Yakima Indian Painted Rocks
Indian Painted Rocks is a tiny state park (approximately 2,000 sq ft (200 m2)) right outside Yakima, Washington at the intersection of Powerhouse and Ackely Roads. The Indian rock paintings, also known as pictographs are on a cliff of basaltic rocks parallel to the current Powerhouse road which was once an Indian trail and later a main pioneer road that connected the Ahtanum valley to the Wenas mountains.
The paintings were originally thought to be only a few hundred years old but it is likely they are much older than that - possibly over 1000 years old. The pictographs were painted on the cliff when a prehistoric lake submerged the bottom. The natives painted the cliff from canoes using organic materials.
The rock paintings are stylized polychromatic paintings using white, red and black colors.
The state park was acquired from the Yakima Valley Canal Company in 1950.
A sign erected by the Washington State Highway Commission at the park's entrance states the following: Origin of these paintings is unknown to present day Indian tribes of this region. They are similar to many others found in western North America and are often interpreted as depicting religious experiences, as well as records of hunts or meetings with other tribes. This location was on the old Indian trail which ran from the Wenas Mountains to the Ahtanum bank of the Yakimas. In 1850's, miners enroute to British Columbia gold fields use the same trail. Later, as Americans settled the Yakima Valley, a stage coach route passed these cliffs.
In early 2007, the state parks department closed the Indian Painted Rocks park because of graffiti. There are plans to restructure the park in order to protect the painted rocks.
Read more about Yakima Indian Painted Rocks: Further Reading
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“This, it will be remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Rowlandson’s capture, and of other events in the Indian wars, but from this July afternoon, and under that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote as the irruption of the Goths. They were the dark age of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Come gather round me players all:
Come praise Nineteen-Sixteen,
Those from the pit and gallery
Or from the painted scene
That fought in the Post Office
Or round the City Hall....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
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And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)