The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Sometimes it can be troubling when a local name is almost better known as a fine wine label than it is as the Native American tribe it recalls.

But most residents of the Touchet River Valley know that "Cayuse" refers to the people who once roamed the hills now planted in wheat and peas, and into the Blue Mountains beyond.

Located largely between the Columbia and Snake rivers, Cayuse villages and territory were as far as the Upper Grande Ronde and as close as the Tucannon and Touchet rivers them- selves.

Waitsburg was pretty much smack in the middle of it. The land around the frontier settlemen...