At one minute past midnight on May 29, 1952, fireworks lit the sky over a patch of sagebrush north of Moses Lake, Washington. By the end of the day, the patch was a working farm with a seven-room house, and it was about to be handed to a World War II veteran whose Kansas farm a flood had destroyed.

Sagebrush at Midnight

The Farm-in-a-Day was a contest run by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Thousands of people applied, and 50 finalists were chosen. A national board with officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Grange picked the winner.

The land was 63.5 acres of sagebrush donated by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The build was part of the Columbia Basin Water Festival, which celebrated the first irrigation water from Grand Coulee Dam.

Floodlights and Tractors

When the fireworks went off, more than 50 carpenters, electricians and other contractors began work on the house by floodlight. Eight local contractors directed them.

Out in the fields, about 100 men and 25 tractors worked alongside other heavy equipment, with a dozen civil engineers directing the operation. The sagebrush was leveled, cleared and planted.

A barn, a machine shed and a chicken coop were finished by noon. Planting began at noon too. The people of Moses Lake gave so much of their time and goods that, in the words of the HistoryLink account, nearly everyone living in and around the town was working on the project.

Black and white 1952 photo of Hubert H. Walter presenting the Farm-in-a-Day deed to Donald Dunn and his family, Moses Lake, Washington — Donald Dunn and his family receive the deed, May 1952. Courtesy City of Moses Lake Museum and Art Center.

The Man Who Got the Keys

Donald Dunn was 30 and had grown up on a farm near Marion, Kansas. He drove tanks in France and Germany during World War II, earned three battle stars and came home as a sergeant in 1945.

In July 1951, the Cottonwood River flooded east-central Kansas, one of the worst disasters in the state's history. Dunn lost his crops, his home, most of his livestock and his equipment. A $2,000 loan from a friend moved his family to Yakima, where he sold farm equipment.

The ceremonial handing-over of the deed was scheduled for 4 p.m. that day. The whole package of house and farm was valued at about $75,000.

What Happened After

The Dunns' first-year crops were valued at $18,152.30, with a profit of $8,008.39. In March 1955, Dunn sold the house and farm to Edward P. Penhallurick, a Moses Lake native. Dunn said the sale was for the benefit of the whole Columbia basin.

It was also a publicity event, built to show what the new irrigation water could do. The people who raised it in a day were real, and so was the farm.

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