Ed Marquand remembers his first visit to Tieton in numbers. The year: 2005. The distance: 15 miles by bicycle from the cabin retreat the Seattle book publisher had bought in Central Washington, out on a scenic pedal. And, most fatefully, the number of punctures in his bike tires, ripped open by goathead thorns as he rolled through the agricultural town: 18.
As he slowly patched the holes in the center of Tieton—downtown is really only one block surrounding a park—Marquand’s eyes wandered over the single-story brick facades and empty storefronts, the abandoned apple warehouses left by consolidation in the fruit industry that had dominated the upper Yakima Valley.
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