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/

  

  

 

Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park Offers Plenty for Visitors

Petroglyphs at Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park

   The year was 1927 and Washington state highway crews were hard at work building what today we know as the Vantage Highway. As they carved a wide swatch through the rolling hills overlooking the Columbia River, they encountered hunks of strange rock that resembled tree logs.

   Fast forward a few years to about 1930, when George F. Beck, a professor at Central Washington College of Education in Ellensburg was teaching an independent studies class (as well as science and music classes). One of his students, Perry Orr, brought him examples of petrified wood he had found in the Vantage area and asked if he could write a paper on his discovery.

   Beck gave his approval and began to wonder where the student had uncovered the specimens. While he didn’t follow up on that question initially, Orr’s project intrigued him and he filed the information away for future consideration,

   About a year later, Beck was driving on the Vantage Road along the Columbia River and spotted a man walking down from the hills, carrying a large piece of petrified wood. He recalled Orr’s project and decided to follow up.

   A short time later, with the help of his students, he organized the first formal excavation of the site where he had seen the man with the hunk of ancient wood. Over the following months, Beck and his students identified several varieties of prehistoric trees including one that was unexpected: samples of petrified ginkgo trees, a species no longer found in North America.

   Recognizing the value of the site, Beck began lobbying government officials to designate the area a park or monument in order to protect it from vandalism. Initially, he and state officials hoped the National Park Service would take over the property and establish a National Monument site, but found little appetite for the plan among park officials in Washington D.C.

   In 1933, Beck sought to persuade Washington legislators to designate the area as a state park. In 1935, the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park was created. As key part of its creation was the state’s acquisition of a ten-acre plot from Ellensburg’s Smithson Sheep Company through a land swap.

   Additionally, in April 1935, the federal government awarded a federal work-relief grant to the park, which brought with it about 200 Civilian Conservation Corps members to help excavate the site. They would work on developing the new park until 1938.

   Along with uncovering fossilized wood, CCC crews built trails and several buildings, including the Trailside Museum structure adjacent to the Vantage Highway, a garage, and restrooms. The museum building also included housing for a caretaker. All of the buildings were constructed in the distinctive stone style that defined many CCC projects at the time.

   Among the walking paths carved by the CCC crews was the Tree of Stones Interpretive Trail that led to the fossilized logs left on site. Protecting the petrified wood hunks were stone and iron cages, which can still be seen in the park.

   The CCC staff also constructed a trail a few miles from the museum that led to basalt columns overlooking the Columbia River that were covered with petroglyphs or prehistoric Native American rock art and a small visitors center at Vantage. The new park officially opened in 1938.

   Always an advocate for his discovery, a year later Beck wrote a booklet, “Life History of Ginkgo Petrified Forest,” in which he called the park “the largest and best of the many stone forests through Central Washington.”

   He explained that the site had yielded an estimated 200 different tree types “many of them Eastern American, some of them Asiatic, and few of them subtropical in character.

   “No fossil forest in the world approaches the Ginkgo Petrified Forest in the kinds of trees present. No other forest in the world is known to have been buried and preserved in liquid lava,” he continued. “The forest was named after the most interesting fossil of all time, the sacred tree of China and Japan; however, the number of these ginkgos in the forest is not large.”

   So, what caused so many different types of trees to become preserved so well in stone on a lonely patch of land overlooking the Columbia River?

   According to geologists, about 15.5 million years ago, during the Miocene Period, that part of Central Washington was very wet and humid. The landscape largely consisted of swamps and shallow lakes surrounded by dense forests.

   Around the lakes grew species of trees that thrived in wet climates, such as swamp cypress, while deciduous (sun-loving) trees, like gingko (now found only in Asia), maple, walnut, oak, sycamore, and horse chestnut, grew well on the hillsides. And just as today, stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, and spruce flourished at the higher elevations.

   At some point in the distant past, volcanic eruptions in the region buried some of the trees in volcanic ash, which was subsequently covered by flows of basalt. Over time, the organic material in the tree remains was gradually replaced by minerals in the ground water. The end result was petrified wood or stone logs made of silica that took on the characteristics of the trees.

   Geologists believe that near the end of the Ice Age, during the terrain-changing Missoula Floods (about 18,000 to 12,000 years ago) in Central Washington, the raging waters eroded the basalt and exposed some of the preserved petrified wood.

   Which is how things remained until the Vantage Highway construction crews began digging up the area in the late 1920s.

   After the park’s opening, there was a brief spurt of interest in seeing the petrified forest remnants, but, with the advent of World War II, visitation began to decline.

   According to historian Cassandra Tate, “few people visited the park during the years of World War II. Caretakers were employed only intermittently. The buildings fell into disrepair. Some state officials and parks department employees began to think that the park was impractical.”

   That situation changed in the 1950s, when the state of Washington decided to enlarge the small visitors center into a museum/visitors center and expanded the park’s size.

   Additionally, in 1958, work began on construction of the 185-foot-high Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River, about five miles downriver from the park. The reservoir formed behind the dam, however, would inundate the petroglyph site near the park.

   According to the Washington State Parks’ history of the park, a local women’s group suggested removing the stone carved artwork to the new Ginkgo Museum (now known as the Ginkgo Interpretive Center).

   A retired mason and stone cutter named Bob Atwell volunteered to help save the stone images. Working with a nearby resident, Clarence Scammon, the two cut and blasted the petroglyphs from the stone columns on which they had been carved thousands of years ago. The massive panels and columns were then lowered to a raft on the Columbia and floated across the river.

   According to the Washington State Parks, a handful of pieces were lost overboard during the move. Once the artwork reached a landing, it was loaded onto a truck and taken to the museum to be displayed. In all, about 100 rock images were salvaged before they were submerged in the reservoir.

   In 1965, the Ginkgo Park was designated a National Natural Landmark. Additionally, in 1975, the Washington State Legislature named petrified wood as Washington’s official state gem.

   Last year, the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, which has grown to encompass 7,644 acres, including camping at the Wanapum Recreation Area adjacent to the Columbia River, hosted more than 163,300 visitors.

   Interestingly, the discovery of the Ginkgo Petrified Forest wasn’t the last important geological find by George Beck. In 1935, it was announced that he had discovered a nearly complete “mold” in solid lava of a prehistoric mammal, a Teleocerus, which is an ancestor to the rhinoceros. The unusual formation in rock was located in a bluff at Blue Lake near the future site of Grand Coulee Dam.

   According to the August 22 edition of the Bellingham Herald, Beck hypothesized that millions of years ago the animal must have been lying in water and was completely covered and encased in lava. Apparently, the water helped preserve the body of the animal while the lava hardened around it.

   “Eventually it disintegrated somewhat,” the newspaper reported, leaving behind the creature’s mold in stone.

   “Many of the bones remain in the cavity, and etched in the lava are the complete details of the head, body, and legs of the animal, so distinct that the animal’s two horns, three-toed feet, nostrils, skin and hair are easily discernible,” the Herald said.

   Beck said scientists planned to make plaster casts of sections of the mold or outline of the creature. “Geologically, this is just like seeing a ghost or an angel,” Beck told the newspaper.

 

Rosyln's Great Bank Robbery of 1892

Roslyn as it looked in the early 1890s, when it was robbed by an outlaw gang

  It was a robbery right out of an old-time western dime novel. At about 1 p.m. on September 24, 1892, three men dressed as cowboys entered the Ben E. Snipes & Co. Bank in Roslyn. According to a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a day later, Cashier F.K. Abernathy, was busy copying some letters when one of the men walked over to his counter.

  “The counter over which business is transacted is in no way protected by wire network or otherwise,” the newspaper said. “When he [Abernathy] turned to wait upon the man, [he] found himself facing a .45-caliber Colt’s revolver, with a demand to hold up his hands.”

  At just that moment, a Roslyn resident, Dr. J.H. Lyons, walked into the bank, just behind the bank robber. He spotted the gun and turned to run out of the bank, but when he did he immediately encountered a second robber, who was pointing at him a pair of Colt pistols. The doctor immediately threw up his hands and froze.

  A third robber entered the bank and stepped behind the counter, picking up Abernathy’s own pistol, which was lying on a shelf. He struck the cashier over the head with the revolver. Abernathy fell to the ground and when he attempted to get up, he was struck a second time and told to lay there and be quiet. The third thief then walked to the safe, which was open, and snatched up all the coins and bills from the vault, which he deposited in a canvas sack strung across his shoulders.

  At about the same time, the three robbers and those inside the bank heard shots being fired outside of the building. Two additional associates of the robbers, also dressed as cowboys, had been stationed outside to hold the horses and prevent anyone from approaching the bank. Apparently, a few people had attempted to walk into the bank. but they were dissuaded by the two men, who began shooting at them.

  The Post-Intelligencer said among those scampering away from the bullets was City Marshal George R. Beale, local teacher C.M. Jenkins, who was forced to hide behind a lamp post, and a Mrs. Moher, wife of a merchant who operated the business adjacent to the bank, and her small children.

  Meanwhile, Assistant Bank Cashier F.A. Frazier, who was several blocks away when the robbery took place, heard the shooting and started toward the bank. He stopped for a moment in a local a store to grab a shotgun. One of the outside robbers spotted the armed Frazier and shot him in the hip. Another man, only identified in the newspaper as a black man named Conoley, also tried to help, but was shot in the leg.

  The three men inside the bank exited quickly with the stolen money and all five of the robbers climbed onto their horses. They galloped down the street, firing bullets in all directions as they left town.

  “Every boy and man in town who owned or could get a gun started in pursuit,” the Post-Intelligencer wrote. A posse was immediately organized and began to fan out looking for the gang members, who had raced off on a trail over the mountains that was north of the town. According to the Yakima Herald’s account of the crime, the 13-man posse actually overtook the gang two days later, surprising them in a forest 20 miles east of Roslyn. While one man was injured in a brief shoot-out, the five robbers managed to escape unscathed.

  In the days after the robbery, the bank announced a $1,000 reward for the capture of the outlaws, which was matched by the Governor.

  Thus began the most audacious bank robbery to ever strike the town of Roslyn. It was, according to several newspapers, “a job worthy of the James Boys,” in obvious reference to the bank and train robberies carried out in the Midwest several years earlier by the notorious Frank and Jesse James Gang.

  Perhaps not coincidentally, the men who carried out the brazen daytime robbery were experienced. When their identities were finally revealed, they included the three McCarty brothers (Bill, Tom, and George) as well as Bill’s son, Fred, and a fifth man, Matt Warner (also known by several pseudonyms including Ras Lewis, Willard Christiansen, and Diamond Dick), who was Tom’s brother-in-law. While originally from Iowa, and living for a time in Utah, the McCarty clan had settled in eastern Oregon, near Baker City.

  Interestingly, it was while living in Utah that Tom McCarty encountered a young man named Butch Cassidy, whom he mentored in the art of being an outlaw. It’s believed that Tom McCarty, joined by Matt Warner and Cassidy robbed a bank for more than $22,000 (worth about $772, 500 in today’s dollars) in Telluride, Colorado in June 1889.

  According to historian Gary Dielman, former curator of the Baker County Library’s historic archives, Tom McCarty was a clever tactician who carefully planned his robberies. His philosophy was to always have the fastest horses available, and to arrange to switch out horses for fresher ones during their escape (usually Nellie McCarty, George’s second wife, would be waiting at a predetermined site with fresh horses).

  Earlier that year, the McCarty Gang had robbed a general store in Sparta, Oregon, a train at Boulder Gorge, about 16 miles from Baker City, and a bank in Wenatchee, Washington.

  The Roslyn bank heist had the potential to be the biggest score ever for the gang. In scouting out the bank, the gang had learned that the payroll for Roslyn’s coal mines was to be deposited in the bank on that date in late September. It was believed the payroll would be about $100,000 (or $3.5 million in today’s money).

  Unfortunately, the gang’s intel was good—but not as good as they believed. When they arrived at the bank, they discovered the vault only contained about $5,000, far less than what they had anticipated.

  According to Dielman, after the gang escaped from Roslyn, they headed to the Columbia River, roughly around what today is called Vantage. They found an old rowboat, but it had no oars, so they used old planks of wood to paddle across the river. Somehow, during what has been described as an all-night effort, they made a number of trips back and forth in order to get their horses, Nellie, and all of the members of the gang to the opposite side of the river.

  At this point, the gang split up, which was their usual pattern. George, Nellie, and Fred headed north, while Warner returned to his ranch near the modern-day town of Ephrata, and Tom and Bill went south to Bill’s ranch near Baker City.

  To the gang’s surprise—and delight—about a month after the robbery, Kittitas County authorities arrested three men from Pendleton, Oregon for the crime. According to a Yakima Herald story appearing on December 1, 1892, the Thiel’s detective agency hired by the bank traced three horses abandoned by the bank robbers to eastern Oregon. A handful of men were identified “as belonging to a gang recognized as being horse and cattle thieves of the most desperate character. Further investigation convinced the officers that the men who committed the robbery were Byron Bernard, Tom Kenzie (also spelled Kinzie by some papers), Cal Hale, George Zackery, and Bill Zackery.”

  News accounts said Hale, Kenzie, and George Zackery were soon caught by authorities and brought to Ellensburg to stand trial. During the trial, which was covered by newspapers from throughout the country, both Abernathy and Frazier, as well as several bank customers, positively identified the three despite their not being much evidence to support the charges. Based solely on the eyewitness accounts, Hale was convicted while the other two men were acquitted by conflicted jurors. In March 1893, the prosecuting attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Hale, who had secured a new trial, because of the cost involved in trying him again.

  At this point, the McCarty gang must have felt they were just about in the clear. Unfortunately for them, Sara Jane Morgan, sister of Warner’s wife, Rose, did not approve of how Warner was treating her sister or involvement with robbing banks. After visiting Rose and having an argument with Warner that nearly resulted in violence, Morgan returned to her home in Utah. She decided to tell everything she knew to the Salt Lake City police department.

  Arrest warrants were quickly issued for members of the gang. However, when Sheriff Porter Conde of Baker County, Oregon received the warrants, he refused to believe the McCarty’s were involved. He went to William’s ranch, where Tom was also staying, to talk over the matter with both men. Shortly after questioning William, Tom jumped the sheriff and took his gun. With his step-son, Eck McCarty holding a gun on the sheriff, the two outlaws escaped from the ranch and hid out in some nearby haystacks for the night. They would elude authorities for more than a month.

  Meanwhile, Warner was arrested at a tent restaurant he operated in Central Washington. According to news accounts, the 220-pound Warner “fought like a wild animal” before being subdued by deputies. George McCarty was arrested without incident while he was mining on a creek near Sumpter, Oregon. Using an entirely different approach, he quietly protested his innocence to newspaper reporters, insisting he hadn’t been in the state of Washington in some four years. He also claimed his brothers had been in Arizona when the robbery took place. Both he and Warner were incarcerated in the Ellensburg jail. As for Fred, authorities never seemed to be able to locate him.

  After spending a month on the run in Eastern Oregon, William and Tom McCarty headed to Utah, where they successfully managed to escape being arrested. It’s believed that at some point the two may have snuck into Ellensburg to help George McCarty and Warner try to escape. The two jailed men, in fact, were aided by some person or person, who smuggled a crowbar into their cell, which they used to dig a hole in the bricks large enough for them to squeeze through. This unknown party also provided them with revolvers that had been hidden under the jail’s boardwalk.

  George McCarty and Warner’s escape plans, however, were quickly thwarted when they spotted immediately. The two exchanged several shots with authorities before they were both hit by buckshot and recaptured.

  Despite the foiled escape attempt and other evidence, when the two men were put on trial (they were tried back-to-back in separate trials), jurors had a difficult time deciding to convict them because the main eyewitnesses had already mistakenly identified Hale, Kenzie, and the Zachery brothers as the culprits.  Both trials ended with hung juries.

  Authorities initially planned to retry to the two men, but on the day the trials were to begin, the charges were dismissed because most of the witnesses were not available to testify. Still facing charges related to their attempted escape, the two were surprised when the judge also dismissed those cases due to a lack of evidence. In the end, none of the members of the gang ever faced any type of justice for their crimes.

  Perhaps not surprisingly, the gang returned to bank robbing in September 1893, but this time it was only Tom, Bill, and Fred, who robbed the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Delta, Colorado. On September 7, the three rode to the bank. Tom stayed outside, holding the horses and serving as look-out, while Bill and Fred went inside. After brandishing their revolvers, the two told the two bank employees to stick up their hands. One of clerks, Trew Blachly, reached for his gun and Fred fired twice, killing Blachly.

  Fred stepped over the body and grabbed a sack of gold coins and some currency from an open safe before he and his brother ran out a back door. In his haste to mount his horse, Fred dropped the bag of gold coins and was too afraid of being captured to stop and pick it up.

  The gunshot alerted the whole town that the bank was under siege. A number of residents grabbed their guns and ran out into the street, including Ray Simpson, who worked in his father’s hardware store across from the bank. Simpson picked up his .44-70 caliber single-shot Sharps rifle and ran to assist. He spotted the robbers fleeing down an alley, with Tom in the lead, followed by Fred and William.

  Before the latter reached the intersection of the alley and one of the town’s main streets, Simpson took aim and shot him in the back of the head. William immediately fell dead from his horse. Fred slowed to look back for his father, which gave Simpson enough time to reload his rifle. He fired again, hitting Fred in the side of the head, knocking him from his horse and killing him.

  Apparently anticipating where Tom would head on his way out of town, Simpson ran to Main Street, where he saw the third outlaw racing away from him. He was able to get off a couple more shots but failed to hit the fleeing Tom. A posse soon formed but was never able to find Tom.

  According to historical records, the deceased William and Fred McCarty were buried in a potter’s field in Delta. It’s believed that Tom decided to forego bank robbing for the rest of his life. In 1900, he had returned to eastern Oregon, where he was hired as the Wallowa County road supervisor. In 1912, he was elected a Justice of the Peace for the Upper Imnaha District. There are no records of Tom after about 1917.

  As for the two who participated in the Roslyn robbery but not the Delta disaster, George McCarty returned to mining—which he much preferred to robbing banks—in the Baker City area. His passion for prospecting ultimately made him a reasonably wealth man. He died in Halfway, Oregon in 1948.

  Warner headed to Utah, where he was involved in a shooting near Vernal, during which two men died. He was convicted of manslaughter and served three years in prison. After his release, he vowed to change his life and found work as a city marshal, deputy sheriff, and Justice of the Peace in Price, Utah. In 1938, he wrote a memoir of his time as an outlaw titled, “The Last of the Bandit Riders,” and died later that year.

  The Roslyn robbery had a severe impact on the financial health of the Ben Snipes Bank. Snipes, who had made a fortune raising cattle in the Yakima Valley, had expanded into the financial business in 1889 by opening his first bank in Ellensburg (it was the town’s first bank). Eager to take advantage of the booming coal mining industry there, a short time later he opened a second branch in Roslyn.

  While Snipes had been a success with cattle, his luck wasn’t so good in banking. In spite of building a three-story, stone structure to house his Ellensburg bank, it was destroyed in the city’s disastrous fire of 1889 (he would rebuild it). He also suffered substantial losses as a result of the Roslyn robbery. Both banks failed during a national economic downturn known as the Panic of 1893. When he died in 1906, he reportedly was working on ways to regain his fortune.