This "bare ruined choir" is one of those rare subjects that Horace Sykes has captioned. "Near Waitsburg," he calls it. Less than 20 crow-flying miles north of Walla Walla, among the things that Waitsburg is distinguished by are its Main Street, its legal status as the only town in Washington that still runs under the terms of its territorial charter, and the Waitsburg Times, which began publishing in 1878 and it is still at it. The town is set at the juncture of several small streams, one of them named the Touchet River, which continues running mostly west to join the Columbia River at its Wallula Gap where the big river turns west for its earnest run to the Pacific. I have not, so far, found any record in Horace's slides of Waitsburg itself, only this handsome ruin of a tree somewhere near it. This is typical Sykes who shot very few towns or subjects within them. (Click to Enlarge)
