Cannawai; a region, a town, a baseball team?
CUTLINE: Ladies and gentlemen, your Moses Lake Mustangs. Top row from left: Carissa, Vanessa, Astride and Haylie. Bottom row, Allison, Natalie, Brianna and Jairden. Two players are missing from this photo, Brianna Pankratz and Alex. Coached by the wildly enthusiastic and forgetfully inept Sebastian Moraga, the team's current record is 0-1, but just you wait…
During the last two weeks or so we have been discussing an area known as Cannawai.
As with a bunch of small communities in the greater Columbia Basin, many have faded away except in the memories of a few and the history books.
Sometimes it takes a bit of research to find the piece of history we are looking for. Larry Lenz has hit the books in search of the Cannawai region of Eastern Washington.
"After several days of research I believe I have come up with some information about the Cannawai.
"The Cannawai Canyon appears to start some 20 miles north of Odessa, flowing in a southwesterly direction as your map shows.
"The main creek was known as the Big Cannawai Creek and several miles south a smaller creek was called Little Canniwai Creek, which flowed in the same direction and ended up flowing into the Big Cannawia north northwest of Odessa.
"The Cannawai Canyon continued west southwest north of the town of Krupp (Marlin) and ending up emptying into the Crab Creek Canyon between Marlin and Wilson Creek.
"On one of my 1917 maps it looks like a road followed down the Cannawai Canyon from south of Wilbur and, just before it reached the Crab Creek Canyon, the road turned west towards Wilson Creek, as well as east towards Krupp.
"As I remember, it was in the early 1950s that there was a large cloud burst north of Krupp in the Cannawai Canyon and it washed out several roads and bridges.
"Now where did the name Cannawai come from? Its and Indian word and, the way the story goes, an early settler in this canyon was trying to communicate with one of the local Indians. In his attempts to communicate the settler pointed to a bird and the Indian respond with the word 'Cannawai.' Thus the Cannawai was named. However it has been spelled several different ways, but as it appears here is the most common.
"No, there never was a town called Cannawai in this area. I was not able to locate a school named Cannawai although on most of my maps there were several school marked, but without any school name after it.
One such school was known as the Thrall School. After it closed and the kids probably went to the Krupp School it became the Cannawia Grange Hall.
"A great many fun filled dances took place at the Old Cannawia Grange. I don't now for sure when the last dance took place out there but as I recall it was still going in September on 1959 when I left for the United States Air Force.
"One of the first settlers in the Cannawia, north of Krupp was a fellow by the name of Joe Enos, better know as 'Portuguese Joe.'
"It was a rough rocky sage brush filled canyon with a creek and Portuguese Joe tried his best to raise cattle. However the area has not changed much, if any.
"Wheat is still grown above the Cannawai Canyon, but as you get northwest of Krupp the hills and canyon are so rough that it is used mostly for raising cattle and the home to a great many Rattle Snakes, believe me." Larry C. Lenz
Great information, Larry. Thanks for sharing. You will notice that I found a photo of the Cannawia baseball team of 1910.
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