Colonel Steptoe Marches North
Fort Walla Walla was built during the fall and winter of 1856, by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Steptoe. With three companies of the Ninth Infantry he had arrived there late in the summer from the Nachez River in the upper Yakima country, with orders to erect the post. For many years prior to the establishment of this fort the Hudson’s Bay Company had maintained a trading post on the Columbia, at the mouth of the Walla Walla River, which it designated as Fort Walla Walla. The rude structure around which the dignity of the title centered was composed largely … Read more