Hall Farm

Hall Farm

G.W. and Nanny Hall.

One of G.W.’s harvest teams.

G.W. and Nanny Hall with their eight children.

Richard Hall with one of his prized Tennessee Walker horses.

Richard with two of his brothers and two nephews.

Shirley, Maxine, and Elaine pose with 31 of their cousins.

The farmhouse has stood on the Hall Farm since 1918.

The Hall family arrived in eastern Washington in 1901.

In 1901, George Washington Hall (G.W.) and his wife Nancy (Nanny) came from Tennessee to Whitman County, with more than 100 of their family members. The cost to travel from Knoxville to Spokane was $75.  Land around Steptoe cost $2 an acre and they bought 3 parcels of land.

G.W. had a herd of 80 mules, which he used to run harvest teams all over Whitman county. G.W.’s brother also started a farm. They hired family members to help with the harvests, and over time more than 300 family members came over from Tennessee. To this day, Steptoe is sometimes referred to as “Tennessee Flats”. 

In 1918 they built the house on the farm, which still stands to this day. G.W. and Nanny had eight children (four boys and four girls). When G.W. died in 1941, their son Richard and his wife Wanda moved into the house and lived there until 1986. Richard raised and raced prized Tennessee Walker horses. 

Richard and Wanda had 3 daughters: Shirley, Maxine, and Elaine. When Richard was 45 (1941) he turned the operations of the farm over to his nephews, but Shirley, Maxine, and Elaine retained part ownership. Elaine married a mechanic, who sometimes worked for Richard sewing wheat sacks. The family jokes that he was the only person in town that Elaine wasn’t related to, so they got married. 

All three of the Hall girls helped out on the farm and even drove the trucks when they were young. However, one Sunday Elaine rolled the truck. That was the last time they worked on a Sunday - and the last time Elaine was allowed to drive the farm trucks. 

Today their daughter Ann owns 780 acres of the farm along with her family, while her cousin and cousin’s grandson do all of the farming. From the very beginning, wheat has been the constant crop on the farm. They have grown barley and seed peas throughout the years, and today they grow garbanzo beans.

The farm has changed in numerous ways. It went from tractors pulling the combine to fully automated GPS combines. “t was horrible being on the old tractors,” said Ann Mitchell Ingersoll. “It was terribly itchy and you would have to cover your entire body with corn starch to keep from scratching all day. Then you would have to run through the sprinkler because you couldn’t go inside. They would wear long sleeves and pants and it would get so hot during those long summer days.” 

Farming is constant, Ann says. Her grandmother was always worried about something. And you’re always working; starting at sun up and not stopping until 2 hours after dinner.