The town lies amid sand dunes partially overgrown with sagebrush and bunch grass.  As a railroad point, it had a boom period in the 1920s, and this area was once dotted with orchards and gardens, irrigated by water pumped from the Snake River through ditches. The expense proved too-great, farmers could not pay their water bills, and the company went bankrupt.  The name was chosen by railway company officials in 1905 because the town was between the Walla Walla and Snake rivers.