incorporated -- thrives today, employing about 150 people on 600 acres of well-used land.

"We are not your grandfather's experiment center," says Dean Glawe, superintendent of the WSU operation. "We are a truly comprehensive center for university programming."

The research and extension center has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments: It founded the now-nationwide master gardener program and has done pioneering research in small fruit production -- it developed the popular Meeker raspberry strain -- and the dairy and poultry sciences.

The center does research on flower bulbs, disease control, soil and fertilizers and even operates a nutrition education program for low-income families and serves as state headquarters for the 4-H program.

"We have a real history of innovation and are working now on issues affecting the rural-urban interface," says Glawe. That's something Puyallup residents would have no problem relating to.