The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 1067 

JULIUS O. STRAND.

The soil of Yakima county is naturally rich and productive when water can be
added thereto and the development of the land has greatly increased the wealth
of the population, for it has been found that fruit, various cereals and all
kinds of garden product can be profitably raised. The region once wild and
desolate, covered with nothing but sagebrush, has been transformed into what is
veritably one of the garden spots of the world, and among those who are
successfully engaged in the tilling of the soil in this section is Julius O.
Strand, who is the owner of forty acres of valuable land which he has carefully
and profitably cultivated. He was born in La Crosse county, Wisconsin, June 11,
1864, a son of Ole and Ingeborg Strand. who were pioneer people of Wisconsin.
They were the second family to locate in the Boswick valley. They came from
Norway in 1848, and made their way across the country to Dane county, Wisconsin,
where they lived for a time and then took up their abode in La Crosse county,
where they remained from 1852 until late in life, when they became residents of
Tacoma, Washington, where their last days were passed.

Julius O. Strand acquired a public school education and through the period of
his youth and early manhood engaged in farming with his father. Later he
purchased the old homestead property and continued in active identification with
agricultural interests in the Mississippi valley until 1903, when he sold the
property and came to Yakima county, where he spent a week. He afterward spent
the winter in Colorado and then returned to Wisconsin, where he remained through
the succeeding three years. In 1906 he again arrived in Yakima county, where he
and his brother and brother-in-law purchased two hundred acres on the Cowiche.
This they later sold, after which Julius O. Strand made investment in eighty
acres adjoining. He built a fine home upon this place and began its development
but later sold forty acres of the land to his brother. He still retains an equal
amount and he is now successfully engaged in the raising of grain and hay. He
also makes a specialty of raising sugar beets and he has twelve acres planted to
apples, his orchards being in excellent bearing condition. All the work upon
his place is carefully and systematically done and his practical and progressive
methods are manifest in the excellent results which have been achieved.

On the 15th of December, 1891, Mr. Strand was united in marriage to Miss
Annetta Strand, a native of Iowa and a daughter of Ole Strand. The children of
this marriage are as follows: Florence, who is the wife of Guy Simmons, a
rancher on the Cowiche; Elsie, who died at the age of eleven years; Esther, at
home; Walter, who died in infancy: and Wilbur and Oscar, who are also at home.

Mr. Strand is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and his religious faith
is that of the Lutheran church, while his political belief is that of the
republican party. He stands loyally by any cause which he espouses and never
hesitates to voice his honest opinions. He is a self-made man and successful
farmer and one whose sterling personal worth as well as business ability has
gained for him the respect and confidence of those with whom he has been brought
in contact.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in January 2008 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.