Program to discuss sites of WW County Poor Farm, Cemetery

Walla Walla County Poor Farm – Main house circa 1965. Photo courtesy of Dell & Lenore Wagner

Before welfare programs and federal Social Security, indigents in Walla Walla County could live and work at a poor farm during the Depression in the 1930s.

A free program by the Walla Walla 2020 Historic Research and Plaque Project about the history of the Walla Walla County Poor Farm and Poor Farm Cemetery will be presented at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 24 at College Place City Hall, 625 S. College Ave.

Speakers include novelist Frances Potts, whose mother was employed at the Poor Farm and whose father was a patient at the adjoining Poor Farm tuberculosis sanitarium. Also speaking are Daniel “Dan” Clark with Walla Walla 2020 and city of College Place officials.