Harrington Opera House

Harrington was homesteaded by Adam Luby on Coal Creek in 1879. Then Mrs. Emily H. Cutter came to town and platted the area in 1883 with a Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant. The town name comes from a California banker, W.P. Harrington, who joined forces with Seattle banker Jacob Furth to invest in the area. You can still feel the pioneer spirit there.

As you leave town take the road from Harrington to Sprague and complete an enjoyable ride. We saw a beautiful, fat male pheasant that looks like its country life is better than on this side of the mountains. What may have been a prairie chicken sat alongside a small river and a brown with black-tipped-wings hawk flew overhead.

There was a a small basalt outcropping on SR-23 going south prior to Costello Road as we neared Sprague that didn't seem to fit with all the other landscape, but it was maybe a piece of the Scablands on past Sprague. Interesting landscape.

As we headed back towards the freeway I thought I'd let you all know the Harrington House Opera Society still needs donations to finish the restoration of the opera house in the building now on the National Register of Historic Places. If you live nearby why not take over some cookies? If traveling stop and leave a generous donation in their jar. If you want to donate in another way, the website has a contact person. They have received some grant money, but not nearly enough.

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I leave you with a tip: At the end of this drive you MUST stop in Sprague at the Viking Burger and have a hamburger. Folks come from all over to eat a burger here (now I know why Naomi, our butterfly and hummingbird writer recommended it). We stopped for lunch but they are also open for breakfast (homemade cinnamon rolls or biscuits and gravy) and dinner. We just had a regular burger but the waitress told us we need to stop by for "The Viking," and split it. Sounds like a Fat Smitty burger at Discovery Bay.

We'll be back!

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