Lost in the Mists of History: The Tragic Tale of Qualchan

   There is a golf course in Spokane named after him. His name also appears on a housing subdivision, a 10-acre park, and several roads. Few, however, know his tragic story.

   The man at the center of all of these place names is Qualchan, also spelled Qualchen, a 19th Kittitas/Yakama chief, who fought in the Yakama War between 1855 and 1858, and was a member of one of Central Washington’s most prominent Yakama tribal families, the We-ow-icht, who, it was believed, were descended from the stars.

   Qualchan was one of the sons of Chief Owhi, head of the We-ow-icht clan, and war chief for the Yakama people (who called themselves the Pisch-wan-wap-pums) in the Upper Yakima region, which included the Kittitas Valley.

   According to “Warrior in the Mist,” a biography of Qualchan written in 1996 by Teresa G. Knudsen, Qualchan was born in about 1833, a son of Chief Owhi and a woman who was a member of the Kittitas tribe (her name has been lost to history). According to Knudsen, the meaning of Qualchan’s name remains unknown, although it “bears a similarity to Ko-wa-chin, the name for the Priest’s Rapids area of the So-kulk tribe, just across the Columbia River, and east of Qualchan’s home.”

   While little is known about Qualchan’s early years, Knudsen said he likely was prepared to seek his tahmahnawis power (an important tribal ritual) when he was about five years old. The revealing of this power involved having the child tied to a sacred tree at night by the parents.

   At some point, the tahmahnawis or spirit power, according to Knudsen, “would appear in a vision, taking the form of an animal, such as the sage hen, wolf, or eagle; or the form of weather, such as thunder, rain, snow, or mist.”

   Knudsen said that Qualchan’s tahmahnawis was the mist, which was the same spirit force as his father’s, which put him in a good position to possibly become chief someday. To prepare for that time, Qualchan developed his skills as a warrior and a hunter, and even studied to be a medicine man.

   Because Chief Owhi had at least six wives during his life, Qualchan had an extensive family of siblings and half-siblings, including a half-brother, Lo-Kout, with whom he was apparently very close.

   Qualchan’s family tree included an uncle, Kanasket, who was a chief of a Puget Sound tribe. As a result, he spent a considerable amount of time with his uncle, learning about combat and warfare, including night fighting.

   That training would come in handy in the years immediately following the signing of the Yakama Treaty of 1855. In that document, some 14 bands and tribes in the newly-created Washington Territory were forced to cede 11.5 million acres of land to the United States. In return, the native people were promised half of the fish in the new territory in perpetuity, money, provisions and reserved lands (about 1.8 million acres) in which white settlements were prohibited.

   Within months of the signing of the treaty, however, gold was discovered on Yakama lands in the Colville area and the Fraser River region in British Columbia, attracted thousands of miners seeking their fortunes. These unruly newcomers crossed through tribal lands, sometimes stealing horses or other property from the Yakamas living there.

   Worst of all, in September 1855, a group of miners encountered two Yakama women, a mother and teenage daughter, with a baby. They raped the two women, then killed them and the baby.

   The woman’s husband, a Yakama man named Mosheel, joined by several friends, one of which was Qualchan, sought revenge. A few days later, Mosheel’s party tracked down the miners in their camp. They attacked the group and killed the six men.

   Upon learning of the killings, Bureau of Indian Affairs agent Andrew Bolon decided to investigate. While heading to the scene of the murders, he was intercepted by Yakama Chief Shumaway, who warned him that it would be dangerous to talk to Qualchan. Shumaway also happened to be Mosheel’s father.

   Listening to the chief, Bolon decided to return home. During his ride back, he came upon a traveling party of Yakama heading south and asked if he could ride with them. Unbeknownst to Bolon, one of the members of the Yakama group was Mosheel.

   Bolon began telling the others his purpose for being out there, and noted that the murder of the miners was wrong and anyone involved would be punished by the U.S. Army as soon as he got home.

   Hearing this, Mosheel grew angry and decided to kill Bolon. While others in the party objected—Bolon was oblivious to the lengthy discussion because he spoke no Yakama—Mosheel claimed it as his right for the murder of his family members.

   When the party stopped to rest and eat lunch, it is believed that Mosheel and at least three other members of the group attacked Bolon with their knives. The Indian Agent was fatally stabbed in the throat and his horse was shot. The party then burned his body along with his personal effects.

   After hearing of Bolon’s killing, Shumaway feared that the U.S. Army would attack all Yakamas. He called for his son to be turned over to the territorial government in order to prevent the bloody conflict he was sure would happen otherwise.

   A council of Yakama leaders, however, overruled Shumaway and, led by the chief’s brother, Chief Kamiakin, agreed to prepare for war. Kamiakin had been one of the last chiefs to sign the treaty and was not convinced that matters could be peaceably resolved with the whites.

   For the next three years, members of the Yakama and affiliated tribes engaged in regular battles with the U.S. Army in what became known as the Yakama War.

   While it is believed Qualchan did not participate in Bolon’s murder, he was accused of leading the group that attacked him. That claim, along with his involvement in the killing of the six miners, made Qualchan a wanted man, hunted by U.S. authorities.

   Additionally, he and his father, Owhi, were involved in numerous skirmishes with the U.S. military, miners, and others throughout the Yakama War. Soon, military officials were not only aware of Qualchan, but considered him a primary threat.

   According to a June 1858 letter written by Assistant Adjutant General William W. Mackall to the Department of the Pacific at Fort Vancouver, “Kamiakin and Qualchan, cannot longer be permitted to remain at large or in the country, they must be surrendered or driven away, and no accommodation should be made with any who will harbor them.”

   In mid-September 1858, Owhi agreed to meet with Colonel George Wright to negotiate for peace. At the time, he, Qualchan, and other members of his family and tribe were camping near the mouth of the Spokane River.

   “The Spokane Indians came and told us that Col. Wright had called a big council of all the Indians and had sent for us to come in,” recalled Mary Moses, one of Owhi’s daughters (and sister of Qualchan). “They said everything would be all right and we know they believed what they told us, for they were our friends.”

   In 1918, eastern Washington historian William Compton Brown interviewed Mary Moses for a book, “Mary Moses’ Statement.” In it, Brown wrote that Col. Wright “certainly led the Indians to believe that those who came to the conference would be received as under a flag of truce. Certain it is that the Indians did not understand that Col. Wright reserved the privilege of selecting the Indians who came, as he might choose and hang them.”

   Owhi traveled to Wright’s camp on the Ned-Whauld River (now known as Latah Creek or Hangman’s Creek), about 18 miles southwest of Spokane, believing he was under the protection of the flag of truce. He did not know that Wright, in the words of Washington historian David Wilma, “considered Owhi and Owhi’s son Qualchan to be ringleaders in resistance against the government.”

   Once he arrived, Owhi was placed in custody and, according to Donald L. Cutler, author of “Hang Them All: George Wright and the Plateau Indian War,” intended to take the chief to the Presidio in San Francisco, where he would be held as a hostage to ensure the Yakamas behaved.

   Wright also decided, according to Cutler, to send word to Qualchan that he should come to the camp or the army would hang his father. The message, however, never reached Qualchan, who chose on his own to come to the camp after hearing rumors that Wright wanted to talk.

   Other accounts claim that Qualchan did also was given a note by either Chief Garey of the Spokanes or the priests of the Coeur d’Alene Mission to present to Wright and told it was an introduction. However, on the note in English were the words, “Here is your man, catch him.”

   Most contemporary accounts, including that of Mary Moses, say there was no note and that Qualchan didn’t even know his father had been taken captive. He came to the camp at the request of Kamiakin, who wanted to know how the Yakamas were to be treated by the military if they surrendered.

   Regardless of the real reason, it is true that Qualchan rode into Wright’s camp accompanied by his wife, Whist-alks, and his brother, Lo-Kout. One of Wright’s officers, Captain Erasmus D. Keyes later described Qualchan’s arrival in a book he wrote in 1884.

   “As I was standing in front of Colonel Wright’s tent, I saw issuing out of the canon about two hundred yards from me two Indian braves and a handsome squaw [sic],” he wrote. “The three principal personages were all gayly dressed, and presented a most dashing air.”

   Cutler described Qualchan as having been dressed in “a calico shirt, leggings, breech-cloth, blanket, and beaded belt, moccasins, and was bearheaded. He wore a blanket over his shoulders.” His wife, Whist-alks, was said to have been carrying in the front of her saddle, “a long spear, the staff of which was completely wound with various colored beads, and from the ends of which hunt two long round pendants of beaver skins.”

   According to Keyes, Qualchan dismounted and stood casually leaning on his rifle while speaking to Col. Wright. “The colonel mentioned Owhi’s name, at which Qualchein [sp] started suddenly and exclaimed, ‘Car?’ (where). Colonel Wright answered calmly, ‘Owhi mittite yawa” (Owhi is over there),” Keyes wrote.

   “A section of the guard came up and Qualchein, seeing the hopelessness of his situation, drooped instantly. His eyes watered, and he appeared stupefied,” he continued. “He stood still, apparently lost in revery [sic]. The soldiers pushed him along to the guard ten and ironed him heavily. Within an hour from his entry into our camp he was hanged by order of Colonel Wright.”

   Keyes said that when it became clear to Qualchan that he was to be hanged, he struggled mightily against the soldiers . It took six of them to bind his hands and feet, despite the fact Qualchan was nursing an unhealed wound in his side.

   In later account of the events by Whist-alks, she said she pulled out a knife and tried to defend her husband, but she was soon overpowered by soldiers.

   According to another eyewitness, John E. Smith, a civilian employee working with the military, who wrote about the event 58 years later, “There was a big pine tree on the hillside near Col. Wright’s tent which was pitched near the mouth of the gulch. Behind Wright’s tent, the tree leaned out over the hill.

   “They wouldn’t allow civilians about headquarters, but several of the men and myself got in back of Col. Wright’s tent and saw what was going on. They put a rope around a limb of the tree and pulled Qualchan up,” he recalled. “He seemed a much surprised Indian.”

   Qualchan was hanged on September 24, 1858. He was only 25 years old.

   While Col. Wright’s only known writing about the hanging was a brief entry in his journal—“Qualchan came to see me at 9 o’clock, at 9:15 he was hung”—Keyes gave more heft to the event.

   “In all the battles and forays in Washington Territory, Qualchein [sic] was one of the leading spirits, and owing to his youth and hatred of whites, and his bloody deeds, his influence was probably greater than that of his father and equal to that of his uncle, the famous Kammiakin,” he wrote.

   Qualchan’s hanging was not the only one performed by the army soldiers on Wright’s orders. By the end of the day, seven tribal leaders would be executed for their involvement in the hostilities in Washington Territory.

   In the meantime, the shocked and dismayed Spokane tribal members in Wright’s camp tried their best to prevent any harm from happening to Whist-alks and Lo-Kout. According to Mary Moses, they told the soldiers that Lo-Kout was no relation to Qualchan and both were permitted to leave the camp.

   Two days after the hanging, Col. Wright broke camp and headed south to Fort Dalles on the Columbia River. He took Owhi with him as a prisoner. On October 1, the party stopped at the Snake River to rest and Keyes wrote that the old chief “appeared reconciled to his fate . . .we kept him under strict watch, [but] otherwise we treated him with kindness.”

   Two days later, as the group prepared to continue on its journey, Owhi was placed on his own horse to ride. According to accounts, the 70-year-old chief decided to make a break for freedom. He used his whip to try to blind the officer guarding him and attempted to ride off.

   The soldier, Lt. Michael Morgan, pulled out his pistol and “put three bullets into him,” according to his own account. The badly wounded Owhi stopped in a cul-de-sac, held there by Morgan. Another officer, Sgt. Edward Ball, rode up and seeing that Morgan’s gun was empty, shot Owhi, who fell from his horse. He did not die until sunset. His remains were later buried in the Owhi Cemetery on the Colville Reservation near Nespelem, Washington.

   About ten days after the hanging, Col. Wright and his soldiers departed and three of Qualchan’s sisters were able to return to the site.

   “[They] found where the soldiers had buried Qualchan by digging a shallow grave and covering the body with dust, grass, and sticks. Part of his face was exposed and something had chewed the nose off,” Mary Moses said. “The soldiers had taken his war bonnet, and all his clothes away.”

   She said her sisters dug a deeper grave, then took the body, wrapped it in a blanket, and put moccasins on his feet, before burying it again. To protect it, the grave site remains a secret although a stone monument to Qualchan’s memory was erected in 1935 near the location where he was put to death.

   In later accounts about Qualchan, members of his tribe remembered him as a great warrior, who, it was said, had supernatural powers. In 1908, Smith Luc-ie of the Yakama tribe, said: “Quach-lum [Qualchan], son of Owhi, was a great strong man, who like Owhi and Kamiakin, could not be affected by a bullet. In one instance, he mounted and rode circling a band of soldiers, receiving their concentrated fire without any evil effects. Completing the wild dash he rejoined his friends with his shirt perforated with bullet holes. Removing his belt numerous bullets dropped to the ground, flattened as though they had been fired against the surface of a rock.”

   In 1992, the city of Spokane opened an 18-hole, par-72 municipal course named The Creek at Qualchan Golf Course. A year later, a fungal disease yellowed its then-brand-new greens and made the course barely playable for months.

Coincidence? You decide.

 

The Mysterious Murder of Roslyn's Dr. John H. Lyon

   By all accounts, Dr. John H. Lyon was a well-liked, dedicated physician in the community of Roslyn. He had begun working for the Northern Pacific Coal Company there in 1887 and, along with Dr. George Sloan, provided medical services for the mining company’s employees.

   However, on March 19, 1896, Lyon was walking home on a dark and cloudy night when he had a fatal encounter. He had begun the short journey in the company of Samuel Issacs, a local merchant, but then the two split off from each other to head to their respective houses.

   However, just as he reached his door, he was struck twice on the head from behind. He collapsed in the yard and died shortly after from a fractured skull.

   When his body was discovered the next morning, officials first thought he had been killed during a robbery attempt. However, the fact that he still possessed his wallet and jewelry quickly made them discard that theory. In searching the crime scene, investigators found what they believed was the likely murder weapon—a wooden table leg covered with blood and hair.

   At the time, Roslyn was a brand-new community, having only been founded the previous year by the Northern Pacific Railway. The discovery of rich coal deposits in the hills north of Cle Elum had motivated the railroad, which needed the coal to fuel its locomotives, to create the Northern Pacific Coal Company and establish the town.

   As a mining town, Roslyn experienced its share of tragedies. The most-deadly was an explosion in Roslyn Mine No. 1 on May 10, 1892, which killed 45 miners. It remains the worst mining disaster in Washington state history.

   Lyon had an earlier brush with danger on September 24th of that year, when he was a customer inside the local Ben E. Snipes & Co. Bank in Roslyn when it was robbed by five masked men.

   According to news accounts of the robbery, Lyon had just walked into the bank, behind one of the thieves. He saw the man was brandishing a pistol, so he turned to run out of the bank. As he did, he immediately encountered a second armed and masked man with two pistols. He threw his arms in the air and remained stationary.

   After the three robbers snatched an estimated $5,000 from the bank, they ran to their horses. As they were mounting their horses, they shot and wounded Assistant Cashier S.A. Frazier, who had heard of the trouble and was running to the bank with a shotgun. As they rode out of town, they also shot another man named Cooley in the leg.

   About two months after the robbery, three men from Pendleton, Oregon were arrested for the crime and brought back to Ellensburg to stand trial. Once in custody, the bank cashier and Lyons identified the trio as the robbers in spite of the fact there wasn’t much else to support their involvement.

   One of the men was convicted while the other two were acquitted by the jury. In March 1893, the convicted man was released after securing a retrial because of the relative lack of evidence. It wouldn’t be until mid-1893 that the real robbers were correctly identified, but their subsequent trial ended with a hung jury because the eyewitnesses had already mis-identified the thieves in the previous trial.

   After that, Lyon returned to his practice in Roslyn. Born in Pennsylvania in 1852, he had been married and divorced before arriving in the coal mining town. He had a son and a daughter from that first marriage. His son was said to have been 20 at the time of his death, while his daughter was 17.

   In 1889, he married Jessie Mabel Condit in Ellensburg and the two had a daughter, Jessie Ariadne, in April 1892. Sadly, a few weeks later, Lyon’s wife, who was only 27, died and was taken back to New Jersey to be buried with her family members.

   At the time of his murder, Lyon was a single father raising a four-year-old daughter. Following his death, Jessie Ariadne, was sent to New Jersey to live with relatives. She died there in 1949 at the age of 57.

   Lyon’s killing triggered community outrage. The Ellensburg Capital newspaper later described him as a well-known citizen of Roslyn who had been “foully assassinated.” 

   According to accounts, the people of Roslyn immediately offered a reward of $400 for the arrest and conviction of the murderer or murderers. That amount was soon supplemented by the city of Roslyn, which put up a $300 reward, Washington’s governor, who put up $500, and Kittitas County, which posted a $300 reward (for a total reward of $1,500 or about $58,000 in today’s dollars).

   On March 24, five days after the fatal attack, City Marshal L. J. Moore arrested two brothers, John J. and Thomas Jones, for Lyon’s murder. According to the Tacoma Daily Ledger, the two men were coal miners (although John Jones had not been employed since a mining strike in 1894).

   The newspapers said authorities believed the Jones brothers had a beef with Lyon because the doctor had treated another brother, David, for an infection on his hand. Apparently, David, also a coal miner, ignored Lyon’s advice to remain home to rest and returned to work.

   “During the first afternoon [he] returned home complaining of severe pains in his knee,” the Ledger said. “He went to bed and a month later died of blood poisoning. The Jones brothers frequently asked the doctor regarding his condition and were informed he was getting along nicely. He grew worse suddenly just prior to his death.

   “The Jones brothers were greatly incensed and reached [the] conclusion, apparently, that Dr. Lyon had either deceived them regarding Dave’s condition or did not treat the case properly. The afternoon Dave died the Jones boys heaped abuse upon Lyon’s head in the presence of Dr. [W.H.] Harris, who had been called into consultation . . . the day the body was placed in the coffin one of the Jones boys is said to have declared ‘he would fix Lyon for this.’”

   The paper also said that “the Jones’ are Welshmen and possess the clannishness and dogged determination for which their countrymen are noted.”

   Additional details In the Ledger said the Jones brothers had “been shadowing Lyon nightly” to learn his habits and had lain in wait to attack him. Additionally, apparently footprints had been found that led from Lyon’s body to the door of the Jones house.

   An interesting side note to the Lyon story appeared in the Seattle Post Intelligencer on March 21. According to the paper, a Dr. J. H. Lyons of Seattle was awakened early on the previous morning by four of his friends who immediately surrounded him and did a “joy dance.”

   The perplexed physician asked what was going on and one of his friends produced a newspaper from the day before about a Dr. Lyons having been murdered in Roslyn.

   “Mr. Lyons explained that there were two Dr. Lyons, one of whom had lived at Roslyn for eight or nine years,” the story continued. “’I am certain,’ added the doctor, ‘that I am not dead.’”

   Dr. Lyons, who spelled his name with an “s,” also told the Post-Intelligencer that was acquainted with the deceased doctor and “remembered him as being a fine man and one who was well thought of.”

   While the Jones brothers had been arrested for the murder by the city marshal, not everyone in Roslyn’s law enforcement community was convinced the case was iron-clad. One official, Detective Dan W. Simmons, a former Yakima County Sheriff who was working the case, believed the evidence was too slight and circumstantial, and he had recommended against arresting the two at that time.

   On March 25, the brothers appeared before Justice Henry Smith, who heard the case against them and released them from jail due to a lack of sufficient evidence. The March 26 edition of the Yakima Herald noted that after the hearing, Simmons was “thoroughly disgusted with the work of the Roslyn officers who appeared more anxious to prevent any outsider securing the reward than to bring the guilty parties to justice.”

   In spite of the hefty reward, no one was ever arrested again for the murder of Dr. Lyon. No local citizen ever came forward with information that could help the investigation and the case eventually faded away in the public consciousness and was never solved.

The Great Ellensburg Fire of 1889: 'City of Ashes'

   It might have been angry Native Americans seeking revenge.

   Or vagrants.

   Or an arsonist.

   Or a stray firework or bad electrical wiring.

   Or someone seeking insurance money.

   Or political rivals.

   Or disgruntled members of a circus that couldn’t perform.

   Or an illegal whiskey-still that exploded.

   The truth is no one knows exactly how a fire began at about 11 p.m. on July 4, 1889 in or around J.S. Anthony’s grocery store on Ellensburg’s Main Street and turned the community of 4,000 residents into what one newspaper described as “The City of Ashes.”

   Stoked by high winds, the blaze quickly spread throughout the town’s business district, eventually burning more than ten blocks of the city’s core area, including dozens of wooden stores and more than 200 homes.

   “The city presents a sad spectacle this morning,” noted the San Francisco Examiner on July 6. “Where the long blocks of business houses stood yesterday nothing remains but ashes and smoking embers.”

   According to the Examiner, which listed all of the damaged building by name, only four structures survived the inferno, including Moffit’s Hotel and the Nash, Howyan, and Smith blocks, “which were saved by being some distance from the conflagration.”

   A number of media accounts noted that at the time Ellensburg only had a single, hand-pump fire engine, which proved inadequate to fight the raging blaze. The fire apparently lasted more than four hours before finally finding exhausting itself with nothing left to burn.

   City officials estimated the total losses from the fire were more than $2 million, which is the equivalent to about $70.4 million is today’s money. Additionally, more than 200 families lost their homes and were left “destitute,” according to the Associated Press.

   Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer’s July 6 edition offered a “blow-by-blow” account of the fire’s progress. It reported that when the blaze began some 300 Ellensburg residents were attending a Knight of Pythias Ball on the third floor of the Ashler Hotel. With the ringing of the fire alarm, all of the guests streamed out of the hotel, with many immediately joining the effort to fight the fire.

   “The old fire engine was hurriedly manned, the hose strung out and a stream turned on the small blaze in Anthony’s store, on the upper business portion of Main Street,” the Seattle paper said, adding, “The stream was inadequate and another was turned on from the hydrants, only to prove the oft-made assertions that the city waterworks were useless in an emergency and could not be depended on.”

   The Post-Intelligencer lauded the local community for its efforts, despite the lack of proper resources. “Nearly every available man was with the fire boys, who were manfully doing their best to save the town. Those who were not there were doing what they could to protect their own.”

   While there did not appear to be any fatalities, the Post-Intelligencer said one local man, a real estate agent named A. Shelbrook, had raced into the Ashler Hotel, when it started to burn, to make sure no one had been left inside.

   After finding himself cutoff from the stairs by flames, he escaped by a window and “slid down a balcony post with a quilt wrapped around him but not before he was so badly burned that he will likely be a cripple for life if he survives the injuries he received [to his face, hands, and arms].”

   For several days after the fire, Ellensburg authorities ordered local law enforcement to guard the burned site to keep potential looters from attempting to rummage through the ruins. The Portland Oregonian, on July 6, listed all of the city’s destroyed businesses and their respective financial losses, which numbered more than 80.

   At the time of the fire, many Ellensburg city officials were in Olympia at a constitutional convention to determine the future capital of the state of Washington. Officials had hoped to have Ellensburg designated as the new seat of state government. Upon hearing of the fire, however, they returned home to assess the extent of the damage.

   One of the delegates, Ellensburg founder John A. Shoudy told the Tacoma Daily Ledger on July 7 that he would rebuild his destroyed commercial properties “on a larger scale:” His sentiments were echoed by many others who said they would begin immediately to rebuild their lost businesses and homes.

   As for the fire’s cause, the first theory was presented in the Oregonian on July 6, when it interviewed J.S. Anthony, owner of the grocery store where the fire started. He said he left his store at 10:15 p.m. on July 4 and “had used no fire or light excepting the electric light.” Anthony told the newspaper he believed the fire “was started by an Indian in revenge for a white man beating his squaw.”

   Over the following days, other theories were advanced for the fire’s cause. According to the Daily Ledger, some Ellensburg residents believed it had been started by “tramps or vagrants who had recently been infesting the city.”

   The newspaper claimed that several “reputable” citizens had found in their yards “a red card on which had been written in ink the words, “You have no pity—we show no mercy.’” Some believe the red cards are a clue to the cause of the fire, but, sadly, none of the cards can be found today and no one has ever quite figured out what the message means.

   In a 2018 interview with Seattle historian Feliks Banel, Sadie Thayer, longtime director of the Kittitas County Historical Museum, said Ellensburg was experiencing an influx of vagrants from Seattle, which had suffered its own catastrophic fire just a month earlier on June 6. That conflagration destroyed the entire central business district of the city.

   “Seattle burned in June, we burned in July, and Spokane burned in August,” she told Banel in an article that appeared on the MyNorthwest.com website. “So even though we know the cause of Seattle’s fire, people look at was there some connection between three locations and the fire, you know, an arsonist.”

   Others point to fact that at the constitutional convention Ellensburg was considered, along with Olympia and North Yakima, as among the front-runners to become the new state capital and wonder if the fire might have been started or instigated by a representative of a rival city.

   Regardless of whether there was any truth in that story, what is true is that following the fire, Ellensburg residents devoted most of their energy to the process of rebuilding. In doing so, however, any momentum to locate the state capital in the city seemed to fade. On November 4, 1890, voters overwhelming selected Olympia, the territorial capital, as the official seat of state government.

   Yet another theory regarding the cause of the fire was that it was set by someone seeking insurance money. While always a possibility, there is virtually no evidence to support the claim and, in fact, many of the city’s property owners were said to be under-insured after they lost their businesses and homes.

   Sadie Thayer told Banel that she had also spoken many years ago to an Ellensburg man who was more than 100 years old, who said that as a young child he had heard that the grocery store owner, J.S. Anthony, had a whiskey still in the basement, which may have exploded and started the fire.

   Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported shortly after the fire that “owing to the excitement and confusion it is impossible to ascertain how the fire originated, but it is presumed to have been the result of the celebration of the National holiday, as it started soon after the display of fireworks last evening.”

   Over the years, others proposed their own explanations, including faulty electrical wiring in Anthony’s grocery store and—bizarrely—that it had been started by disgruntled members of a circus that had come to town and planned to perform during the July 4th holiday, but had to cancel because the Kittitas Valley’s fierce winds blew down their circus tents.

   As a consolation prize for not getting the state capital, it’s widely believed that Washington legislators agreed to locate one of two teaching colleges it was establishing in Ellensburg (with the other in Cheney). In 1890, legislators approved creating the Washington State Normal School (now known as Central Washington University) in Ellensburg (it opened shortly after, on September 6, 1891).

   There’s an old story that claims that legislators asked Yakima city officials whether they wanted a state college or a state fair, and they took the fair. But according to a September 17, 2017 article by Yakima Herald reporter Don Myers, the story is just an enduring myth.

   According to Myers, Yakima did attempt to a land-grant agricultural college but a three-person commission selected Pullman. He said that in 1892, legislators did agree to designate Yakima as the location for the annual state fair.

   Yakima hosted the official state fair until the 1930s, when it was changed to the Central Washington State Fair (which it remains today).

   Meanwhile, Ellensburg’s rebuilding efforts continued in earnest for several years following the fire. New buildings of locally-made bricks literally rose from the ashes. While the city experienced a decline in population by 1900, it exceeded its previous peak of 4,000 residents just a decade later and, by 1950, had doubled in size to more than 8,500 residents.

   Today, much of Ellensburg’s downtown core that was rebuilt in brick remains. In 1977, the area roughly bounded by 3rd and 6th Avenues, and Main and Ruby streets, known as the Downtown Ellensburg Historic District, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Home, Sweet, Home: The Olmstead Place Historical State Park

 

   The first non-native people to arrive in the Kittitas Valley thought they had found a garden of Eden. One of those pioneers, A.J. Splawn, later said: “We came to the beautiful Kittitas Valley. This valley, as it looked that day to me, a boy of sixteen, was the loveliest spot I had ever seen.”

   Similarly, in her 1946 book, The Trail Leads West, Clareta Olmstead Smith wrote that the early pioneers “topped the last hill and saw the abundance nature had spread before them. The rich grass lands, the creeks lined with wild berries and willows, the meadows sweet with wild flowers, unlimited pasture on low hills, the splendor of the mountains with the blue evergreens promising timber for the taking.”

   And early valley  resident Clarence J. Houser said it most concisely when he simply wrote, “In 1868, my father, Tillman Houser, rode over the Snoqualmie Pass and looked on what is now Ellensburg. It looked good to him.”

   It was clear those early settlers believed they found a special place in the Kittitas Valley. Among those drawn to the valley, were Clareta Smith’s grandparents, Samuel and Sarah Olmstead. In 1875, they homesteaded a 160-acre claim [later expanded to 480 acres] intersected by a small creek (Coleman Creek) southeast of the present-day town of Ellensburg.

   This particular spread remained in the Olmstead-Smith family for the next 93 years. In 1968, the two surviving members of the family, Clareta Smith and her sister, Leta May Smith, donated most of the ranch to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission for a park. The two sisters, who had never married, retained a life estate, which permitted them to continue residing on the property until their deaths. In 1971, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

   Today, the 217-acre ranch and its buildings make up the Olmstead Place Historical State Park, a site that captures life in Central Washington during an earlier time. Because it was an operational family ranch for nearly a century, its preserved buildings, equipment, and surroundings serve as vivid reminders of the Kittitas Valley’s deep agricultural roots.

   

   Who Were the Olmsteads?

   Samuel Olmstead had been born in New York in 1831 and, at the age of 18, had traveled west to join the California Gold Rush. After not getting rich in the gold fields, in 1861 he traveled to Illinois, where his family had moved. There, he married Sarah Gale, and enlisted in the Illinois Infantry, fighting on behalf of the Union forces during the Civil War. Following the war’s end, he and Sarah, who now had two children, Clara (born 1861) and Philip (born 1865), traveled by rail west to find a new home. After four years in Oregon, they spent a short time in Seattle with relatives but found the damp environment had a negative effect on Samuel’s health. Seeking a more agreeable climate, in 1875, the family headed east, over Snoqualmie Pass, and arrived in the Kittitas Valley, where they would make their home.

   According to Smith, her grandparents spent a week journeying over the Cascade Mountains from Seattle. After staying with another pioneer family for a few days, she recounted that her grandfather “decided on the location of his ranch and he began to build his home.

   “The cottonwood logs were cut in the Yakima River Canyon,” she explained in The Trail Leads West. “The lumber for the roof, ceiling and floor, was whipped sawed at the Jordan Mill [located in Naneum Canyon, north of Ellensburg]. The windows and the square iron nails were freighted to Kittitas from The Dalles, and except for two of the panes that were broken long years ago, the glass has never been replaced. The sandstone for the hearth of the fireplace was cut from the sandstone quarry near Thrall.”

   In her book, Smith noted that the log cabin originally had a porch on one side, but it had been removed years before. She said the cabin—which remains standing—measured 24 by 24 feet and had two bedrooms and a large living room (the kitchen was in a lean-to added later to the structure). While cozy, it lacked running water and electricity.

   Samuel and Sarah Olmstead, along with their children, Clara, Philip, and Jack, born in 1871, lived in the cabin for the next few years. In the early years, Samuel, assisted by the children, worked the farm, growing wheat, vegetables such as corn, peas, and rhubarb, and fruits including apples, cherries, pears, and mulberries. According to Washington State Parks, Sara supplemented the family income by working for Samuel’s half-brother, John, at his trading post about two miles away.

   In December 1881, Clara, then 19 years old, married George Washington Smith, who was eight years her senior. Smith was a native of Placer County, California, who had come to the Kittitas Valley in 1877 and become a farmer. Only a month later, Samuel Olmstead succumbed to a liver ailment at the age of 50. He had long suffered health problems as a result of his military service during the Civil War.

   His death left Sarah and her two sons to run the family farm. In subsequent years, they expanded the farm to include a barn and granary (built in 1892), a wagon shed (in 1894), and a much larger house with conveniences like electricity and running water (in 1908). The improvements allowed the family to convert their farm from raising cattle for beef to a dairy farm, which served customers throughout the county and, later after the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed, into the Seattle area.

   Meanwhile, George and Clara, who lived on their own place nearby, would have three daughters, Leta, Clareta, and Ruby. Tragedy struck the Smith family, however, in May 1892 when Clara died during an influenza outbreak at the age of 30. Two months later, one-year-old Ruby also died. At this point, three-year-old Leta and two-year-old Clareta, who was known as “Birdie,” went to live with their grandmother, Sarah, because at the time it was considered unusual for a single father to raise two young daughters. With Sarah busy raising the girls, Phil and Jack took over operations of the farm. The work was hard and the hours were long, and neither son ever married.

   Both Leta and Clareta attended the Seaton Cabin Schoolhouse, a one-room log cabin structure located a few miles from the Olmstead farm. In 1980, the schoolhouse was relocated to a site on the north end of the farm, and restored. It can still be seen there today.

   The sisters pursued careers as teachers in Ellensburg. Leta, who earned a degree in 1918 from Washington State University Normal School (now Central Washington University), taught in the local middle school and, later, was a history professor at Central Washington College. Clareta was hired to teach at Washington School, an imposing brick facility on the block between East 5th Avenue and East 6th Avenue, and bordered by North Street and North Anderson. That structure also served as home of the Normal School (on its fourth floor) for a couple of years before the opening of Barge Hall in 1893.

   In September 1907, Leta and Clareta’s Uncle Jack, died of typhoid fever at the age of 36. In his obituary in the Ellensburg Dawn newspaper, Jack was described as a “sober, industrious, frugal, and highly-respected gentleman, and a man who had the esteem of all who knew him.”

   With Jack’s death, Phil continued to manage the family dairy farm, while his mother, Sarah, and nieces, continued to reside in the family home on the property. In September 1918, Sarah Olmstead, then 76 years old, died in her home and was buried alongside her husband, son, and daughter in the Olmstead family plot in the Brick Road Memorial Park in Ellensburg.

   In late March 1938, Phil was at the farm, finishing up a conversation with a local auctioneer, D.W. Brunson, regarding a sale he was considering, when he experienced a fatal heart attack. He was 73 years old and had been contemplating retiring from active farming at the time. His obituary in the Ellensburg Capital noted that as a young man he had worked as a freighter and transported goods along the Squaw Creek [now known as Lmuma Creek] Trail from The Dalles to Ellensburg founder John Shoudy’s store in Ellensburg.

   

   The Sisters Take Over

   With his death, the homestead came under the ownership of Leta May and Clareta Smith. The two sisters retired from teaching and took over the farm’s operations. In 1946, Clareta wrote “The Trail Leads West,” which was a collection of her memories about early Kittitas County life. The book was illustrated by Leta May. The two also collaborated on a second book, “Campfires in the Valley,” a history of the Olmstead place, which was published in 1976, and Leta May published a posthumous memoir, “The End of the Trail.”

   In addition to running the farm and writing, the two sisters maintained an impressive home garden and Clareta was a founding member of the Kittitas County Historical Society in 1961. The sisters’ devotion to local history, in fact, resulted in them deciding to donate a generous portion of the farm and all of its historic buildings to Washington State Parks. The rest of the place was sold, according to Clareta, as three 80-acre tracts.

   On May 19, 1974, Leta May died in the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital at the age of 85. Her obituary noted she was active with the local Presbyterian Church and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Daughters of Pioneers of Washington, and the Daughters and Founders of the Colonies organizations.

   About seven years later, on June 27, 1981, Clarita died in the hospital at the age of 91. Perhaps not surprisingly, she crafted an appropriate ending to her story in “Campfires in the Valley” when she wrote:

   “One hundred years ago the dusty wagons topped the last hill, and we saw the beautiful Kittitas Valley, round and deep. Mighty mountains with snow-capped peaks and tall timber were to the far north. Cold mountain streams, with flower bordered banks, flowed across the grassy plain and met the swift river on its way to the Pacific sea. A few white tepees with a curl of smoke nestled under the cottonwood trees. The ponies straightened the traces, and we came down the winding trail into the land of our dreams . . . We had reached the end of the trail.”

 For More Information:

   Olmstead Place Historical State Park is located at 921 N Ferguson Road, about six miles east of Ellensburg via the Kittitas Highway. During the summer months, the park is open 6:30 a.m. to Dusk; 8 a.m. to Dusk in the winter. A one-day pass to the park is $10 or visitors can purchase a Washington State Parks Discover Pass for $45, which allows entry to all state parks. The park offers picnic tables, drinking water, and restroom facilities. There are also hiking trails and indoor tours can be scheduled to view the barn, the 1875 cabin, and the Smith House Museum. To schedule a tour or to find out more, call 509-856-4121. https://parks.wa.gov/find-parks/state-parks/olmstead-place-historical-state-park

   

Ellensburg's Most Perplexing Unsolved Murder

Former site of Service Drugs

   Louis Bellessa got a phone call on the evening of October 9, 1972. As a longtime Ellensburg pharmacist, who prided himself on providing service to his customers, it wasn’t that unusual that he would return to his business, Service Drugs at 410 N. Pearl Street, to fill a late-night prescription.

   Bellessa, 51, told his wife, Betty, he would return shortly and headed into the cold night. She would never see him alive again.

   The Bellessa family lived in a tidy four-bedroom home at 108 N. Sampson Street that had been built in 1915. Bellessa had owned Service Drugs since 1963 and had worked there since 1947.

   According to police, between 9:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Bellessa was in the pharmacy when he had a deadly encounter with an unknown party. The store was closed and, police said, there was no signs of forced entry or of a struggle.

   At some point during that time, an assailant shot Bellessa twice in the head with a small-caliber weapon, instantly killing the pharmacist. The killer (or killers) then went to the pharmacy’s open safe to snatch an unknown amount of money and narcotics before exiting through a rear door.

   Just before 10:30 p.m., Bellessa’s wife, worried that he had not yet returned home, contacted police to have them check on her husband. An officer quickly arrived and found the rear door unlocked (the front, however, was locked). Inside, he found the pharmacist’s dead body lying on the floor at the end of the prescription counter.

    “At this time it would appear the motive was robbery,” Lt. Tom Pratt, head of the Ellensburg Police Department’s detective division told the Ellensburg Daily Record the following day. He said it appeared “some money and some drugs” were missing from the store but a full inventory would be taken in the coming days.

   The next day, on October 10, the Associated Press quoted Pratt saying “we’re sure that there were (narcotics) drugs taken. We’re sure that there was a substantial amount of money taken.” He said that while police were not able to determine how much cash or the quantity or nature of the drugs taken, Bellessa “apparently kept large sums of money but relatively little narcotics on hand.”

   Police scoured the crime scene during the next few days, looking for any clues, but came up empty. The Daily Record noted that officers had worked until 4 a.m. the night the murder was discovered “and then worked throughout the day until nearly midnight.”

   “Anyone who saw anything anywhere downtown between 9:30 and 10:30 Monday night is asked to contact us,” Pratt said. “We will meet with them as their convenience. We will afford the deepest trust to anyone coming forward.”

   Three days after the murder, Pratt told local media he had nothing new to report, but police were investigating several leads.

   Despite the intensive efforts by law enforcement, very little new evidence turned up in the next few weeks. On November 16, the Daily Record published a story headlined, “Bellessa murder keeps police working,” that noted, “unlike television, the case was not solved in 30 minutes. The killing took place more than a month ago and the killer or killers are still unknown.”

   Detective Pratt insisted, however, that the case had not been written off by Ellensburg’s three-person detective division.

   “It has been under constant, intense investigation,” he said to the newspaper. “We are looking at the information and investigating leads daily . . . All I can say is it was a very well-planned crime. And it was a very vicious crime, and that it is still under investigation.”

   The newspaper also noted that a reward fund had been established by the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce. The bounty would be paid to anyone who could provide information leading the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. The fund’s initial goal was to raise $2,500 and the reward would remain in effect for up to three years. In the end, only about $1,500 was raised.

   

   Who Was Louis Bellessa?

   Louis Bellessa was born in Cle Elum on April 29, 1921. He graduated from Cle Elum High School and attended Washington State University in Pullman before enlisting in the Army during World War II. After his discharge, he completed his education, earning a degree in pharmacy.

   In 1947, he joined the staff at Service Drug in Ellensburg, becoming a partner in 1960. Three years later, he purchased the business from owners Mr. and Mrs. Jack Goettge.

   Bellessa, then 39, married Betty Lou Mackner, then 34, in September 1959 in Seattle and the two settled into their home on Sampson. They had a daughter, Tammy Lou, in 1961. Betty also had two sons from an earlier marriage, Paul and Pat, as well as two daughters, Laurie and Linda.

   A Seattle Daily Times story on November 8, 1972 noted that while Bellessa was not a prominent local businessman or much involved in Chamber of Commerce-type activities, he was involved in other ways in the community.

   Detective Pratt said that his investigation had turned up the fact that Bellessa “loaned money and to all types of people. Some very surprising. And to many without any interest.”

   Harry Clark, assistant manager at the Ellensburg State Bank, told the Times that “everyone who knew him liked him.” Clark said Bellessa’s murder was making local residents be more careful in their interactions.

   “We sort of trust everyone,” he said, “I guess we can’t do that anymore.”

   At the time of Bellessa’s killing, police said it was the first homicide in Ellensburg in 21 years. They indicated the last had occurred in September 1951, when a local man killed a woman with a shotgun during a quarrel.

   

   The Search Continues

   In late January 1973, Ellensburg Police Chief John Larsen told the Daily Record that his department had no new information that could be made public, but the crime was still being “actively investigated.”

   About nine months later, on the one-year anniversary of Bellessa’s murder, the Daily Record noted that “a year later his killer or killers are still at large.” According to the paper, Detective Pratt and his team had put in long hours attempting to solve the crime and had distributed flyers to law enforcement agencies throughout the Pacific Northwest.

   “This matter is still under active investigation,” Pratt said to the paper before adding “I feel I have to be very cautious about making any statements at this time. We have not exhausted all investigative leads. We are not at the point where there is nothing more to be done . . . the simplest way to put it is we haven’t come to a dead end.”

   The paper, however, also noted that the public was starting to question whether the murder would ever be solved and many had wondered “whether police will eventually make an arrest.”

   Sadly, after that there was little new to report regarding the investigation for more than two decades. An April 18, 1997 story in the Daily Record about unsolved murders in the area listed Bellessa murder as still active although no arrests had ever been made. After that, the crime was listed as a cold case, meaning it remains open but inactive until new evidence comes forward.

   On January 14, 2013, the Yakima Herald announced the case—called the “only unsolved murder in Ellensburg history”—had been reopened by Ellensburg police. According to Ellensburg Police Captain Dan Hansberry, the department revived the case after a local resident, Steve Hall, began researching the crime, which led police to follow up on some new information.

   “Unfortunately most of the witnesses are now deceased, but we have developed some new investigative leads,” he told the paper. He said investigators had already put in about 100 hours on the case, including following leads in southern Oregon and northern California.

   He said the investigation hadn’t yet yielded any “groundbreaking information” but officers were encouraged by what they were learning.

   “Our hope is there is someone still alive connected with this death,” Hansberry said. “We’re still trying to wade through all the information.”

   In 2023, Marques Vickers, author of “Unsolved Western American Murders and Extended Cold Case Resolutions,” wrote, “time has obliterated the prospects for closure, as most of the potential witnesses are deceased and clues sparse.” Vickers noted that the former pharmacy site where Bellessa was  murdered is now an art gallery. “Louis Bellessa is likely forgotten except to long-time residents,” he concluded.

   As to the status of the case today, in a recent email Ellensburg Police Captain Cameron Clasen acknowledged the case was reinvestigated in 2013, but said it is currently classified as a cold case once again.

   “Cold cases are sometimes revisited to see if another investigator can uncover anything new or if advancements in forensic technology could add value to the investigation,” he continued. “As of now, there’s no plan to reopen the case unless new information comes to the forefront.”

   In the end, perhaps we’ll never know who killed Louis Bellessa on a cold October night in 1972.

My New Book is Out—'Washington Historic Places on the National Register'

 Mountain Press Publishing has released my latest book,  “Washington Historic Places on the National Register."

The book is a sampler of 50 carefully curated sites that spotlight the diversity of Washington’s historic places, which are found in nearly every corner of the state. The various featured locations represent the rich history and culture of the Evergreen State and range from prehistoric Native American settlements to the first trading post/fort erected in the Pacific Northwest.

  Beautiful color photographs of each historic place in its modern setting accompany each site narrative. Residents and visitors alike will learn about Washington's fascinating history as they tour the backroads to many little-known but historically significant locations.

  “Washington Historic Places on the National Register” is available from Mountain Press Publishing (https://mountain-press.com/products/washington-historic-places) as well as from Amazon, Bookshop.Org, Barnes & Noble Books, and other online retailers. Locally, it can be found at Ellensburg's Pearl Street Books and Jerrol's.

Train Town: Ellensburg's Roots as a Railroad Community

  When most people try to characterize Ellensburg these days, they usually describe it as a college town or a charming small town, perhaps a rodeo town or a farming community. But in its earliest days, the city was known by another descriptor—as a railroad town.

  Indeed, only a few years after the city was incorporated, in 1883, it gained a railroad, with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad line to the city on March 31, 1886. The route, which stretched from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound, was the nation’s second transcontinental railroad.

  In Washington state, the line’s Cascade Branch entered from Idaho near Spokane, then dropped south to Walla Walla and  Pasco before turning north to reach Yakima and Ellensburg. Just north of Easton, the railroad built a 1.8-mile-long, curved tunnel at Stampede Pass, which permitted it to get to the west side of the Cascade Mountains, where it reached Tacoma and Seattle.

  Interestingly, when the railroad reached the Yakima area in December 1884, it announced it would not build a depot in the largest community in the region, Yakima City (now Union Gap), but would instead erect a depot about five miles to the north, where it planned to develop a new townsite, originally called North Yakima.

  While Yakima City sued and won a judgement that would force the railroad to build its depot in Yakima City, by then many local businesses had already abandoned the community to set up in the new railroad-created town. The railroad had accelerated this process by offering Yakima City landowners as many lots as they owned in the Yakima City in North Yakima for free—plus they would move their buildings at no cost.

  While the two communities continued to exist, Yakima City (which had its name changed to Union Gap in 1917) declined in prominence, while the new North Yakima (which shortened its name to Yakima in 1917) became the county seat and experienced solid long-term growth.

  As for Ellensburg (known as Ellensburgh until 1894), the arrival of the railroad linked the community, according to Washington historian Paula Becker, “with the wider world for trade and travel.”

  Becker said Ellensburg population doubled to 1,200 within two years of the railroad’s arrival. The railroad’s route was directly west of the city’s downtown district. The railroad soon erected a two-story wooden depot and round house on West Third Avenue adjacent to the tracks and within a short time, a handful of businesses cropped up in the vicinity of the railroad line.

  In 1910, the original depot building was moved south to be used as a storage facility and the railroad erected a more impressive, two-story brick and sandstone structure (as well as a new round house).

  The new depot, which cost between $60,000 and $75,000, was designed in a Spanish Colonial style by the prominent architectural firm of Reed & Stem of St. Paul, Minnesota, which also designed Grand Central Terminal in New York City, the King Street Station in Seattle, and the Tacoma Union Station in Tacoma.

  Among the companies locating near the rail line was the Ellensburg Woolen Mill, which erected a substantial two-story brick facility in 1912. The mill, which hoped to process wool from the large number of sheep in the valley, was not financially successful and folded a few years later.

  In the 1920s, the building was used for the Kittitas County Fair (before construction of the fairgrounds on the other side of town) and later served as headquarters and as a sawmill for the Boise Cascade Lumber Company (that name is still painted on the building’s eastside). More recently, it has been the home of Inland Boat and Motor.

  Since the depot was about three blocks west of the main part of Ellensburg’s commercial district, a number of businesses located along Third Avenue, which was the primary street linking the two. Photos from that time show a number of small cafes and lodging houses on Third. Additionally, the larger downtown hotels would send carriages to the train depot to pick up guests.

  An interesting side note to the depot’s story is that while it was being constructed, a local businessman named Henry Kleinberg purchased the land immediately east of the site, on which a large warehouse had been built.

  Apparently, Kleinberg (joined by many other local residents) was concerned that passengers arriving at the depot have a good first impression of the community. The warehouse blocked the view of the community from the depot—so he moved the warehouse and donated the vacant land to the city to be used as a park.

  Today, the park, which bears his name, remains a pleasant patch of green in a primarily industrial-looking part of the community. To tie the park more closely to the railroad, a vintage, restored caboose was parked on the site several years ago.

  In 1906, a second railroad began efforts to build its line through Ellensburg. The Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad (generally known as the Milwaukee Road) purchased land and right-of-way, and began laying track that year. Its first train from Seattle arrived in April 1909.

  The Milwaukee Road’s depot was built on Fourteenth Street near Water Street. It was a distinctly more modest structure when compared to the Northern Pacific’s depot.

  The route of the Milwaukee Road arrived in Ellensburg from the east and intersected the campus of the new Washington State Normal School (now known as Central Washington University).

  In addition to the main depot, the railroad built a railyard, a large freight depot and, later, a smaller depot to the west of the main depot. Today, only the smaller freight depot—now a personal garage—and the larger freight facility—now home to CWU Surplus—remain standing.

  The Milwaukee Road, which was an electrified transport system, operated until 1980. In the intervening years, the railroad’s rails and much of its infrastructure has been removed. The route is now known as the Palouse to Cascade Trail (formerly called the John Wayne Trail and the Iron Horse Trail), a non-motorized recreational trail that stretches nearly 300 miles from the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains to the Idaho border.

  Other reminders of the Milwaukee Road’s past in Kittitas County include the Kittitas Depot, built in 1909, which is currently being rehabilitated, and the South Cle Elum Depot and Railyard, which has been restored and now serves as a railroad museum and home to the Cle Elum branch of Smokey’s BBQ restaurant.

  Adjacent to the South Cle Elum Depot are a substation and several bungalows. The large, red-brick substation is open for tours by appointment while the bungalows remain in private ownership and are not open to the public.

  The nearby Iron Horse Inn Bed & Breakfast is located on the site of the original Milwaukee Road bunkhouse, which, sadly burned in 2018. The B & B, however, was built on the same footprint as the original structure and incorporates the 1920s bunkhouse esthetic, but with modern updates. It also contains artifacts and displays describing the Milwaukee Road’s history.

  As for the Northern Pacific Railroad’s Ellensburg Depot, at 612 West Third Avenue, after the line (then known as the Burlington Northern Railroad) discontinued service to the community in October 1981, the depot building was leased for use as a restaurant/winery. That venture failed and the 10,000 square-foot building sat vacant for many years.

  In the mid-2000s, efforts, mostly supported by private individuals and the Friends of the Northern Pacific Railroad group, began in earnest to raise funds to preserve and restore the iconic brick depot. As a result, the building’s roof was replaced in 2012.

  In 2022, following years of slow but steady restoration work, the rehabilitated building was sold to the non-profit group, HopeSource, to serve as its new headquarters in Kittitas County. HopeSource provides access to food, housing, security, and transportation in the county.

  Sadly, the former Northern Pacific Roundhouse did not fare as well. The large brick structure, which was also used for storage after 1935, burned in a fire in 1950 and was torn down.

  Both the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Milwaukee Road greatly contributed to Ellensburg’s economic well-being over the decades they operated. Writing in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly in 1945, local historian Samuel R. Mohler noted that prior to the arrival of the Northern Pacific, “all supplies for the town and for Kittitas County were hauled by wagons from The Dalles in Oregon, 150 miles away.”

  According to Mohler, inexpensive rail transportation boosted the Kittitas Valley’s agricultural and livestock industries and later provided a lifeline—with Ellensburg a hub—for the mining industry that began to flourish in the Okanogan and Big Bend country to the north by bringing in the food and supplies needed by the miners and transporting out gold and silver ore to be processed.

  “It was this that caused local enthusiasts to speak of Ellensburgh as the ‘Denver’ of Washington,” he wrote.

  The arrival of the Milwaukee Road was equally important, according to historian Andrew Caveness, because passengers on the line could travel straight to Seattle over Snoqualmie Pass, which was quicker than taking the Northern Pacific train, which traveled to Tacoma via Stampede Pass, which was north of Seattle.

  It is perhaps ironic that Ellensburg, the one-time rail town once serviced by two railroads, no longer has rail passenger service, although some have been working to change that. Occasional freight trains still travel the old route, which would need substantial rebuilding to accommodate passenger travel. Most recent estimates are that it would cost more than $100 million to upgrade the system.

  • For more information about the Kittitas Depot, check out the Friends of the Kittitas Depot Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/kittitasdepot/

  • For more information about the South Cle Elum Depot and other structures, check out the Cascade Rail Foundation website at: https://www.milwelectric.org/

  • For more information about the Iron Horse Inn Bed & Breakfast in South Cle Elum, go to: https://www.ironhorseinnbb.com/