Kiona is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Benton County,

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, United States. Kiona is a term belonging to North American indigenous people meaning "brown hills." Kiona and Benton City share a

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public Primary school, primary or Secondary school, secondary schools or both in various countries. It is not to be confused with an attendance zone, which is within a school dis ...

(commonly called "Ki-Be").

History

In 1888, the

Northern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was an important American transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the Western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest between 1864 and 1970. It was approved and chartered b ...

built a new station in the western part of Benton County at present-day Kiona. This allowed farmers to easily bring their produce to market (the main crops were corn, wheat, alfalfa, potatoes, and fruit, especially apples), which encouraged further settlement in the area. Due to the sparse precipitation in the area, most agriculture at the time was

dryland farming Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water. Drylands are zones where precipitation is balanced by evaporation from surfaces and by transpiration by plants (evapotranspiration). The United Nations Environment Program defines drylands as tropical ...

. Irrigation first came to the county in the 1890s and brought many changes. In the 1890s the Yakima Irrigation and Improvement Company built a canal bringing water from the Yakima River to Kiona. The

Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Id ...

built a new railroad across the

Yakima River The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in south central and eastern Washington state, named for the indigenous Yakama people. Lewis and Clark mention in their journals that the Chin-nâm pam (or the Lower Snake River Chamnapam N ...

from Kiona in 1907. The new community of Benton City sprang up around it. Beginning in 1917, the

Yellowstone Trail The Yellowstone Trail was the first transcontinental automobile highway through the upper tier of states in the United States, established on May 23, 1912. It was an Auto trail, Auto Trail that ran from the Atlantic Ocean in Plymouth, Massachus ...

, a national highway from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, was routed through Kiona. Kiona has never been officially incorporated as a city. In 2002, the

Benton City – Kiona Bridge The Benton City – Kiona Bridge is a steel box girder bridge, box girder and cable-stayed bridge carrying two lanes of Washington State Route 225 over the Yakima River in Benton City, Washington, Benton City, Benton County, Washington, B ...

over the Yakima River at Benton City was added to the National Register of Historic Places.http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/WA/benton/state.html Structure#02000240

References

External links

Kiona-Benton City Heritage. Digitized historic resources from the Benton City branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries and the Kiona-Benton Historical Society.
Unincorporated communities in Benton County, Washington Unincorporated communities in Washington (state) Populated places on the Yakima River {{bentonCountyWA-geo-stub