The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 157 EDMUND G. TENNANT. Edmund G. Tennant, who has made valuable contribution to the development and improvement of Yakima through his extensive real estate operations, was born in Canada on the 24th of May, 1865, a son of Wesley and Sarah (Glasford) Tennant. The father has now passed away but the mother is living, making her home with her daughter at Des Moines, Iowa, at the age of eighty-four years. The father was engaged in the investment business for a long time. In 1870 he removed with his family to Des Moines, Iowa, and subsequently took up his abode in Guthrie Center, Iowa, in later life, there passing away in 1913. Edmund G. Tennant was but a little lad of five years when the family home was established in Iowa and to the public school system of that state he is indebted for the educational opportunities which he enjoyed. In his early boyhood he began selling papers and thus earned his first money. He was also employed as an office boy in Des Moines and afterward as delivery boy in connection with a grocery store of that city. On attaining his majority he left home and went to North Dakota, where he took up a homestead claim, to the development and improvement of which he devoted his energies until 1889, when he sold that property and sought the opportunities of the northwest. Making his way to Washington, he was for a time identified with the lumber business on the coast but returned to Iowa in 1890 and entered mercantile business at Anthon, where he remained for four years. He later removed to Hartley. Iowa, where he carried on merchandising for three years, but eventually sold out there and went to Alaska in the spring of 1897. He continued in that country for five years, actively engaged in mining and in the lumber business. He established the first sawmill in the Atlia mining district in British Columbia and he was the owner of mines in the Forty Mile district on Jack Wade creek. He carried on merchandising on the Yukon river and was the builder of a hotel at Skagway, Alaska. He took the first linen, china and silver into a hotel at that point, Skagway, and thus he was closely identified with the development of Alaska along many lines. At length, however, he disposed of his interests in that country and in 1901 came to Yakima, where he continued in the hotel business, leasing the Bartholet hotel, which he conducted for three years. He also purchased much property here and in 1904 sold the hotel in order to concentrate his efforts and attention upon the real estate business, buying a large amount of property and putting many additions upon the market. He developed the Modern addition of sixty acres, which he divided into lots and on which he erected medium priced residences. He later improved the New Modern addition of twenty acres, upon which moderate priced homes were built. He also built houses on the West and North Modern addition, covering twenty acres. He developed the South Park addition of twenty acres, putting in improvements on all of these and erecting buildings, and he likewise developed the Highland addition of ten acres, the Richland addition of ten acres and a one-hundred-acre tract devoted to suburban homes, each with one acre of ground. He was likewise one of the partners in the firm of Tennant & Miles, having an eighty acre tract divided into acre lots and the Fairview tract of twenty acres. Still another phase of the real estate business claimed his attention, for he developed the Selah ten-acre tracts in the Selah, covering several hundred acres. This is all now fine orchard. Mr. Tennant has platted and sold several thousand acres of land and has become one of the largest real estate operators in the valley. His labors have resulted in bringing many thousands of people into the country, thus greatly advancing its upbuilding and prosperity. Moreover, he is farming today over twelve hundred acres of irrigated land himself and he is now selling the Elliott Heights addition of twenty acres and building thereon modern bungalows. He is the president of the Louden Land Company that owns the bungalow addition to Yakima. In November, 1890, Mr. Tennant was married to Miss Maude E. Thompson, of Ithaca, Michigan, and they have an adopted son, Edmund G. Mr. Tennant votes with the democratic party and he has membership with the Commercial Club of Yakima. He also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and is a charter member of the Arctic Brotherhood. His activities have taken him into various sections of the American continent and have been wide in scope, useful in purpose and most resultant. His labors have been of the greatest value in promoting the development and progress of this section of the state. Possessing broad, enlightened and liberal minded views, faith in himself and in the vast potentialities for development inherent in his country's wide domain and specific needs along the distinctive lines chosen for his life work. his has been an active career in which he has accomplished important and far-reaching results, contributing in no small degree to the expansion and material growth of the Yakima valley and from which he himself has derived substantial benefit. ******************************** Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.