Nearby History: How lentils came to Washington
In January, WSU Libraries opened an exhibit that explores the history of lentil-growing on the Palouse. “Against the Grain” takes a closer look at the communities that drove demand for lentils in the United States. Vegans, Black activists and environmentalists all supplied a market for dryland pulse agriculture, but the origin of the lentil lies with a religious community in a small town on the Palouse.
Members of the Seventh Day Adventist church of Farmington were the first in the area to cultivate lentils for sale. Their cultural background and dietary preferences made fertile ground for the pulse crop. Largely composed of German immigrants who had experienced persecution in Czarist Russia, the community settled in Farmington and established a small Seventh-day Adventist church in 1884.
Among the early members of that church were Jacob and Christina Wagner, both immigrants from Russia. In 1891 they purchased an 80-acre tract west of Farmington for $1,600 and built a two-room house for themselves and their five children. The family soon met with misfortune, however, when Jacob died in 1895 and Christina in 1896. By 1901, all five children and their caretakers had relocated to Oklahoma to establish new homesteads and escape financial hardship.
That would have been the end of the Wagners’ story in Farmington, and possibly of lentils’ story as well, if Jacob John (J. J.) Wagner had not returned six years later. Now 23 years old and married, he bought 100 acres of land near Farmington with his brother, David, starting anew where their parents had begun.
The family struggled in moving to Farmington. “Our first Sabbath in church was not so happy,” Wagner recalled. “As soon as the singing started (no organ) the tears flowed. It was all so different.”
Though David moved back to Oklahoma, Jacob and his wife, Mary Meier Wagner, remained. Their struggle to maintain a profitable farm was typical of the time until an opportunity arrived in the form of lentil seeds procured from a Mr. Martin, another Adventist, in 1916.
Wagner did not immediately sense the profitability of his first lentil crop, a few plants grown between two rows of apple trees. Instead, he may have chosen to grow lentils because of Adventists’ beliefs regarding food. Adventism’s founder, Ellen G. White, believed that God had imparted particular revelations to her. Among these was the belief that people should consider their bodies to be a temple and, therefore, abstain from all alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and meat. White’s message possibly inspired Wagner and he may have seen a need in the Adventist community for hearty meat alternatives.
A visit from one of Farmington’s many German-speaking immigrants exposed him to the potential of the crop. Lentils had been grown in the Swabian Alb — a region in southwestern Germany — since approximately 500 BC. The soil in this area was too poor to support any but the hardiest plants. By the beginning of the 19th century, lentils had become the primary crop in the region. Streets and villages were dubbed “Linse” or “Leisa,” referencing the small legume.
A German minister named Schultz, apparently familiar with lentil cultivation, happened to notice Wagner’s humble crop. Schultz encouraged Wagner to increase and sell his lentils. “His word was gold to all our people, and upon his advice, I planted this seed with an old hoe drill in 1917 east of our driveway, about an acre or less,” Wagner wrote. The plants thrived in the Palouse climate and yielded an impressive $130, purchased by B. L. Gordon Wholesale in Spokane.
Wagner and eventually his neighbors found an eager market for lentils. He advertised lentils through Adventist meetings and publications, selling his crop wholesale and direct to consumers as far away as Australia. By 1936, area farmers planted as many as 1,000 acres of lentils, the sale of which buoyed the town through the Great Depression. Wagner himself added 200 acres to his 80-acre farm. “I was called the ‘Lentil King’ for a time of years,” Wagner wrote, “a big thing from a very small beginning!”
Indeed, Palouse farmers cultivated 150,000 acres of pulses in 1982, a far cry from Wagner’s 1-acre experiment in 1917. From their origin among the Adventists of Farmington, lentils and other pulses would become an essential part of the culture not just of the Palouse but of a variety of groups and social movements across American history.
“Against the Grain” will be on display at WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections through August 2025.
Anderson is the Digital Collections Librarian at WSU Libraries. She enjoyed some of her first lentil dishes while participating in an exchange program near Branau in Austria. Gregg is the Manuscripts Librarian at WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections where he works to provide access to WSU’s archival and rare book collections. Will first started eating lentils when he was an English teacher in Istanbul. Little did he know that some of the lentils he enjoyed there probably came from Palouse farms halfway around the world!
