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A L M A N AC 2 0 13

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| Almanac 2013 Game Change

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GAME CHANGE: DAILY RECORD ALMANAC 2013

Almanac 2013 | Page 3Game Change

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ALMANAC 2013

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14GAME CHANGEInstitutions and advance-ments that shaped Kittitas County.

KING COALCoal mining in Upper Kittitas County.

24

34

38

TRAILS TO HIGHWAYSInterstate 90 increases traffic through an already busy crossroads.

RETURN OF THE SALMONSalmon are making a comeback in the Kittitas Valley.

TOWN AND GOWN Ellensburg and Central Washington University are closely connected.

SUMMER OF WILDFIREThe summer of 2012 dealt Kittitas County one of its most devas-tating blows in recent memory. Plus, other big fires that changed Kittitas County.

Photos on the cover are from the Central Washing-ton University Brooks Library archives, and Brian Myrick and Justin Pittman of the Daily Record.

IRRIGATION TRANSFORMATIONHow the Kittitas Reclamation District and the canal system boosted agricul-ture in the Kittitas Valley.

RAILROAD REVOLUTION Passenger train service helped define communities in Kittitas County.

34 38


Kittitas County has been molded by any number of institutions

and industries over the course of its history. Where would Ellensburg be today without Central Washington University? What would Roslyn, Ronald and Cle Elum look like without the coal industry that flourished in the first part of the 20th century? While passenger trains once connected the county to the rest of the state, today Interstate 90 is a major economic driver. More recently, wind farms have made the Kittitas Valley a leader in renewable energy. The pages that follow cover a number of game changers that shaped the past, present and future of Kittitas County and its residents.

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Wood salvaged from shipping container pallets line a portion of Central Wash-ington University’s new Hogue Hall technology center. The building provides a cutting-edge learning environment for engineering technology and construc-tion students. For more on the link between CWU and Ellensburg, see Page 44.


Wanapum Dam, on the Columbia River near Vantage, was constructed in 1955. It created a reservoir on the river that is an attraction for Kittitas County, although the dam is owned and operated by the

Grant County Public Utility District. The dam reduces power rates in

Grant County, helping the county attract businesses and, in some cases, out compete Kittitas County.

Changes that shaped our communities

Daily Record file photo

The Wanapum Dam and the Columbia River near Vantage.

Justin Pittman / Daily Record file photo

Cle Elum’s Telephone Museum preserves the local history of the telephone.

Wanapum Dam built near Vantage

Rodeo City USA

First telephone in the county

The stands are full of rodeo fans watching saddle bronc rider and horse head south across the Ellensburg Rodeo arena in the 1930s. Ellensburg Public Library

The first telephone was connected in Ellensburg on Nov. 9, 1889, according to a timeline developed by the Kittitas County Historical Museum. The service was owned by the Sunset Telephone & Telegraph Company, according to the “History of Kittitas County, Vol. 1. “

According to the Northern Kittitas

County Historical Society, Cle Elum was one of the last cities in the country to use a manually operated call switchboard.

The history of the telephone continues to play a role in contemporary Cle Elum life courtesy of the Telephone Museum on First Street.

Ellensburg is known as the Rodeo City, and it all started in 1923 with the first Ellensburg Rodeo.

The rodeo and fairgrounds were built by hundreds of volunteers over the summer of 1923, with 500 men and 100 women showing up on the first day of work on June 14, 1923.

The effort involved the Kittitas Coun-ty commissioners, the Kittitas County Fair Board, the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce, local civic groups, the state Normal School, the high school and

many community leaders. Today the rodeo and fair attract

more than 60,000 people over Labor Day weekend each year, and put Ellensburg on the map. Both the fair and rodeo are largely still run by volunteers.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, as of the end of 2012, ranks the Ellensburg Rodeo as 18th nationally for total purse paid out to performers, and 12th in the nation in purse paid out per performance.


The spotted owl became both cause and a curse in Kittitas County in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the creation of spotted owl habitat circles in commercial forest land contributed to the decrease in allowed harvesting and the decline of the timber industry in the region.

The changes had an immediate impact on the resource-based industry in the county and will have a long-term impact on the forested landscape.

Spotted owl and logging in Kittitas County

Wind farms arrive in the county

Wind farms reshaped the county landscape in the early 2000s and created governmental clashes between the county and the state. The wind farm at Whisky Dick went up with minimal controversy but the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project created controversy over placement near rural homes and with the role of the state usurping county authority and approving the project over local objections. The Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project added the acronym EFSEC (Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council) into the vocabulary of county residents.

Another project, Desert Claim Wind Power Project, eight miles northwest of Ellensburg, also was approved by EFSEC over county objections, but has not been constructed due to economic factors in the alternative energy industry.

Seattle Times

A female spotted owl sits perched on a branch of a tree among old growth near Mount Rainier forest land in Washington. The creation of habitat for the owl led to a decline in timber harvesting in Kittitas County in the 1980s and 1990s.

CWU Brooks Library, Archives and Special Collections, Frederick Krueger collection

A Cascade Lumber Co. worker stands for a photo with a large cut tree in 1931 near First Creek in the Swauk Valley east of Cle Elum.

Brian Myrick / Daily Record file photo

Wind turbines at the Kittitas Val-ley Wind Power Project rotate in the breeze off U.S. Highway 97.


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The city of Ellensburg has a place in the power history books in Washington state.

Ellensburg became the first municipally owned and operated light system in the state in 1890, purchasing an electrical generating plant from town founder John Shoudy, according to the “History of Kittitas County Vol. 1.”

Larry Dunbar, director of the city of Ellensburg electrical department, said the city owning the electrical utility has been a significant advantage.

“The city has provided electrical service at cost,” Dunbar said. “There’s no profit and it’s locally controlled.”

First municipal light system in the state

Schaake feed lot closes in 1999The Schaake feed lot near

Interstate 90 and Umptanum Road helped define the community for 35 years until it closed in 1999. The lot played a role in the county’s cattle industry. It was a feedlot for cattle waiting for slaughter.

Its closure changed the image of Ellensburg for travelers. The odor generated by the lot greeted travelers coming off the interstate and left a lasting impression to the point that many West Side residents still think Ellensburg can be smelled from miles away. Residents also lived with the odorous impact of the lot.

Its closure was an indica-tion of changes in the cattle industry. The lot was consid-ered too small.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

The Schaake feed lot near Interstate 90 is pictured in 1984. It closed in 1999.



Coal miners walk into the entrance of an Upper County mine in 1915.


By OLIVER LAZENBYstaff writer

During the final years of the 1800s, people came to Roslyn and Ronald from every corner of Europe and the United States to tunnel deep under the mountains in search of coal.

The Roslyn mines weren’t the first in the state, but once they were discov-ered, they quickly became the best, outshining mines in Black Diamond, Wilkeson and Carbonado, said Roslyn historian David Browitt in a series of lectures recorded at the Roslyn library in 2001 and 2002.

It only took four years for Roslyn to go from an uninhabited forest north of the Northern Pacific railroad line to a community of nearly 1,500 miners and their families. Ronald followed a similar path.

A Northern Pacific surveyors dis-covered a high-quality coal seam near Roslyn, which they called the Roslyn

coal field, in 1886. Before then, there wasn’t much in the Upper County, although the railroad town of Cle Elum was already platted and settlers were farming near the Teanaway River and Swauk Prairie.

After discovering coal, Northern Pacific immediately began working on establishing the mines and installing a railroad line to Roslyn. Roslyn and Ronald were platted soon after, and grew quickly due to Northern Pacific’s recruiting efforts in Europe.

The peopleLabor struggles and racial tension

amongst the ethnically diverse resi-dents were common in the early years of the coal mines.

Black miners who were brought in from Illinois to break a labor strike over the eight-hour work day in 1888 made up one-fifth of the population at the time. The majority of the rest of the people in Roslyn and Ronald were first

generation immigrants from Europe. Roslyn and Ronald were company

towns and nearly all the men worked in the mines. In the early years in Roslyn, a whistle would blow in the mornings to wake miners up and inform them that the mines would be operating.

By the 1950s, the whistle was gone and a light on First Street let workers know whether the mines would open, said Roslyn resident Leonard Rushton. Shoveling snow from coal cars was Rushton’s first job in high school, and by 1950 he had graduated and started working in the tipple, where the coal was sorted by size and loaded onto railroad cars.

A long declineThe value of coal and the amount

produced in the Upper County quickly peaked, and by 1920 production in the mines had begun a long decline.

1880: Prospector S.S. Hawkins discovers gold and silver in the Cle Elum River, spurring more mineral prospecting in the area.

1886: A Northern Pacific railroad survey crew discovers a high-quality coal seam near Roslyn. Northern Pacific immediately began constructing mines and a railroad branch line to Roslyn.

December 1886: The first loads of coal are dumped over the tipple and sent out of Roslyn to fuel the railroad.

1886: Roslyn is founded. The town becomes one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the state with immigrants from Italy, Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Great Britain and other European countries.

1887: The Northern Pacific extends its Roslyn branch line north to the No. 3 mine at the present site of Ronald.

August 1888: The Knights of Labor organize the first strike at the mines over the eight-hour work day. The Northern Pacific Coal Co. brings in a trainload of black miners from Illinois to break the strike and work at the No. 3 mine in Ronald. Tensions ease over time.

1889: Black families in Roslyn’s mining community gather to celebrate Emancipation Proclamation day, a tradition that continues to this day with the Black Pioneer Picnic.

1890: Just four years after Roslyn was platted, its population reaches 1,484.

May 1892: A gas explosion kills 45 miners in the worst coal mining disaster in state history. City Hall was turned into a morgue, and, for three days, Roslyn had multiple funerals. The explosion occurred deep within a poorly ventilated section of the mine, which extended 2,700 feet beneath the ground. An inquest found the explosion was caused by inadequate ventilation.


Coal miners pose with lunch buckets at Cle Elum. Northern Pacific surveyors discovered a high-quality coal seam near Roslyn, which they called the Roslyn coal field, in 1886. The discovery had lasting ramifications.

Mines shape history of Upper Kittitas County

See Coal, Continued on Page 11

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Photo by Brian Myrick

850905.ALM13.CNR


But the towns were still full of excitement in those declining years, said Joe Lowatchie, a former miner who moved to Ronald with his brothers in 1947.

“When I came here the war was over and the boys were coming back home. It was sort of a wild west town on Friday and Saturday nights,” he said. “I think there were more honky tonks in Cle Elum and Roslyn than there were business stores.”

Lowatchie came to Ronald after getting out of the Army. He went back to West Virginia, where he grew up, but his friends had all moved away or died in service.

“I told my mother I was going to work my way around the coun-try and be back in two years,” Lowatchie said. “I never made it back. I made it to Ronald and lived there for 49 years.”

Lowatchie said that’s because he

met his first wife at the Northwest Improvement Co. store the first time he went in to buy cigarettes and she was working. They got married the next year.

For Lowatchie, 90, mining was

an enjoyable job. It paid better than most other jobs in the county and miners weren’t exposed to the elements.

1903: Coal production reaches a near record level of 1,376,000 tons this year.

1904: Archibald S. Patrick, a member of the prospecting crew that found the first coal seam in Roslyn, strikes out on his own and begins producing coal from a mine at the western edge of the Roslyn coal fields. His company, the Roslyn Cascade Coal Company, is the most successful of all the independent coal companies in the area.

1909: Mine explosion kills 10 people in the No. 4 mine.

1910: Aside from the war-mobilizing years of 1917 and 1918, this was the peak year for coal production in Kittitas County.

1920: National labor negotiations result in new contracts that raise wages to $8.25 per day. The increase is short lived and wages roll back to $6 in 1921 as coal sales declined.

Late 1920s to 1933: During the Great Depression, coal production in Kittitas County drops more than half, from 1,198,000 to 499,000 tons per year.

1934: The Western Miners of America strike on April 1. Most miners in the county were members of the union, but some were still members of the United Mine Workers Association, which was more prominent at the beginning of the century. The community was divided in its support of the two unions. Beatings, rock and egg throwing, and a murder took place on the picket line.

1940: By 1940, other fuels largely replace coal. Even the railroad was switching from coal to diesel.

1963: Out of dozens of companies that once operated in the Roslyn coal field, only the Northwest Improvement Company mines (formerly the Northern Pacific Coal Co.) and the Roslyn Cascade Coal Co. remain. They both close by the end of the year. There’s still plenty of coal in the ground, but not enough demand to make the mines profitable.

Source: “Coal Towns in the Cas-cades: A Centennial History of Roslyn and Cle Elum, Washington.” By John C. Shideler


Joe Lowatchie talks about his days working in the Upper County coal mines on Feb. 21 at his Ellensburg home. Lowatchie, 90, says mining paid better than most other jobs in the county.

CoalContinued from Page 9

Courtesy of the Roslyn Public Library, Roslyn Heritage Collection

A photo from mine No. 5 near Roslyn. The photo caption says “Haulage Way, Mine to Tipple.”

See Coal, Page 12


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CoalContinued from Page 11


Three coal miners pose in a dark mine shaft around 1950. The miner in the center is Gloria “Tony” Bailey. Bailey dressed like a man to work in the mines because state law prohibited women from working in mines. After 11 months of shoveling coal, Bailey, 19, was forced to quit when the police chief saw her going into a women’s bathroom and discovered her true identity.

“In the cold, wintery, rainy days you just said, ‘thank God I’m going to a place that’s nice and dry,’” he said.

Lowatchie smiles when he talks about the dan-gers of mining, which include poisonous gas, explosions, falling rock and coal car accidents.

“It’s like anything else, once you know what the danger is, you don’t worry about it. You just take precautions,” he said. “You just learn not to worry about it.”

Lowatchie was involved in an accident that he said was the beginning of the end for the No. 3 mine near Ronald. After firing a shot to blast away some sandstone, the mine

started filling with water. Lowatchie and the rest of the miners ran while water filled the mine and rock crumbled. Everyone made it out alive, but just barely, he said.

Rope-ridersAll jobs in the mines

were dangerous, but Lowatchie said his job, digging coal and blasting rock wasn’t as dangerous as what the rope-riders did.

“I believe the rope-rider’s job was the most dangerous in the world,” he said.

John Ferro, 92, of Roslyn, worked in the Roslyn coal field from 1935 until 1963. He was a rope-rider for much of that time.


Rope-riders spent their days rid-ing down a 30-degree slope into the mines with empty cars, and connected their “rope,” which was really a steel cable, to the loaded coal cars to bring them out of the mine.

An electric or steam hoist pulled the chain of loaded cars out of the mine.

Ferro communicated with the hoist operator by signaling a bell connected to two bare copper wires that ran the length of the mines. The coal cars could jump the track or crash if the rope-rider and opera-tor miscommunicated.

“I got banged up a few times,” Ferro said. “At first your neck gets sore from wearing your cap. Then when you bump your head your shoulders get sore. Pretty soon you learn to stoop over and get lower so you don’t bump nothing.”

Ferro started working in the mines when he was just 15. He had to lie about his age to get the job.

“My dad got sick and he couldn’t work anymore,” Ferro said. “I had two sisters and my mother and myself, so I lied to get a job and

started making $3.75 a day.”Ferro said growing up in Ros-

lyn was fun because there were so many children in town.

“Everybody loved one another. It was full of energy, the whole town was. There was people from every-where and a lot of work.”

Mines closeThe last two mining operations

— Northwest Improvement Com-pany and the Roslyn Cascade Coal Co. — closed in 1963. The mines closed because the coal was no longer profitable, not because there wasn’t any more coal in the Roslyn

coal seam. Lowatchie spent the rest of his

working life as a general contractor, and Ferro opened a service station in Cle Elum.

There may still be coal in the Upper County, but Lowatchie and Ferro are among the last of the coal miners.

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Courtesy of the Roslyn Public Library, Roslyn Heritage Collection

Northwest Improvement Co. employees pose in front of the Cle Elum Commu-nity Church, circa 1945.

Geologic forces at work

From 50-250 million years ago, a wet climate fostered plant growth in a coastal swamp on a mountainous island off the coast of North America. Plants eventually died, creating a peat bog that was slowly covered in sand and other sediments. Over millions of years, the bog and sediment formed layers of coal and sandstone, and the island moved east until it collided with the West Coast of North America.

Source: “Coal Towns in the Cas-cades: A Centennial History of Roslyn and Cle Elum, Washington.” By John C. Shideler


Brian Myrick / Daily Record file

Hay farmer Kirk Riegel tends to an irrigation line on his property in 2011.



Marv Kelley stands in front of the Kittitas Reclamation District pumping station in the Badger Pocket area March 6.

By MIKE JOHNSTONsenior writer

Irrigation water delivered to expanding farm ground in Kittitas County between 1925 and 1933 via the High Line canal project and a system of Cascade mountain reservoirs created economic revitalization on a grand scale for local farmers and businesses.

It also was part of setting the stage for basinwide irrigation water-supply restrictions, the solutions to which are being sought to this day.

The High Line canal system, oper-ated by the Kittitas Reclamation Dis-trict, serves more than 59,000 acres countywide, supplies irrigation water to nearly 2,700 customers, and is the lifeblood of agriculture in the county.

In a 1928 editorial, the Ellensburg Daily Record said the project would have a wide influence.

“Millions of dollars of farm crops will be produced each year on this big project. Most of these will be marketed through the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, so the development will mean much to the Puget Sound cities as well as to Central Washington.”

The first irrigation water from the new project was delivered to farm ground in 1930. It came at a time when some kind of economic boost was sorely needed: the Great Depres-sion was nearing its depth, Upper County coal mining was into a down-ward slide, railroad-related business was lagging and the timber industry was slowing.

On top of this, a drought in Kittitas County had cut the growing season precipitation in half every year from 1925 to 1935.

Badger PocketMuch of the expansion was in

the Badger Pocket area southeast of Ellensburg.

Marv Kelley, 92, came to the Kit-

Kittitas Reclamation District

A three-gang plow and eight horses are used to clear flowing sagebrush land in the Badger Pocket area on May 27, 1932.

High Line canal system boosted agriculture

titas Valley in the early 1950s as an engineering technician for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service and saw first-hand how the High Line canal system was a huge factor in the economic and social fabric of the community.

“When you think of it, you know, this kind of project, as big as it was, changes a place and how everyone lives for a long time to come,” Kelley said.

By one estimate, the project opened up around 72,000 acres to irrigated farming.

By 1935, almost 50,000 acres were under new irrigation, and by 1958 the annual value of increased farm production amounted to one-half the original construction cost of the project.

See Irrigation, Page 16


By 2007, Kittitas County farmland was estimated at a little more than 191,000 acres, including leased land for livestock grazing. Of that, 91,660 acres were irrigated lands.

Not the first The KRD wasn’t the first irrigation

initiative to turn the semi-arid shrub-steppe lands from sagebrush into green rows of crops in Kittitas County, but it’s the county’s single largest water purveyor.

Expansion of irrigation in the Kit-titas Valley originated with diversion of natural flows from creeks within the valley, according to a Kittitas Reclama-tion District history and information from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The Manastash Canal, beginning in 1872, was the first organized irrigation development in the county. This project diverted water from Manastash Creek, and served approximately 1,700 acres.

Later came Taneum Creek Ditch in 1873-1874 (3,700 acres), the Ellens-burg Town Canal with diversion from the Yakima River in 1885-1889 (7,000 acres), the Olson Ditch in 1870 and rebuilt in 1890 (1,200 acres), the Bull Ditch starting in 1886 (1,300 acres),

and the Cascade Canal (Cascade Irri-gation District) constructed in 1903-1904 (12,000 acres).

ChallengesEarly records contain a proposal

in 1885 for a “High Line” canal that would divert water from the Teanaway River.

High Line referred to the proposed system of canals that would be con-structed at a higher elevation above existing irrigation systems, thus signif-icantly expanding the amount of land that could be irrigated; water flowing downward from lands irrigated by the High Line canal also would contribute water to irrigation entities at lower

elevations. In 1889, the Kittitas County com-

missioners appropriated $1,500 for a survey of the proposed canal near Easton.

Subsequent efforts to construct a High Line canal began in 1891 with the organization of the Middle Kit-titas Irrigation District. The strat-egy for this project was to irrigate 23,000 acres from a canal roughly 240 feet lower in elevation than the present day KRD canal. Construc-tion started but ended quickly with little accomplished due to financial difficulties.

IrrIgatIonContinued from Page 15


From left, K.C. Brooks, Doug Webster, and John Mengelos, with the Kittitas Reclamation District, use rakes to remove debris from an irrigation canal off Vantage Highway near Fox Road east of Ellensburg in 2010.

See Irrigation,


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The north branch canal of the KRD is connected to the main canal by a mile-long steel pipe siphon. The siphon is supported by concrete piers and carries the water across the Yakima River on a high steel bridge.

Water is then delivered downward to the Wippel Pumping Plant in the Badger Pocket area. The incoming water turns pump turbines that lift the water up 130 feet to laterals for irrigation of 2,500 acres of land above the gravity canal.

Lined and unlined canals then carry

water 34 miles eastward through five concrete-lined tunnels to irrigate the lands on the northern edge of the Kittitas Division.

The lifting of the water gets help with electric-powered pumps when the system needs to operate at full capacity.

Marv Kelley, a former U.S. Soil Conser-vation Service engineer, said the plant is a unique feature among Yakima Project irrigation systems because it can pump water to a higher elevation without electricity.


The Wippel pumping station is in the Badger Pocket area. From this sta-tion, built in 1932, irrigation water is supplied to farmland throughout the area.

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On Sept. 25, 1911, the Kittitas Reclamation District was organized as a local government. The sale of $5 million in bonds was planned to finance the construction of an irriga-tion system, but these funds were not appropriated. Other financial plans also failed.

Coming of the BureauAs early as 1905, the U.S. Bureau

of Reclamation began investigating the feasibility of including a Kittitas Division to its larger Yakima Project in Yakima and Benton counties.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s pri-mary goal in those early days was to reclaim what some called the Great American Desert in the Western states with river, dam and irrigation projects.

Construction of irrigation projects in the Yakima project began in 1906, focusing on drawing water from the Yakima River and its tributaries fed by five, higher-elevation Cascade Range

dams and reservoirs in Kittitas and Yakima counties.

Three divisions of the bureau’s proj-ect opened for irrigation by 1910, the Sunnyside, Tieton and storage divi-sions. The storage division involved constructing five water storage dams between 1909 and 1925, and a sixth in 1933.

The Yakima Project is one of the Bureau of Reclamation’s earliest and largest national efforts. Nearly 500,000 acres of sage-covered shrub-steppe lands were eventually converted into highly productive agricultural areas.

As the first divisions of the Yakima Project brought the expansion of agri-culture and business in the Yakima Valley, other communities clamored for similar projects.

High hopesLater, requests and support

from Kittitas County interests for a local irrigation project of their own prompted the bureau to com-


Irrigation districts and companiesIrrigation districts, companies and

other private irrigation systems with rights and facilities to divert water from the Yakima River in Kittitas County (some acreage-served and entitlement info was not available):

n Kittitas Reclamation District, regular entitlement in a normal water-supply year 336,000 acre-feet; 59,122 acres served

n Younger, 3,010 acre-feetn Cascade Irrigation District, 49,525

acre-feet; 12,500 acresn Westside Irrigation Co., 31,126

acre-feet not proratable, 8,200 proratable acre-feet; 5,500 acres

n Knoke (Ellison-Brunton), 1,600 acre-feet; 130 acres

n Thorp mill ditch, 7,530 acre-feet;

485 acresn Town ditch, 15.5 acresn Ellensburg Water Co., 44,040 acre-

feet; 10,150 acresn Wodale (Olson) , 12,973 acre-feet;

600 acresn Peter Wold, 195 acresn Klocke, 52 acresn Packwood (Ellensburg Power), 6,031

acre-feet; 550 acresn Ellensburg mill and feed, 4,804

acre-feetn Bull, 6,471 acre-feet; 2,000 acresn Fogarty and Dyer, 3,690 acre-feet;

360 acresn Tjossem, 4,771 acre-feetn Farrel (Stanfield), 1,600 acre-feet

— Kittitas Reclamation District

plete an engineering report with a positive outlook on Jan. 25, 1925, which led to the design of the

KRD’s present system.

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Reservoirs and irrigated KRD irrigation timeline

1904: Power of eminent domain for irrigation districts granted.

1905: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Yakima Office, considers including the Kittitas Division in the Yakima Project development.

1909-1933: Six higher-elevation reservoirs are built in the Yakima River Basin.

1911: The Kittitas Reclamation District organizes, and files notice of water appropriation for 1,200 cubic feet per second for irrigation of district lands. Boundaries of the district were defined by county commissioners. A planed bond sale did not materialize.

1912: Christian Anderson completes surveys for the High Line canal system.

1925: U.S. Bureau of Reclama-tion, Yakima Office, completes an engineering report on Jan. 25 that incorporated the present plan of development.

1925: A contract for the first construction begins.

1930: First irrigation water deliv-ered to 12,195 acres in the Kittitas Reclamation District.

1933: Completion of the district’s construction.

1934: Operation and manage-ment assumed by the Kittitas Reclama-tion (irrigation) District.

land in Kittitas County

An Ellensburg Daily Record edito-rial in those days said the project made the county’s future bright.

“The dreams of the pioneers and every loyal valley booster are about to be realized in the construction of the High Line canal which will bring about the irrigation and develop-ment of 70,000 acres of the best land in the entire county,” the editorial stated.

The editorial went on to say the project means an influx of new resi-dents, a revival of business “and work and prosperity for all who are ready to get into the harness and do their

part in community development.”

Funds for constructionA soil and economic conditions

report prepared by the bureau, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wash-ington State College, and University of California staff was favorable. As a result, federal funds were appropri-ated for construction of the KRD’s High Line canal.

Construction began in 1925. The construction of the KRD system was completed in 1933 and was estimat-ed to cost $11.2 million at that time.

Maximum employment on the

project reached 1,400 men in Sep-tember 1928 during a work season from April to December.

Major structures in the KRD sys-tem are the Easton Diversion Dam, the main canal, the north branch canal, and the south branch canal. The Easton Diversion Dam was com-pleted in 1929.

Construction of the main canal and south branch canal were com-pleted in 1929, and the north branch canal was finished in 1933.

Kelley, during a recent tour of the KRD system in Badger Pocket, said the KRD system is somewhat unique because of structures that took water through tunnels on the sides of ridges and across barriers like rivers by use of underground siphons that

retained the water’s elevation so it would continue to flow.

“Water runs downhill and that makes all this possible,” Kelley said.

Kelley also worked for Yakima Cement Products to design concrete pipe systems to carry irrigation water to decrease water loss and designed drainage systems to make irrigation more efficient and even over farm fields. He later worked for Kittitas County Public Works.

Seeking the ‘big fix’As early as 1904 it was clear the

three-county Yakima River basin sys-tem was over-appropriated, meaning there were more water rights to use its water than the amount of water generated.




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Restrictions through the years led to the 1945 consent decree.

This was a federal court judg-ment defining the government’s obligation to deliver water from the bureau’s project supply to its contract users, and covers what to do in years when there is a water shortage.

The Kittitas Reclamation Dis-trict’s contract water right through the bureau is subject to cutbacks in drought years, giving priority to senior water right holders to gain their full entitlement of water.

Through the years since 1945, con-cerns have risen about water quality problems in the Yakima system and the blockage of fish passage by irri-gation structures.

Federal, state and local govern-ment projects have been undertaken up and down the river to improve water quality, increase water conser-vation and open up fish passage and reduce harm to migrating fish from irrigation system diversions.

On top of all this, periodic droughts have struck the basin through the years, causing, at times,

severe cutbacks in water supplies to irrigation districts that are subject to prorationing.

This has caused millions of dollars in losses to the agricultural indus-try in the basin. In 1977 the worst drought on record led to a major water rights adjudication case in Yakima County Superior Court (still ongoing today) to establish firm water rights for more than 40,000 water right holders.

Several efforts to find a mutually agreeable “big fix” solution to the basin’s water supply and other prob-lems have failed to get off the ground through the years.

Yakima planMany factions and interest

groups in the basin’s water man-agement agencies have indicated an effort now under way, called the Yakima River Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Plan, has the best chance to make a his-toric change in stabilizing water supplies for years to come and steer clear of droughts.

The plan calls for a 20-year,


Don Webber uses a shovel to adjust irrigation gates in a field of orchard grass on his farm along Fox Road, off Vantage Highway east of Ellensburg in 2010.

$5 billion series of projects to increase water storage and conser-vation, create fish passage through dams, boost fish runs and keep rural development from damaging

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It’s hard to pin down the present-day economic impact of irrigation, but it’s clear farmland served by irrigation water is hugely productive compared to dryland farming where growers are dependent on rain and other precipitation.

The federal government estimates the annual value of irrigated crops in the Yakima River basin (including Kittitas County) to be more than $700 million annually, and livestock using irrigated pastures are valued at $250 million a year.

The 2007 federal Census of Agriculture (the last complete estimates available) indicates farming and livestock (including on irrigated lands) generated products valued at $61 million, with $39 million in crops and more than $22

million in livestock in Kittitas County.

Federal government figures from 1935 indicate there were 888 farms in Kittitas County in 1930 with a total of 359,000 acres, and this went up by 1935 to 1,232 farms with acreage at 428,606.

That same federal report said there was a 31 percent overall increase in harvested acreage from 1930 to 1935, and hay went from 34,751 acres and 76,364 tons to 46,705 acres and 99,821 tons in those same years.

The number of farms grew nearly 40 percent in those years, mostly because of the expansion of farm ground made possible by the High Line canal project and the Kittitas Reclamation District.


Ellison Mundy stands in his wheat field on Aug. 5, 1932, in the Badger Pocket area. It was the first crop on the land.

The value of irrigation


Longtime Kittitas Reclamation Dis-trict Board member, farmer and tree-fruit grower Urban Eberhart in fall 2002 spoke during ceremonies marking the 100-year anniversary of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and its irrigation proj-ects in the Kittitas and Yakima valleys. Excerpts from his speech reflect on the importance of agriculture and the sup-porting irrigation infrastructure:

“Irrigation development in the Yakima Basin has significantly influ-enced the course of the lives of my family as well as thousands of other families that have in the past and presently live and work the land in an attempt to make a living on the nearly 500,000 irrigated acres in the Yakima River valley.

“The survival of irri-gation and agriculture is just as important to the U.S. now as it was earlier in the development of irrigation. There will continue to be new challenges and hur-dles to overcome as we move through this century and beyond in dealing with water resource issues both in our basin and throughout the West.

“The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation overall has done a tremendous job over the past 100 years in our basin and has been a champion of irrigation expertise in building our water storage reservoirs, hydroelectric facilities, and irrigation distribution facilities.

“This development is directly tied to the settlement of our valley and the

West. The relationship between the Bureau of Reclamation and the irriga-tion districts that manage their facili-ties is a long partnership that must be maintained. It is important that this

partnership continue in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect.

“We need additional water storage in the Yakima River Basin and we must not forget that the dams, reservoirs

and hydroelectric facilities that were so much a part of providing the qual-ity of life we all enjoy must be main-tained and in some cases, new projects pursued.”

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Agriculture and development tied to irrigation

Urban Eberhart


Workers install the Horseshoe Canyon siphon for the Kittitas Reclamation District main canal on July 18, 1928.



Construction crews of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad work on the railroad in Kittitas County circa 1905.


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By MICHAEL GALLAGHERassistant editor

The railroad helped put some Kittitas County communities on the map near the turn of the 20th century. The departure of passenger service several decades later effectively erased communities as well.

The list of communities that came and went with passenger rail runs from Roza in the Yakima Canyon to Lester on the eastern slopes of the Cascade mountains.

Other communities grew and prospered with the railroad — Ellens-burg, Cle Elum and Roslyn — but

found ways to survive as the role of rail in commerce and culture lessened.

Birth of a cityThe late 1880s were boom time in

Ellensburg. Local historian Fennelle Miller said the city thrived prior to the arrival of the railroad because it was situated along another key transit route — the wagon roads to Oregon.

“In 1885 there was already talk of Ellensburg being the state capital,” Miller said. “Ellensburg was a pretty happening place before the trains came. Ellensburg has been lucky with its location.”

While the train did not create Ellensburg, Miller said it helped shape Ellensburg.

“For Ellensburg it meant a market for goods,” Miller said.

Passenger trains defined county’s communities


A cook for the Northern-Pacific Railroad bakes bread in a large dugout oven in 1887 near Lester, a historic community that once existed on the east slopes of the Cascades in Kittitas County.See Railroad, Page 26


raIlroadContinued from Page 25

“Our agricultural products could be shipped all over the U.S. and overseas,” Miller said.

The Northern Pacific Railway ran through Ellensburg and terminated in Tacoma, not Seattle, Miller said.

Thanks to Interstate 90, Ellens-burg is now known for its Seattle connection, but early Ellensburg was more connected to Tacoma. As an example, Miller said when she went to remodel her home, which is more than 100 years old, the newspapers stuffed into walls for insulation purposes were from Tacoma, not Seattle.


The ticket window in the lobby of the Ellensburg Train Depot was restored in recent years by the nonprofit Friends of the Northern Pacific Railway Depot.

See Railroad,

The two under railroad depots restora-tion in Kittitas County — in South Cle Elum and Ellensburg — are both remnants of the county’s past and examples of the commitment required to preserve historical structures for contemporary use.

The South Cle Elum Depot appeared to be beyond saving when a group of primarily West Side railroad enthusiasts formed the Friends of the South Cle Elum Depot in 1999 to restore the former Milwaukee Road depot. The friends group eventually evolved into the Cascade Rail Foundation.

Forming a partnership with Washington State Parks, which owns the rail yard property as well as the adjacent John Wayne Trail, the group packaged the volunteer energy and resources with

state funds to restore the structure to include space for a museum and a working restaurant. The restaurant is not currently operating, but the museum is open on a seasonal basis.

The rail yard property also includes an electrical substation that is part of the long-term restoration plans for the property.

A similar story of perseverance can be told in Ellensburg. The Northern Pacific depot in Ellensburg went through multiple owners after the end of passenger rail service in 1981, but over time, the building fell into decay.

Historic Ellensburg took on the project to advance preservation and restoration. Over the years that process evolved to include participation by the city of Ellensburg,

which acquired the building in 2007 and reached agreement with Northern Pacific, which still owns the land.

The project took another turn with the involvement of Steve Hayden and the Friends of the Northern Pacific Depot, who committed time and personal resources to restoring the building. The responsibility for depot restoration shifted to the Friends of the Northern Pacific Depot in December 2010. The latest landmark accomplishment for the depot was the installation of a new roof.

Many interior details have been restored and while the depot remains a work in progress, it is now being rented out for use.

Two other Milwaukee Railroad depots, in Kittitas and at Thorp, are standing but have no public access to their interiors.

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Miller said in general, the railroad probably was more critical in terms of export, than import, for Ellensburg.

“It was more about taking people and goods out of Ellensburg, than it was bringing them in,” she said.

But the train did serve to bring people, ideas and information to Ellensburg that might not otherwise had arrived, at least not in a timely manner. That included expanding the community’s ethnic mix.

“Construction of the railroad was super important for the Chinese-American community,” Miller said. “The railroad led to Ellensburg’s early Chinese community.”

Miller said ideas were also imported. She said new architectural styles made it to Ellensburg faster once people started arriving on the train. Fashion also crept across the county a little bit faster.

Isolation eraThe period that passenger rail

played the most pivotal role in the community — commerce and culture — occurred during the first 20 to 30 years of the rail, Miller said.

Miller said the wagon trails became obsolete after the train came through and auto travel had yet to arrive.

“We had about 20-plus years where the trains were key. There was no other way to travel,” Miller said. “If you had business to do, you traveled on the train.”

Ellensburg’s commercial develop-ment in the early 1900s with travel-centered businesses (hotels, boarding houses, restaurants) along Third Avenue reflected the importance of people arriving at the depot.

Rail cultureSadie Thayer, director of the Kittitas

County Historical Museum, said the rail line put Ellensburg on the map for entertainers who would not have otherwise visited town.

“We have five or six theaters in town at one time,” Thayer said. “We had vaudeville acts play here.”

There were some quirky elements that were likely connected to rail traffic, as well, Thayer said.

“The fire department had two bears on display as a sideshow,” Thayer said.


A track inspector for the Northern Pacific Railroad checks the railroad tracks in Upper Kittitas County circa 1915.See Railroad,

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The live bears may have been notable, but commercial aspect was more tangible.

“Our sheep industry expanded because it had a way to get its product to market,” Thayer said.

Upper County: Tale of 2 railroadsWithin a span of less than five miles

can be found the story of two rail lines and three towns that each developed in a unique manner.

The electrified Milwaukee Railroad established its depot in South Cle Elum. The Milwaukee rail is gone (the right-of-way is now the John Wayne Trail), but the railroad structures (depot and substation) remain the most significant buildings in the town.

Local historian Fred Krueger said Northern Pacific established a depot in Cle Elum, but Cle Elum was not part of the railroad land grant — the

program which provided alternating sections of land to the railroad as incentive to run the line cross country. Krueger said Cle Elum was primarily a transportation center.

Roslyn was a railroad land grant area. Coal drove Roslyn’s early devel-opment, creating a company town.

At the turn of the century, coal was king and Roslyn enjoyed the throne.

“Roslyn was the commercial center of Kittitas County until 1903,” Krueger said.

The passenger rail allowed a

countywide connection. Cle Elum and Roslyn residents would take the train to Ellensburg to catch a show or for business reasons, Krueger said.

Krueger said the railroad brought in the immigrants who created the Roslyn’s distinctive culture.

The Northern Pacific connected to Tacoma, but the Milwaukee line terminated in Seattle. Krueger said the Milwaukee provided a Seattle connection to Alaska and the gold rush.



A Northern Pacific locomotive is loaded with coal in Cle Elum circa 1910.


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Locomotives of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad are pictured on Snoqualmie Pass circa 1908.

Most of the county’s larger towns survived the end of railroad passenger services, finally coming to an end in the 1980s, but some devel-opments were solely dependent on the railroad.

Krueger said a good example was the lodge at Lester in the northern section of the county. He said it was a hot springs lodge and the only way to and from was via the Northern Pacific railroad.

“It (the lodge) was huge. It was in the middle of the wilderness. It burned down in 1912,” Krueger said.

Another quirk of the railroad, Krueger said was it put a depot at Nelson Siding as part of an agree-ment with the property owner, Peter Nelson, to allow the railroad to go across the land.

In the lower valley, Thayer said communities grew adjacent to flagstops at Roza and Thrall. When those passenger rail stopped, the communities could not be sustained.

“As soon as the flag stops disap-peared, the towns faded away,” Thayer said.

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Traffic backs up along eastbound Interstate 90 near Easton as a multimillion dollar improvement project continues.


Courtesy of Manastash Mapping

An aerial photo from 1942 shows Ellensburg and the surrounding area. The red line is Interstate 90 where it exists today.

By ANDY MATARRESEstaff writer

It took the first pioneers two weeks to cross the Cascades through Snoqualmie Pass. As trails improved, a wagon might be able to make the trip in four days, but that was only during the six or seven months a year the pass wasn’t choked with snow.

Once cars arrived and rudimentary roads were carved out of the forest, it was still an overnight trip.

Now, Interstate 90 snakes over the pass from SoDo in Seattle all the way to Weston, Mass., and the time it used to take to go from Ellensburg to Seattle is longer than the time it now takes to cross the state.

The interstate system and I-90, which is the longest interstate highway in the country, might have increased the speed of commerce and the way people moved about Kittitas County and the state, but it also increased the traffic through an already busy crossroads.

Many modern paved routes follow closely the old Native American trails that once crossed the landscape, but even those were following something else.

“Well, what they were doing was following game trails,” said Yvonne Prater, a local author and historian. Big game knew how to find the path of least resistance over rugged country.

Blazing trailsAs time went on and more white

settlers began coming into the Northwest, they started blazing more trails. Snoqualmie Pass was one of them, funneling resources and people from east of the mountains to the ports, services and attractions of the growing West Side.

Interstate increases traffic through crossroads

See Interstate, Page 36


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Men driving cattle west over the pass would stop them before Easton to fatten them up, since there were no grazing lands over the forested pass, Prater said.

When the drive made it over the mountains, the cows would eat again around North Bend before heading to market.

RailroadThe first railroad lines

came over the pass in the late 19th century, and the first automobiles came over in 1909 as part of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition world’s fair in Seattle. The cars traveled from New York City to Seattle, and over the pass, in a well-publicized stunt to open the exposition.

“And, boy, did that stir up interest in developing that as a highway,” Prater said.

InterstateContinued from Page 35


Automobiles line up near the Summit Inn at Snoqualmie Pass circa 1930.



Three men with an automobile pose next to a “danger” sign near Snoqualmie Pass on the old Sunset Highway in 1916.

Even though the road had been improved some by 1913, most motor-ists would rather ship their cars on trains than risk the drive.

Sunset HighwayCounties, local auto clubs and

private citizens started coming together to build their own crude roads, building over time what became the Sunset Highway, which ran from Seattle to Spokane.

Much of I-90 follows the old highway, and it’s still used, just under different names, along roads like Vantage Highway.

The old highway is visible at the top of the pass, Prater said. Off Exit 53 headed west, drivers should be able to see a five-mile stretch of blacktop as they take the exit to the access route.

“Most people here in the valley don’t know about it, and it’s, frankly, very close by and it makes a wonderful outing for your family,” Prater said.

There’s spots for camping, trails, a nice swimming hole and a waterfall, she said.

“When you take that route, when you look into the forest you will see the very first gigantic trees that were cut down by early loggers,” she said, and you can see the marks in the stump from the planks they’d stand on while they worked.

Although a massive interstate system altered the course of the county, local historian Fennelle Miller said it’s important to remember that, freeways or no, Ellensburg was always at a crossroads.

“We always were. These were Native American footpaths first and then they were wagon roads and then they were early automobile roads and then they were later automobile roads and then they were the interstate system,” she said. “And so the only one that hasn’t become a full-blown interstate route is Blewett.”

Other routesEven so, Miller added, the trails that

grew east to west through the county did the same thing north to south. Footpaths winding over Manastash and Umtanum ridges up Colockum evolved into the Inland Empire Highway then Interstate 82 and U.S. Highway 97.

People will travel using the path of least resistance, and the roads and trails they build might take different

routes, she said, but they’ll go in the same general direction, gradually straightening out like a river over time.

Snoqualmie Pass, for example, was first shown to settlers by Native Americans, Miller said.

“It may be a snowier route, but it’s a lower elevation route. It’s an easier climb,” she said.

Time testedShe likened the evolution of roads

over time to ancient cities.“I always tell people, you find a

good place to live 2,000 years ago, it’s going to be a good place to live today. You want to be near water, but out of the flood zone.

“You want to be on flat ground; you want to be in proximity to resources. Same thing with these roads,” she said. “The route that was chosen originally is the good route.”

Improved roads and transportation

meant faster travel times and greater freight capacities,

“But really, this was not like an instant, ‘Wow, oh my God, the world has changed for Ellensburg or Kittitas County,’ because there were already these existing roads,” she said.

“Game changer? Slowly, but definitely.”

By the numbersn About 27,000 vehicles travel

over Snoqualmie Pass daily. Of that, about 8,000 are freight vehicles.

n Freight moves about $80 billion in goods and services over I-90 between Ellensburg and North Bend annually.

n About 35 million tons of freight are transported over the pass each year.


Digital travel time signs were installed along Interstate 90 between North Bend and Ellensburg in 2011 to give drivers an estimate of how long their trip will take.


By OLIVER LAZENBYstaff writer

Long before coal or hay, salmon were vital to the people of the Kittitas Valley. During spawning season, the Yakima River and its tributaries flowed thick and red with salmon, and the fish were plentiful for the Yakama Nation.

The salmon that were so important to the Yakama people for thousands of years vanished as dam after dam blocked the flow of the Columbia, Yakima and Cle Elum rivers, allowing settlers and immigrants to irrigate crops. Now, the Yakama Nation is working to bring salmon back to the Kittitas Valley.

“Salmon is important to the DNA of the Yakama,” said Russell Jim, Yakama tribal elder. “We lived many places, we went with the environment and usually we lived where the salmon were.”

Sockeye disappeared almost immediately after

the dams went in, said Brian Saluskin, Yakama Nation Fisheries fish passage biologist.

Before Lake Cle Elum was dammed in 1933, the chrome-colored sockeye fry were born in streams above the lake.

They spent the first part of their lives in the lake eating aquatic insects and plankton. Once the dam went in, mature sockeye couldn’t get past the dam and above the lake to spawn.

“As soon as the dams went in on the glacier lakes, that was it for the sockeye,” Saluskin said.

The lifeblood of the valley are making a comebackJustin Pittman / Daily Record

Bo Parker of Ronald watches from the back of a tanker truck as sockeye salmon stream into Lake Cle Elum in summer 2012.

See Salmon,


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“They would probably find somewhere they could spawn and then their frylings would come out and not have anywhere to feed.”

Like many tribes in the Pacific Northwest, the Yakamas dried salmon and ate it year-round. Sockeye were particularly important because they are one of the last salmon to spawn before winter.

“It was a big part of the diet. Back then you were probably looking at elk meat, deer meat and salmon for protein,” Saluskin said. “They caught the sockeye when they were coming into the lake, dried them, and mashed them up to make a powder. That powder you can mix with just about anything, it’s very high in protein and it’s easily stored through winter.”

Bringing salmon backNow, the Yakama Nation and

several partners are trying to replenish sockeye salmon in Lake Cle Elum and the streams above. In 2009, members of the Yakama Nation started scooping up salmon from traps at the Priest Rapids Dam on the Columbia River near Mattawa and trucking them to Lake Cle Elum.

This spring, the first fish that spawned above Lake Cle Elum will return to the lake from the Pacific Ocean, Saluskin said. In 2009, they put 1,000 fish in the lake and there’s no way to tell how many will return. In 2012 the Yakama Nation released about 10,000 bright red mature sockeyes into the lake.

“We’ll know a lot more after this spring,” Saluskin said. “This is something that’s never been done before.”

The Yakama Nation is also working to replenish runs of Spring Chinook with its Cle Elum Supplementation and Research facility. Yakama Nation biologists are also working to restore coho salmon to the Yakima River, Saluskin said.

“It’s a really big deal to the Yakama Nation to be able to spearhead this,” he said.

Shaping the fertile valleySalmon spend one to five years in

the ocean, depending on the species. When they come back to reproduce, their flesh is packed with nitrogen and other nutrients from the ocean.

salmonContinued from Page 38

Brian Myrick/Daily Record (above) and CWU Brooks Library, Archives and Special Collections, Frederick Krueger collection

TOP: Brian Saluskin, a fish passage biologist with Yakama Nation Fisheries, uses an electronic tracking device to track tagged sockeye salmon as they spawn in the Cle Elum river near Salmon La Sac in October 2010.BELOW: Construction of Lake Cle Elum Dam in upper Kittitas County in 1910.


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“When they die they release all those nutrients to the stream,” Saluskin said. “It has a big impact, not only on forest health, but also on the wildlife.”

Saluskin said the area above Lake Cle Elum is still ideal for fish because the habitat hasn’t changed too much since the salmon disappeared.

The Yakama Tribe, on the other hand, has changed since dams took salmon from them.

“All of a sudden we’re eating food from Burger King and McDonald’s and the result is diabetes and related illness. That contributes to the burden of health care on our nation,” Jim said.

“With salmon, perhaps the health and welfare of the native people will return.”

Washington State Archives

Two Yakama men hold salmon caught at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River in 1955.

Oliver Lazenby/Daily Record

Nearly 500 people came to the Cle Elum Supplementation and Research Facility to eat salmon and tour the spawning and rearing facility in July 2012.

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Ellensburg, CWU share a close connection

By ANDY MATARRESEstaff writer

When a person considers that Central Washington University takes up 380 acres of Ellensburg, is the community’s biggest employer and draws 10,000 students each year to town, it might be tough to fathom that it didn’t even have a campus for its first few years.

When the school was founded in 1891, three years after Washington became a state, there were no build-ings to house classes and students. For the first few years, when it was called the Washington State Normal School, classes were held in Washing-ton Elementary School, now Ellens-burg City Hall, CWU history professor Karen Blair said.

The school trained elementary and junior high teachers. The majority of its first students were women.

When Barge Hall was built, it was the school’s only building.

Everything was inside: Classes, a library, “they even had an elemen-tary school so future teachers could observe the kids,” Blair said.

The school’s next building wasn’t built until 1908, and dormitories wouldn’t be built for years. Students boarded in town, she said. Central students didn’t have to be high school graduates until 1917. Before that, they had to be more than 15 years old and have an eighth-grade education.

PartnershipAs the city and school grew, they

developed a reciprocal relationship, starting with students looking for room and board.


Students fill the dining area of the SURC on the Central Washington University campus.


“The faculty and students, of course, they fill the churches, they buy at the stores, they’re part of the community too. It’s a two-way street,” Blair said.

There are plenty of examples of that now and through the school’s history.

Morgan Middle School was named for well-loved John H. “Pop” Morgan, a math professor and administrator at the normal school for 23 years, Blair said. He taught at local public schools before and after.

In 1937, the school was renamed the Central Washington College of Education. Soon after, when World War II broke out, Dean of Men Hal Holmes noticed the military needed places to train new recruits, Blair said.

“He’s probably the one who told the feds that there was an airport here, and why don’t you send some cadets along,” she said.

The school offered its facilities for ground instruction, and today, it offers programs in aviation.

Benjamin Franklin Barge, the nor-mal school’s first principal, was a part of multiple local fraternal institutions and on the board of the YMCA.

“Again, you have members of the

community serving as trustees for the school and you have members of the university serving on community organizations,” Blair said. “I’d say the

impact in both directions has been gigantic.”

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Central Washington University President Jim Gaudino speaks during the annual State of the University address at McConnell Auditorium in October 2012.

1891: Washington State Normal School opens

1894: Barge Hall opens1937: School becomes Central

Washington College of Education1961: Renamed Central Washington

State College1977: Becomes Central Washington

University

Graduates: 2,500 each yearStudents in Ellensburg: 10,000Students living on campus in

Ellensburg: 3,100Number of majors: 150Faculty and staff: 1,500

See CWU, Page 48

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Dorothy (Black) Davies graduated from Central Washington University Normal School and was the daughter of former President George H. Black. She spoke about her arrival in Ellensburg in 1916 and the early days of the school in an interview with Nona Patrick in 1973. The full transcript is available as part of the CWU Living History Project, which is part of the university archives at the Brooks Library. An excerpt of the conversation:

Davies: Although I don’t know the exact figures, the Normal School, as it was then, had somewhere between 100 and 150 students and two of them were men. All of the rest were women students and all of them taking education, that was the primary purpose of the school at that time. I don’t know how many there were on the teaching staff, but it was small and rather intimate.

I like to think of the time when my family first came here to the college, all the people in town were interested in everything, particularly in the social affairs of the college.

At that time I would say there was a very close connection between the town and the gown as we call it now.

… There was a sort of a graciousness and a slowness, I guess you would call it. At least nobody rushed a great deal. There (were) several of the people that had come here that were from the East Coast and they brought a certain amount of formality to the life and a few southerners who brought a certain amount of leisure. Along Eighth Street, which is now no longer residential to the same degree, there were some very gracious homes and there was a lot of visiting back and forth.

Patrick: Did you find the town greatly changed?

Davies: I have never thought of Ellensburg as changing a great deal. I don’t believe it will change in its flavor.

Now, don’t get me wrong; it is a different sort of town and people are different and have gone along with the times, but there is a certain flavor ... I guess that’s the word for it, about Ellensburg and I don’t think it will ever change. For instance, I can’t see us as an industrial place. I think that the charm and delight of Ellensburg has always been that it was a family town.

If you notice in business here how

many third and fourth generation families there are here in business. Now, some people deplore that, but it is whether you like it or don’ t like it ... I like it, it’s part of the picture here. I think that that’s one of the things that has made it interesting and kept it very much the same sort of community. That and the geography. You know you can only go so far until you hit the hills here.

The one thing that is noticeable now and many people ... go out for a drive and look around and see all the new houses and they say, ‘Oh, Ellensburg is growing.’ Oddly enough, it’s shifting rather than growing in population. There has been some increase, but it’s shifting in the sense that people are moving away from the central part of the town and moving out into the country and living a more or less country life, which is the charm of the valley as I see it.

Early days of the Normal School in Ellensburg

Ellensburg Public Library

The Barge Hall tower on the Washington State Normal School campus is visible in the center of this photograph, thought to be taken between 1900 and 1909.


A postcard from about 1906 shows the view looking north from the intersection of Anderson Street and Sixth Avenue. Barge Hall can be seen in the distance.


A university in town wasn’t always the agent of change, but the product.

When Washington first started the pro-cess for statehood in 1889, Ellensburg was among several cities vying to be the state capital.

Ellensburg, which was in the middle of the state and at a transportation cross-roads, thought its odds were good, said local historian Fennelle Miller.

Ellensburg ended up on the short list with Yakima and Olympia, she said.

Then a July 1889 fire devastated the city.“And for me, the fire is why we have Cen-

tral,” Miller said.Statehood would come in November of

that year, so residents rushed to rebuild what they could.

“It’s true it made us a less attractive place, but we sure rebuilt in a hurry,” Blair said.

Olympia won the bid for the capital, and Ellensburg was made the site of the state’s normal school as a consolation prize.

“They may have even used the words ‘consolation prize’ in the newspaper,” Miller said. “Certainly they said we were awarded the normal school because we burned, because we didn’t get the state capital.”

Other perksEven if Ellensburg didn’t become the

state capital, the presence of a college still brings something to the area it might not have otherwise.

Former CWU President Dr. Jim Brooks said the most important contributions Central has brought to the county are opportunities for education.

The school has programs in art, music, science and others for students and for the community, he said, along with sports and events.

“And I hope that has enriched the lives of the people here,” he said.

It’s also regularly brought new faces, whether it was staff, faculty or students, to the city.

“And you have to remember their par-ents and friends come by too,” he said, along with their spending.

The school brings its fair share of head-aches to the city, and isn’t a boon all the time to everyone, Blair said.

“Loud parties. Kids partying on the street, at their houses. Fights in the bars and stuff. That’s true in every college town. But I think the advantages outweigh the wrinkles,” Blair said. “I think the school is a wonderful second prize.”

CWUContinued from Page 45

Brian Myrick / Daily Record file

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Graduate candidates walk toward Central Wash-ington University commencement ceremonies at Tomlinson Stadium in 2010.

Barge Hall is the oldest building on campus. Today it houses financial aid, career services, the CWU Foundation and alumni relations, along with the office of the president and provost. It was named after Benjamin Barge, the school’s first president.

A Central Washington University stu-dent walks through a pastoral scene while crossing a bridge near Dean Hall on the CWU campus.


By JUSTIN PITTMANstaff writer

The summer of 2012 dealt Kittitas County one of its most devastating blows in recent memory.

Fires raged across the landscape almost continuously for about two months, charring more than 60,000 acres in the county as well as large tracts of Chelan County to the north. Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue officials described the summer as a wake-up call.

“It’s like a warning bell,” KVFR Chief John Sinclair said. “Pay attention to this, because it’s not the last time it’s going to happen.”

The Taylor Bridge Fire started Aug. 13 at a state Department of Transportation-supervised construction site on state Route 10. In three hours, it spread 8.5 miles to the east, according to a narrative compiled by one of the incident management teams that helped fight the fire, and at times, it grew at a speed of 30 miles per hour. By the next morning, the fire stretched at least 13 miles in length.

The blaze laid waste to 23,500 acres, 60 homes and numerous

outbuildings before firefighters contained it Aug. 28. At its peak, more than 1,100 firefighters from around the nation worked to suppress the Taylor Bridge Fire.

A series of smaller fires burned through Kittitas County in the weeks following Taylor Bridge.

Then, on Sept. 8, a single lightning storm ignited hundreds of fires across the county, a number of which would burn together to become the Table Mountain Fire northwest of Ellensburg. The Table Mountain Fire burned into October, and consumed more than 42,000 acres.

“We still have substantial amounts of dead forests — dead or diseased

forests — up in the Upper County, so we have to be ready for this particular threat,” Sinclair said.

Hot and dryThe Taylor Bridge Fire began after

nearly a month without precipitation. The first half of August brought hotter and drier conditions than normal to the Cle Elum and Ellensburg areas last year. Sinclair referenced climate change when referring to the situation.

“Not to get political about it, but the issue is there’s that trend line,” Sinclair said. “Call it what you will, but it is happening. It is going to continue to happen.”


A firefighting aircraft makes drops retardant in the Hidden Valley area as the Taylor Bridge Fire burns on Aug. 17, 2012.

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FIreContinued from Page 49

The local area has received about the same amount of precipitation as it has historically, said Sinclair. But less of that precipitation is falling as snow, and rain doesn’t stay on the ground late into the year the way snow can.

“All you have to do is go (to the county’s higher elevations) right now, and you’ll see that a lot of the places that we would normally have snow are down to bare earth,” Sinclair said.

At the same time, wildfire is not a new problem in Kittitas County, said KVFR Deputy Chief Rich Elliott.

“This has existed in our community on and off depending on the year or the time of year,” Elliott said.

In summer 2012, the perfect conditions for wildfire came together at just the right time to ignite Taylor Bridge and Table Mountain.

New habitsSinclair said local fire agencies are

trying to spread the word that people living in fire prone areas need to take steps to protect their homes and families. A number of local agencies work with homeowners to implement Firewise principles around their homes — which include creating defensible space — and now KVFR has begun promoting the Ready, Set Go! program as well.

Ready, Set Go! aims to develop and improve dialogue between fire agencies and the communities they serve, and help fire departments teach residents how to best prepare themselves and their property for a fire. The program encourages residents in fire prone areas to prepare for wildfire in advance by creating defensible space around their home, using fire-resistant


TOP: Firefighters work to protect a structure along Lower Green Canyon Road threatened by flames from the Taylor Bridge Fire on Aug. 13, 2012.BELOW: Former Gov. Chris Gregoire speaks to members of the news media while visiting the town of Liberty on Sept. 18, 2012, during the Table Moun-tain Fire. Gov. Gregoire was in Liberty to meet with fire officials and urge residents to evacuate when asked.


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The program teaches residents to exercise situational awareness and act early when a fire ignites near them.

Sinclair said KVFR has also been working with the Kittitas County Fire Marshal’s Office to integrate some homeowner safety measures into county code.

The 2012 fires also helped rally the Kittitas County community together.

Material donations for victims of the fire overfilled collection centers and warehouses.

Neighbors helped each other evacuate pets and livestock, and volunteers staffed evacuation shelters.

Kittitas County Commissioner Gary Berndt said he was impressed by the response of fire agencies, the county, the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office and volunteers working to save animals.

“That was a place that Kittitas County hasn’t been in the time that I’ve been in Kittitas County,” said Berndt, a long-time resident of the area.


Lawn chairs provide a sharp contrast to a burned home in Sunlight Waters on Aug. 21, 2012, after the Taylor Bridge Fire.


Other fires that changed local history

Cle Elum fires in 1891, 1918

High winds blew a trash fire out of control in downtown Cle Elum in July 1918.

The ensuing blaze torched more than 30 square blocks, according to archive infor-mation at Central Washington University’s Brooks Library. The fire left about 1,500 people homeless, and victims took shelter in the local school and Independent Mine Building on the east edge of town.

Most of the brick buildings that now comprise Cle Elum’s downtown were built after the fire. Many people left Cle Elum after the blaze, which set the city’s devel-opment back several years. But those who stayed rebuilt the town.

Cle Elum also suffered a devastating fire on July 23, 1891, which began in the Stafford store, and destroyed the area from First Street to Railroad Avenue to Pennsyl-vania Avenue.

The Great Fire in Ellensburg, 1889

An inferno engulfed downtown Ellens-burg following July 4 celebrations in 1889.

The fire reduced 12 city blocks to ashes. Nobody died, and human injuries from the fire amounted to a few second- and third-degree burns.

Ellensburg’s buildings were less fortu-nate. With the exception of the courthouse and the Lynch Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pearl Street most of Ellensburg burned south of Fifth Avenue.

An estimated $2 million in damages resulted from the 1889 fire. After adjusting for inflation, that amount would have been equivalent to $47.9 million in damage in 2010.

Accounts of the blaze agree that it started at J.S. Anthony’s grocery store on Main Street, but the fire’s cause remains one of Ellensburg’s great mysteries.


The rubble of the Masonic Lodge at the corner of Pine Street and Fourth Avenue is shown following the Great Fire of 1889.

Fires in Easton Easton’s saloon district burned in

November 1907 and the entire Easton business district burned in 1913.

Roslyn blaze The city of Roslyn burned in a fire

in 1888 which broke out between First and Second streets. The entire business district was destroyed.

Many buildings built after the fire used fire-resistant brick and sandstone, and some of these structures are still in use, including the Brick Tavern and the circa-1890 Fischer Building.


A birdseye view of the Cle Elum fire of 1918. The blaze torched more than 30 square blocks and left 1,500 homeless.


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Moonshine fire devastates the community of Ronald

Flames shot 40 feet into the air above Ronald after a whisky still exploded in 1928 during Prohibition.

Ronald bootleggers kept a stream of moonshine flowing from a 250-gallon still beneath the town’s Falcon Hall. The illegal distillery used fruit and sugar by the boxcar load.

The fire killed Ronald resident Bert Pelligrini, who was in the still room when it exploded. It consumed 32 homes in 30 minutes and left 136 people homeless. By the time volunteers suppressed the blaze 24 hours later, it had consumed 80 acres of forest and burned within 1/4 mile of Roslyn.

The Evening Record in Ellensburg reported 50 adults and 86 children were without clothing and funds following the fire on Aug. 20, 1928:

“An elaborate underground system of storage tunnels for 50 gallon kegs of moonshine and pitiful families left destitute when their homes burned — that is Ronald today after the excitement of the fire which swept the lower end of the town on Saturday afternoon has calmed down, and realities are staring sufferers in the face,” the newspaper reported.

“ ... The kegs of moonshine, which it is whispered freely, and perhaps unauthentically, (are) supported by people in Ellensburg, Walla Walla, Wenatchee, and on the coast, were stored in tiers under the Falcon hall. Sheriff “Scott” Gray dumped 1,000 gallons yesterday. The still is at the sheriff ’s office here.”

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