Our History

  1916 was the year that I.L.Jones moved his wife and two small children down off the Rattlesnake hills above Prosser where he had homesteaded as a young man in 1907.  After proving up on the land and adding buildings and livestock facilities, the couple that had been married for  five years and struggled to produce wheat under very dry conditions, moved to the fertile irrigated farmland of the Yakima Valley.  The couple having moved with one son and daughter added another three sons over the next eleven years.  Corn, alfalfa, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, sheep, pigs, beef and dairy cattle, chickens and draft horses were the mainstay of the farm.  G.G.Jones being the fifth and youngest child was born on the farm in the same house where he presently lives.  He and his wife raised six children while caring for the land his father had toiled.  Over the years barns were built and remodeled to house livestock, draft teams were replaced with tractors, cement silos were erected to hold silage for the dairy animals and irrigation systems were changed and improved.  Additional crops grown have included asparagus, pumpkin squash and hops.  The Northern Pacific railroad scales and siding used to load produce and livestock were abandoned in the late 1940’s.  The railroad track that had dissected the property since its development in 1906 was removed in the early 1990’s.  Livestock and crops have continued to be the livelihood of the farm.  Today the fourth generation of the family is able to enjoy the fruits of their labor as they help work the land and care for the livestock, while at the same time being able to introduce the fifth generation to the farm.  Faith in God, love of family, treating friends and business associates with honesty and integrity, animal husbandry along with stewardship of the land have been a way of life for the past century.  The significance of surpassing the century mark of a farm is not merely in the tally of years, but in acknowledging the privilege of enjoying and caring for livestock and a portion of land during that time.  That privilege has provided not only an income and sustenance but has also enabled a lifestyle filled with joy, sorrow, success and failure that can truly be recognized as a blessing.