DAYTON - Creativity and determination has carried the Port of Columbia through several years of planning the Blue Mountain Station, and a little cold weather and rain couldn't keep them from celebrating the project's groundbreaking last Friday.

Taking gold- colored shovel blades to potting soil spread out on canvas atop the carpeted sanctuary floor at Harvest Christian Center in Dayton, across Wagon Road from the future site of the Blue Mountain Station, Port Manager Jennie Dickinson together with port commissioners and visiting dignitaries inaugurated phase one of the project.

"I have no doubt that it's going to be successful," said Dan Newhouse, director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, who was one of the guest speakers at Friday's ceremony. "Just look at the resiliency and creativity demonstrated by doing a groundbreaking on carpet."

Around 80 guests attended the indoor groundbreaking ceremony and reception.

"It went very well," Dickinson said Monday. "We had a good public response, and people were glad we'd moved the ceremony inside."

Blue Mountain Station, frequently billed by the Port as the "world's first natural and organic specialty food park," is still in its early stages. Construction of infrastructure - water and sewer lines, roads and a parking lot - begins at the end of this month and should wrap up by early fall. Pow Contractors out of Pasco was the low bidder, and about eight of the park's approximately 28 acres will be disturbed with this first stage of construction, Dickinson said Friday.

Meanwhile, Dickinson predicts development of the "value-added" food park could take years. The concept, providing a space for small processors to take local, raw commodities and create a retail item - like turning grain into alcohol right in Dayton to sell at Blue Mountain Station and wholesale to other retailers rather than selling the raw grains to be processed somewhere else - is a relatively new idea. Building an entire network of such businesses is unprecedented.

"It's going to change Dayton for many years," Newhouse told guests Friday. "You can now very proudly say you're pulling yourselves up by your own bootstraps."

Less than 2 percent of the nation's population live in farm communities, but a movement is afoot, Newhouse said. People want to know where their food comes from, and the state's goal is to help places like Columbia County reconnect people to "this important industry."

"As an optimist, I see a lot of bright things in your (Dayton's) future," Newhouse said. "I truly am proud of the community of Dayton and what it is you're planning to do."

But with the eyes of practically the whole world on us, Palouse Mayor and Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) member Michael Echanove had some tough love to give Friday: "Everyone's watching you guys, so do it right."

CERB was one of Blue Mountain Station's biggest financers, offering a $1 million financial package and $50,000 feasibility study matching grant.

Dayton Mayor Craig George and Columbia County Commissioner Dwight Robanske were also on hand Friday to wish Dickinson and the Port success in their endeavor.