Adams County, Washington: History
=== Incorporation ===
The Governor of Washington Territory approved the proposed Adams County Articles of Incorporation on November 28, 1883. At that time Adams County and Franklin County were formed out of territory from Whitman County. The first County meeting (December 19, 1883) established Ritzville as the county seat.
By 1885, the county offices were established, in a wood-frame house purchased for the purpose in Ritzville.
The 1890 census showed that Adams County boasted 2,098 residents. The growing population justified a purpose-built courthouse, so construction began on a new brick courthouse on February 23, 1892.
Wheat farming was a main focus of early residents. By 1904, Ritzville had become the largest initial shipping point for wheat in the United States; a 1909 pamphlet at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle read:Adams County, Washington, the bread basket of the world. A land of wonderful resources where courage, intelligence, strenuous and persistent efforts of the hardy pioneer have wrested the hidden wealth from mother earth ... [a] golden wheat belt which has pushed its way steadily into the wilderness of sage brush which the pioneers found when they came. The gold has gradually absorbed the brown ... the history of Adams County is a song of wheat.
In May 1905, under pressure from citizens of the county, an addition to the courthouse was designed by Spokane architects Preusse & Zittel, doubling its square footage, and moving the edge of the building to the sidewalk on West Broadway Ave.; the bell tower was dismantled. Spokane contractors Hastie & Dougan supervised the project, which began in June and was completed in October for a cost of $12,247.
Wheat producers in Adams County used dryland farming in order to overcome the relative aridity of the county's climate. They let the wheatfields lie fallow in alternate years, holding sufficient moisture to raise profitable crops.
The county's population decreased significantly during the first half of the twentieth century, dropping by nearly five thousand from 1910 to 1940.
In 1940 the courthouse was replaced by a three-story building, with a two-story jail at the rear. Construction was completed in December 1940.
In 1943 the Federal government approved the Columbia Basin Project. It began impacting Adams County in 1946, when construction of the East Low Canal and the Potholes East Canal began. This work, and the ensuing increased agricultural production from irrigated crops, led to continual population increases. The population had increased by 12,500 from 1940 to 2010.