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 | OUR TOWNS 2008
 Our Towns Contents
Ellensburg................................................................. Pg. 4
Cle Elum ........................................................................ 7
Roslyn .......................................................................... 10
Kittitas .......................................................................... 13
South Cle Elum ............................................................ 16
Ronald .......................................................................... 19
Thorp ........................................................................... 23
Easton .......................................................................... 26
Snoqualmie Pass ........................................................... 30
Liberty .......................................................................... 33
Vantage ........................................................................ 36

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Factoids:
Location: 107 miles east of
Seattle, 173 miles west of Spokane
Population: 17,304 — U.S.
Census Bureau estimate
Origin of name: Ellensburg
was officially incorporated on
November 26, 1883. It was
named in 1885 by the first
postmaster, John A. Shoudy, after
his wife Mary Ellen. The city was
originally named Ellensburgh,
until the “h” was dropped under
standardization pressure from the
United States Postal Service and
Board of Geography Names in
1894.
4 | OUR TOWNS 2008
Ellensburg By CHELEA KROTZER
Where have all the cowboys gone?
I
n contemporary Ellensburg you’re more
likely to encounter a bare-backed barista
than a bareback bronc rider, but that
doesn’t mean the town has lost touch with its
Western roots.
Ellensburg first developed as a ranching
town founded by wild West cowboys, and it
still to this day pays homage to its heritage
with the annual Ellensburg Rodeo — one of
the nation’s oldest and best.
But Ellensburg’s present reputation has
strayed far from its origin. Today’s “settlers” are
more likely to be drawn to the town’s modern
amenities than to be lured by its Western past.
Credit these changes to Central Washington
University, originally Washington State Normal
School, which brings in a large percentage of
staff writer
students from the West Side.
CWU students make up about half the
town’s population. The proximity to the Puget
Sound — a 90-minute drive along Interstate 90
— has also changed the city’s demographics,
attracting new residents looking to escape the
Seattle area crowds.
Some natives derogatorily refer to these
arrivals as “West Siders” or “206ers” but there
is no denying this migration has sparked a
population explosion. Ellensburg has grown
from about 12,000 residents in 1990 to more
than 17,000 today — an increase of nearly 40
percent.
There are still cowboys here — some of
the best young talent on the college and
professional rodeo circuits have Ellensburg
This article originally appeared in the
July 5, 2008 edition of the Daily Record.
roots — but the city’s population and
politics are likely as liberal as they’ve
ever been because of the rapidly
changing population base and CWU’s
growing influence.
Little town, big history
Ellensburg started out as a trading
post for cattlemen, it was formerly
known as Robbers Roost, and grew
quickly, making its way into the
running as a contender for the capital
of Washington in 1889 along with
Yakima and the current capital,
Olympia.
“A lot of communities thought
they were going to be the state
capital,” City Manager Ted Barkley
said. “A lot of people think that’s
unique to Ellensburg, but it’s not.”
Regardless, Ellensburg citizens
at the time made the best effort
they could to help their town get
to the top of the heap. A building
was constructed as the governor’s
mansion, popularly known as “The
Castle” apartments today. Built by
Britton and Samuel Craig of Craig’s
Hill fame, the three-story building
had no electricity or plumbing, save a
spacious “two-holer” in the back.
But the governor never graced the
mansion, in part because on July 4,
1889, a devastating fire destroyed
much of downtown. Despite the
fire, Ellensburg was able to quickly
get back in the race for the capital,
but ended up losing two elections to
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the eventual winner, Olympia. (See
related story.)
Losing the capital bid could be
considered a saving grace, allowing
Ellensburg to retain its small-town
charm that appeals to so many locals
and incoming college students today.
“This place is awesome. You go
out on the town, you’re going to
see someone you know,” Central
Washington University senior Gary
Street said. “It’s a great, friendly
community.”
The campus started humbly as
Washington State Normal School
in 1890. In those early years the
entire school fit within the confines
of Barge Hall, accommodating a
library, classrooms, an auditorium,
gymnasium and post office.
Ellensburg’s Kitty Moe, who turned
103 in July, remembers her first day as
one of about 300 students attending
the State Normal School in 1925.
“I thought ‘What have I gotten
myself into?’ I had no idea what
Ellensburg was like other than what I
was told,” Moe said. “The hills felt so
close. I felt smothered.”
Moe arrived here from Portland,
where she had taken a high school
class from a former president the
School, Phares Adams “P.A.” Getz.
Getz was the Normal School’s
president from 1894 to 1898 and
told Moe stories of Ellensburg and
the school. Moe said Getz was her
inspiration for coming here.
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Moe never left, marrying and
raising a family.
“This is a wonderful place to live,
a wonderful place to rear children,”
Moe said.
Moe fondly remembers the simple
days of Ellensburg’s youth. Days when
there weren’t so many buildings to
shield the gusts of wind.
In winter, she and friends would ice
skate on Tjossem Pond near the old
flour mill. Eventually, the Northern
Pacific Railroad connected to the
pond and took one- to two-foot
thick ice blocks and delivered them
throughout the state.
Moe also recalls when Gilmore’s
Grocery occupied the current Wood’s
Hardware location and fondly
remembers visiting Boss Bakery on
Pearl Street. Another grocery store,
Bolyard’s, would deliver treats to the
Normal School.
“They had a cookie wagon,” Moe
said. “They delivered cookies and
sweets to the campus. All us kids
would buy the cookies.”
Today, CWU students enjoy food
prepared in the recently constructed
Student Union and Recreation Center,
which is home to cafes, conference
rooms, dining halls, a gym, climbing
wall and much more. It is the
crown jewel in a recent growth and
construction phase at CWU that has
changed the face of the campus.
With CWU bringing in nearly half
the town, every year a flood of new
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faces makes its way here as another
group returns to its West Side roots.
“I love Ellensburg,” Moe said. “I’m
sorry to see such an influx in people.
But so many young people move out
of here.”
But, like Moe, many of those who
attend college here choose to stay.
“I like Ellensburg because of the
four seasons,” CWU alum Molly
McColm said. “I enjoy the four
seasons, the fall change, the snowy
winter and the heat of the summer.”
As the seasons change, so does the
town.
Not long ago, downtown was
hustling and bustling with three
grocery stores, four butcher shops,
three men’s clothing stores, three shoe
stores, and five drug stores.
According to long-time resident
Jerry Williams, 72, the Ellensburg
he remembers from his youth was a
simpler place.
“We hung out in people’s backyards
before there were televisions and
Dairy Queens,” Williams said.
Williams moved here in 1943 at
age 7. His fondest memories were of
high school dances at YMCA, football
games and ski trips.
He said everything changed once
the hum of cars flooded the city.
“Ellensburg lost its pedestrian
nature,” Williams said. “The core
of Ellensburg is still pedestrian, but
when you get out (of the core), there’s
(Continued on next page)
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 5

lensburg is
Downtown El roots as a
it s
(Ellensburg continued) a far cry from g cow town.
bustlin
very little connectivity.”
Williams remembers walking to Hebler Elementary
school, and to Morgan Junior High School, and to
Ellensburg High School from his home on Eighth and
C street, where Jerrol’s Bookstore, his family’s business,
currently stands.
“When we went to school, we learned about the
historic buildings downtown, the people who built them,
what happened,” Williams said. “We had a sense of
place, a sense of community. Now everybody’s in transit.
They come for school then they come back 10 years later
for deja vu.”
Margaret Condit, an Ellensburg resident of 45 years,
also remembers a more vibrant downtown that housed
a JC Penney’s, jewelry stores and clothing stores all
downtown.
“You didn’t have to go out to the interchanges to
buy things and you didn’t have to go to Yakima to buy
clothes and stuff,” Condit said.
According to Condit, a member of Historic Ellensburg,
the downtown businesses began to disappear about 10
years ago.
“There are way too many empty buildings downtown
now,” Condit said.
In 2007 downtown Ellensburg was designated as one
of the nation’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations by the
National Historic Trust.
There are several groups and individuals working to
improve downtown as well as to bring more shopping
options back to Ellensburg, but there doesn’t seem to be
a consensus or a vision on how to make that happen. ■
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Historic Tidbits:
It’s not Ellensburg’s fault it didn’t become the
state capital. It certainly tried.
Cities from throughout the state made their
best pitch to land the capital back in 1889, the
year Washington became a state.
A catastrophic Fourth of July fire in 1889
wiped out 10 blocks in Ellensburg’s business
district, but the town’s leaders quickly rebuilt.
Ellensburgers argued it should be chosen
because the city was in the geographic center
of the state, which made it better suited for the
honor than either Olympia or North Yakima,
two top contenders for the new state capital.
However, Ellensburg had considerably fewer
people than Olympia, which had 4,698 people,
compared to Ellensburg’s population of 2,768.
North Yakima had 1,535 people at that time.
Ellensburg even tried to some guerilla
marketing. According to an article in the
1889 Spokesman Review, a real estate firm in
Ellensburg tried to place advertising and pay
for it with “gilt-edged real estate.”
The gimmick resulted in newspapers around
the region owning a part of Ellensburg. It
wasn’t surprising that favorable editorials were
written around the state praising Ellensburg.
In July 1889, the Ellensburg Capital
newspaper continued the push, predicting a
dramatic population increase. The paper said
the population was 4,000 in 1889, would grow
to 7,000 by 1890, 12,000 in 1891, 18,000 in
1892, 24,000 in 1893, 30,000 in 1894 and
40,000 by 1896.
Not surprisingly, the publicity resulted in
a real estate boom in Ellensburg in the late
1880s.
According to a July 1945 Pacific Northwest
Quarterly article, many lots in the central
business district sold for $150 a front foot. Two
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unimproved lots
purchased in
1887 for $1,000
sold for $5,000 a
year later, $8,000
in February 1889,
and $10,000 was
offered in May.
The
competition between cities was stiff and
Ellensburg had some things held against it.
“The town of Central, which used to
be known as Skookum Chuck objects to
Ellensburgh because the name sounds too
much like Susanville or Nancytown,” read an
article in a Waterville newspaper. Waterville was
also trying to be the state capital.
Olympia knocked both Yakima and
Ellensburg as cities with alkali dust and desert,
unbearable heat, windstorms and bitterly cold
winters.
Yakima pointed out that Ellensburg had
narrow streets and five times as many saloons
as North Yakima.
An election was held and Olympia received
25,490 votes, North Yakima received 14,711
votes and Ellensburg drew 12,833 votes. Since
no city received a majority, a second election
was held after Washington became a state. In
that election, Olympia won with 37,413 votes,
Ellensburg came in second with 7,722 votes
and Yakima received 6,276 votes.
“The Castle” was built to be the home of
the governor when Ellensburg was named state
capital, optimists believed. Ellensburg didn’t
become the capital but you can still see “The
Castle,” located at the corner of Capital Avenue
and Chestnut Street.
— Don Gronning
 Cle Elum
Unique charm
Factoids:
Population: 1,850
Origin of name: The town is
said to be named after an Indian
word meaning “swift water.”
The railroad tried to change it
to Cle Alum to simplify its code
messages.
Location: About 25 miles
northwest of Ellensburg.
This article originally appeared in the
June 21, 2008 edition of the Daily Record.
By DON GRONNING
staff writer
C
asey Stewart and her husband, Ken,
moved to Cle Elum about four years
ago from Las Vegas.
“We were ready to go,” says Casey. “We
didn’t want our kids to grow up there.”
They came here, where Ken had family.
Casey says the town has been good for them
and offers a security only small towns can
provide.
“We definitely feel safe here letting the
kids ride around on their bikes,” says Casey,
something that wasn’t true in Las Vegas.
Charlie Glondo is the mayor.
“It’s a great place to live,” says Glondo,
a 1968 graduate of Cle Elum High School.
He says the town, like the rest of the Upper
County, is experiencing change. More new
people are both moving in and moving out, he
says.
Recently, the number of homes for sale has
increased.
“I think this winter played a part in it,” says
Glondo. “I think gas prices played a part.”
Many people living in Cle Elum commute
elsewhere for work. With Upper County
gas well over $4 a gallon, commuting is
increasingly less attractive.
(Continued on next page)
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 7
(Cle Elum continued)
Difference between
Cle Elum, Roslyn
Cle Elum has its own identity. It
differs from nearby Roslyn in subtle
and not-so-subtle ways.
“I know we’re different, but we
started from the same people,” says
Glondo. He has a Croation and Italian
heritage, the two ethnic groups that
came to the Upper County to work
the coal mines.
Glondo says Cle Elum has more
jobs and people than Roslyn, one of
the key differences.
AJ Mason works as executive
director of the Upper Kittitas County
Senior Center.
She moved to Cle Elum in 2002
to help her nephew, state Rep. Bill
Hinkle, with his children. She went
to Azerbaijan, in the former Soviet
Union, to teach English but moved
back to Cle Elum a couple years ago.
She says there are definite differences
between Cle Elum and Roslyn.
“Cle Elum has a lot more businesses
than Roslyn,” she says. “There are not
as many stray dogs in Cle Elum as in
Roslyn.”
Craig Nevil has lived in Cle Elum
10 years. He has no doubts about the
difference between Roslyn and Cle
Elum.
“Roslyn has a lot more Democrats,”
he says, as he has his morning coffee at
Pioneer Coffee, “a lot more liberals.”
 | OUR TOWNS 2008
Nevil is one of the commuters. He
works as a stockbroker on the West
Side, commuting one day a week. He
moved here because he wanted his
children to experience small-town life.
“I grew up in a small town and I
wanted to raise my kids here,” he says.
“This is exactly what I wanted.”
He says he spends his mornings at
Pioneer Coffee and has had a chance
to observe the different groups that
stop by.
“Man, you can get some opinions,”
he says.
Shania Persian has been working
at Pioneer Coffee for seven months.
She is a 2005 graduate of Cle Elum-
Roslyn High School. She says she has
lived in several of the small towns in
the area and they each have their own
character.
“Cle Elum is bigger,” she says.
“Roslyn’s more of a hippie town.”
Lisa Del Rosarrio also works at
Pioneer Coffee. She commutes from
Ellensburg. She doesn’t see a lot of
difference between Roslyn and Cle
Elum.
“They’re both laid back, small
towns,” she says.
Cle Elum changing
The changing face of Cle Elum
means there are fewer long-time
residents than in the past.
That is apparent at the senior
center. Many of the people who
come to eat and socialize are relative
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newcomers, says Mason.
“I just signed up a man from
Georgia today,” she says.
Just as at the coffee shops,
conversations at the senior center can
get animated.
“Right now people are talking
about the election,” says Mason.
“That and the price of gas.”
Donna Prellwitz, 75, volunteers at
the senior center. She says she and her
late husband, Linus, came to the area
20 years ago with a fifth-wheel trailer.
“We were on vacation, staying at
Turtle Town,” she says. They walked
over to the Realtor, who showed them
some property. “We put money down
that day,” she says.
They stayed in the fifth wheel
while they built a new house. She
doesn’t regret moving here.
“It’s just a great place,” she says.
Early days
Cle Elum was founded in 1883
and incorporated at the beginning of
the 20th century. The first newspaper
was the Cle Elum Tribune. The last
issues of the weekly paper that can
be found were in 1892, the year it
was presumed to have gone out of
business.
The next newspaper was the Cle
Elum Echo, established in 1902. In the
days before radio, newspapers were
the way people stayed informed about
the world, as well as local issues.
The early pioneers saw the value in
community. They established schools,
sewer and water systems, as well as
businesses.
According to the book “The History
of Kittitas County,” one of the first
items of business was a $19,000 water
project. It was followed by a $1,500
investment in a fire hose and cart,
with two volunteer fire companies
organized.
Despite these precautions, however,
most of Cle Elum was destroyed in
a fire in 1918. The fire wiped out 29
blocks, destroying 205 houses and
28 businesses. It left 1,800 people
homeless.
The fire set the city back for several
years. Many people left, but the ones
who stayed rebuilt the town.
“Only been here 12 years”
“I don’t know why you would
want to talk to me, I’ve only been
here 12 years,” says Joe Doetsch, as
he takes out the garbage. He agrees to
show the reporter around his place,
which sits atop the hill on Fifth Street,
overlooking town.
Doetsch, who celebrated his 100th
birthday last July, shows off one of his
cars, a rare 1973 Jensen Healey, with a
34-valve, four-cylinder motor.
“It’ll go 130 mph,” he says.
Inside the house is his wife, Marge.
The couple moved to Cle Elum
from Walla Walla. Like Prellwitz, the
volunteer from the senior center, the
Doetschs didn’t need much time to
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exit 78 interstare 90. Cle Elum
 Historic Tidbits:
Cle Elum could have been skiing mecca
In her book “Snoqualmie Pass, From Indian
Trail to Interstate,” Ellensburg author Yvonne
decide to move here. Prater tells how in the 1920s and ’30s, Cle
“We stopped to get something to eat at the Dairy
Elum had an active ski club, with ski jumping
Queen,” Marge remembers. They walked across the
competitions.
street to the Realtor when they were done looking
for land.
Cle Elum had the first organized skiing
There was no land listed but there were three west of Denver, Prater wrote. Cle Elum
houses. They didn’t like the first two but fell in love resident John “Syke” Bresko, a driving force
with the third. “We put money down that same behind skiing in the Northwest, organized
day.” a club in 1920. By the end of the winter
She says she has noticed a little rivalry between the club had 36
residents of Roslyn and people who live in Cle Elum. members, half of
“Our observation is that there is a little friction them with skis,
among the old timers,” she says. Prater wrote.
For the next
Volunteers valued few years Cle
Marge has also noticed that there are many Elum was a
volunteers in town, doing a variety of tasks. skiers’ paradise.
“Volunteers do a lot here,” she says. The
One of those volunteers is 11-year-old Kellie community
MacKenzie, who volunteers at the Cle Elum Library. sponsored
She has lived in Cle Elum all her life. She has noticed numerous events
how the town has grown. and trains came
“It keeps changing,” she says. “It’s growing a lot; a from Yakima and
lot more people are coming.” Seattle bringing
Her 5th grade class had five new students last year,
spectators and
she said, although two others moved away.
skiers.
MacKenzie says she likes the parades that take
The community
place in Cle Elum at Fourth of July and Christmas.
got together and
She enjoyed watching her older brother, Reuben,
built a ski jump
when he played in the band in one of the parades.
She says she has fun with the dozen kids that live on the north side
in her neighborhood, but there is one thing that she of town. The ski
likes best about living in Cle Elum. jumping competitions
“A really nice thing about living in my town is were the highlight
that of the winter,
my grandma lives right next door,” she says. ■ with thousands of
spectators.
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S UN C OUNTRY
Cle Elum, Washington
Clubs from Oregon, Washington
and British Columbia would participate,
competing for glory and prizes. As many
as 8,000 spectators attended in 1931
competition, Prater wrote.
According to the 1933 program, the
prizes reflected the Great Depression that
was going on. For instance, boys 15 and
under competed in the Camel’s Hump
contest. First prize was a 30-day pass to
the Lane Theater, second was eight cans of
corn and peas and third was four cans of
vegetables. That was the last year the ski
jump was held, according to the book “The
History of Kittitas County.”
Old–time personals
The 1884 Teanaway Bugle newspaper ran
this story for the lonesome single men in the
Upper County area.
“Partners Wanted!! Must Be Females!!
Beauty no object”
After roaming around this cold, cheerless
and unsympathetic world for many years,
with nothing to love, no-one to caress us,
we the undersigned old bachelors, have at
last settled down on lovely ranches in the
charming valley of the peerless Teanaway.
All that is wanting to complete our
happiness is partners of the female
persuasion. No capital required and
but few questions asked. Women of
uncertain age and questionable beauty
acceptable, provided they can otherwise
pass examination. Sound teeth and strong
constitutions are the essential requisites.
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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 9

By DON GRONNING
Factoids:
staff writer
Population: 1,017 (2000
Census)
Origin of name: Named after
the Delaware hometown of a
sweetheart of Logan Bullitt, vice
president of the Northern Pacific
Railroad.
Location: About 28 miles
northwest of Ellensburg.
10 | OUR TOWNS 2008
Historic
Roslyn
faces change
L
iving in Roslyn as it undergoes significant
change isn’t easy.
“It’s good for business, horrible for
living,” says Marv Newman, 41, as he waits to
have lunch at The Pastime.
Renting or trying to buy a home is
expensive, he said.
Fabiola Basterrechea is working the counter
at The Pastime tavern. Basterrechea moved
away after graduating from Cle Elum-Roslyn
High School in 1997. She returned two years
ago.
She says there has been quite a bit of
change.
“I think there’s a lot of good and bad,” she
says. “More good than bad, though.”
The impact of growth, especially at nearby
Suncadia resort, is felt throughout the Upper
County. Home prices at Suncadia start at about
$750,000 and run into the millions. Housing
costs, both to buy and to own, have risen
dramatically.
“Everybody’s feeling the squeeze,” says
Basterrechea, a single mother. She says she
couldn’t afford to rent a place by herself. “It’s
pretty spendy for someone making minimum
wage,” she says.
She lives in the family house.
Basterrechea sees Roslyn’s glass as half full,
however. She points to the new natural foods
This article originally appeared in the
June 14, 2008 edition of the Daily Record.

market that opened recently as one of
the positive changes.
Tammy Thomas agrees.
“The new market is the best thing
that has happened to Roslyn,” she
says.
“I love it.”
Thomas has lived in Roslyn all her
life. She manages Marko’s Place, a
tavern located across the street from
the market.
“We’re a local bar, we’re not going
to benefit from Suncadia,” she says.
“We don’t have food, just beer, but
we’re open every day until 2 a.m.”
Thomas says there has been lots of
change, not all of it good.
“Lots of traffic, lots of
construction,” she says. “It’s hard to
make it with big city people moving
in.”
Tom Ballard and Suzanne Altomare
started the Roslyn Natural Foods
Market.
Ballard, who ran the Roslyn movie
theater for 19 years, says Roslyn is
split 50-50 on about everything, from
shooting the “Northern Exposure”
television show to building Suncadia.
“They’re either very accepting or
they kick your butt to the ground,” he
says.
The latest controversy seems to
be a plan by Suncadia to build 200
housing units and 118,000 square feet
of commercial and retail space on 30
acres located between First Street and
the Coal Mines Trail.
Ballard calls the plan “New
Roslyn.”
“If they really want downtown to
die, they should build that,” he says.
He says he is not opposed to housing,
but he does not want commercial
building there. “The small guy loses
out,” he says.
Explosive growth is not new to
Roslyn.
The town dates back to 1886 when
there were a few prospectors’ tents.
The first building was built that
year and by 1888 there were 1,300
people, four hotels and six general
stores, according to “History of the
Pacific Northwest.”
A fire wiped out most of the
business district in 1888, according to
“The History of Kittitas County.”
The population of Roslyn today is
about 1,000, although there are more
than 3,000 buried in more than two
dozen cemeteries that line the west
side of town. The cemeteries, which
are organized by lodge affiliation or
ethnicity, include a number of ornate,
historic headstones. A 1993 New
Yorker magazine article described
them as an “intricate necropolis.”
The cemeteries have names like
Casciatori DíAfrica, Red Men Lodge
and Foresters, along with the Veterans
and City cemeteries.
Theresa Hanlon of Burien and
Geonive DePope of Belgium, were
enjoying a sunny spring day and
having lunch at the cemetery
h talks about
dent Jim Baric
Cle Elum resi emetery in Roslyn while
the Croatian C from weed eating. Both of
taking a break s are buried in the cemetery.
Barich’s parent
Thursday.
“This is the third time I’ve
been here,” said Hanlon.
She stops when she is
traveling through the area. “It’s
serene,” she says. “It makes me
feel close to nature.”
Jim Barich serves as chairman
of the Roslyn Cemetery Commission,
the entity that oversees the different
cemeteries. He was born and raised in
Roslyn.
“My folks came from Croatia,” he
says. His parents met and married in
Roslyn after immigrating in the early
1900s. They raised 14 children. Barich
was No. 12.
Barich, 76, worked as a miner at
the No. 3 Mine in Ronald for a time
before going on to study education at
Gonzaga University. He spent most
of his career in education, working
as a principal in a West Side school
district. He moved back to Roslyn
when he retired in 1986.
Headstones proudly mark the resting
spot of former residents in the Croatian
Cemetery in Roslyn.
Barich credits volunteers for
keeping the cemeteries maintained.
“We have a lot of dedicated
volunteers,” he says. Last year 100
trees were taken down by volunteers
because they were in danger of falling.
Volunteers keep the brush cut back,
the pine needles raked and generally
maintain the cemeteries.
To be buried in the cemeteries now,
a person has to be related to someone
who is already interred there, Barich
says. Some of the cemeteries have
been abandoned when the lodge
supporting them disbanded. In those
cases they are taken over by the city,
he says.
(Continued on next page)

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 Historic Tidbits:
Roslyn is one of the most historic towns in the state. Here are just a few of the
highlights:
• It was dedicated Nov. 22, 1886, incorporated as a third class city April 10,
1886. (Roslyn continued) raised by the Friends of the
• There were 22 different nationalities enrolled in school in 1913, including Barich has mixed feelings about Roslyn Library for the renovation,
children from Syria, Poland, Italy and Croatia. the change that is occurring in most of it from government and
• A mine explosion killed 45 men at the No. 1 Mine on May 11, 1892. Roslyn. foundation grants, although some
• The population peaked in 1915 at 4,000. “It’s certainly changing, was from private donations, she
• Before the last mine closed in 1963 more than 50 million tons of coal had as is everything,” he says. He says. The annual Fourth of July
been shipped from Roslyn. says growing up in Roslyn was book sale brings in about $2,000,
• William Craven became the state’s first black mayor when he was elected wonderful. “The fishing, which she says.
I still do, was tremendous back Krake estimates it will cost
in 1976.
then.” about $1 million for the first
• The television show “Northern Exposure” was filmed in the town from
But newcomers aren’t always phase of the project. About
1990-’95.
careful when they come play in $200,000 has been spent on
• People started moving into Suncadia resort, the planned community the woods. planning, leaving $300,000-
located adjacent to Roslyn, in 2005. There is more trash in the $400,000 to go, she says. She
Left tied to the tracks campgrounds, for instance, he
says.
thinks it will take until next year
before the money is raised and
In the 122 years the town of Roslyn has been around, it has experienced its “You see changes, but not for work can begin.
share of conflict. But the disputes of today are mild in comparison to what the good, so to speak, but that’s Helmut Lehner is one of the
went on in earlier times. the way it is,” he says. newcomers to the area. He and his
Nobody is beating up a boss and trying to behead him with a train, like Erin Krake, Roslyn librarian, wife, Terry, moved here about a
some striking miners did in 1888, for instance, according to an account in says she notices more people year ago. They rent a place in the
the book “Valleys of the Strong; Stories of Yakima and Central Washington moving into the area. woods.
History.” A mob of striking miners seeking an eight-hour workday took “I used to know everybody Lehner says that compared
Alexander Ronald, superintendent of the coal mines, from his home, beat him by name,” she says. But she sees to his native Munich, Germany,
and left him tied on the tracks with a train bearing down. enough new faces now that it is Roslyn is a friendly place.
The train engineer and fireman worked to halt the train, but it wasn’t going hard to keep up. Still, if you come “The people are friendly and
to stop soon enough to avoid cutting off Ronald’s head. The fireman leaped around more than a couple times, outgoing,” he says. In Germany
from the train, ran ahead and cut the rope holding Ronald’s head to the tracks she’ll know you. he didn’t even know his
just in time. “It doesn’t take a long time to neighbors, he said.
“Ronald, in shock and weak from his beating, was taken to Reed Hotel in become a regular around here,” His goal is to buy a place here.
Cle Elum and guarded until it was safe to go home. The strike was hard on she says. Townspeople mostly seem
She is in favor of one change resigned to the town’s changes.
many people in those days of primitive labor laws and methods. Strikebreakers
she hopes will happen soon. She “Change is hard,” says Thomas,
were brought in and outbursts of trouble occurred into the winter into 1889.
hopes the library can undergo the Marko’s Place manager. “But
Finally the miners did win their eight-hour day. Superintendent Alex Ronald,
some needed renovation, turning you don’t got to like it.” n
for whom the nearby town of Ronald is named, managed to recover and it into a library, city hall and
return to his job,” finished the account. community center.
More than $800,000 has been

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12 | OUR TOWNS 2008
 This article originally appeared in the

Kittitas
Where
June 28, 2008 edition of the Daily Record.

everybody knows
your name
By CHANCE EDMAN
staff writer

A
tractor greeted several cars coming off
Interstate 90 into town recently.
Finding the small Central Washington
town is easy. Take the Kittitas exit and hang a
left. That road takes you around a few curves
and through Main Street.
But a tractor drive to the 2000 census, and has
a strong foreign representation with 14 percent
of the population born outside the U.S. Both
segments of the population have grown as the
area offers some of the most-affordable housing
in the Kittitas Valley.
The town took root as part of westward
expansion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul
and Pacific Railroads. Early buildings included
a Baptist church, warehouses, a general store, a
drug store and the train depot, which remains

Factoids:
intact.
The last train passed through the old railroad
town in 1980, but trains used to regularly
come through town on their way to Chicago or
elsewhere. The town’s depot became a member Population: 1,183
of the National Register of Historic Places in
1992. Origin of name: The city’s name
The old rail bed is still a hub of activity as comes from a Native American
it now plays home to the popular John Wayne tribe.
Trail.
Summer here is a modern take on a Norman Location: Seven miles east of
Rockwell painting — a boy and his dog fishing Ellensburg
in a stream, nearby kids roam around town on
Established: The town was
their bikes and heel blades (a new fad among the
founded in 1889, but was not
youngsters apparently) and zoom down Clerf
incorporated as a city until 1931.
Hill or play outside doing whatever.
The faces of Merrick Hyde, 10, and Timothy
(Continued on next page)

OUR TOWNS 2008 | 13

 what the building
will be when
completed,
including the
construction
workers.
“Hey Carl, what
you building over
ng down there?” Bill Orrell
K it ti ta s co ns ist of bike ridi nging with asked Carl Lowe
er da ys in ee k an d ha
Summ sw in gi ng at the cr lio tt an d across the street
ro pe hy El
Clerf Hill, ta n Allphin, left
, Timot
friend s fo r Tr is at Carl’s Barber
Merrick Hyde. Shop.
“Todd’s
(Kittitas continued) building it, but he’s keeping it hush-
Elliott, 10, dripped with sweat on hush. He always does,” Lowe replied,
their way to Elliott’s house last week while cutting Jean Arington’s hair.
after riding a bike and heel blades She’s the mother of Kittitas Mayor
around the school. On their way, 12- Steve Arington.
year-olds Colton Beutel and Tristan The potential for new development
Allphin stopped by for a display of in Kittitas still exists, but a slowed
bike riding skills in the middle of the housing market has put most planned
street. stores and housing complexes on
“I don’t ever really get bored, just hold.
at people’s houses,” Hyde said. “I Several landowners near the I-90
don’t play video games that much. I interchange told the city they would
just play outside and go on the rope have stores built and open by this
swing at the creek.” time. Plans were delayed and now are
Elliott says he’s building a postponed indefinitely, but the city
playhouse with his dad this summer of Kittitas moved on and worked its
and they’re almost done. They need budget around the oncoming deficit.
to finish the walls and paint it before Most people in Kittitas don’t worry
he and his friends can sleep in it. about things like that.
Over on Main Street, country music Want to catch the mood in town?
can faintly be heard over hammers at Sit in Lowe’s shop for half an hour. He
a large building next to Wagon Wheel has a story for everything and loves
Cafe. talking to anyone about it. Just don’t
No one in town seems to know call his shop a salon.
Open Mon-Sat 8-6 & Sun 9-4 • Main St. Kittitas • 968-3368
“It’s a man’s barber shop,” Lowe
says emphatically, with a playful look
on his face.
Lots of military people come to
Carl’s for haircuts.
“They like their high-and-tights
and flat tops and I know how to do
’em,” Lowe explains.
He has a wall covered in photos of
military men and women who have
come to his shop over the years. One
soldier found a helmet in Iraq and
gave it to Lowe. It’s now covered in
signatures from his military customers
and hangs on his wall.
People talk about towns where
everybody knows everybody. Here, it’s
mostly true. And if you’re not on a
first-name basis, you’re still neighbors
and, more often than not,
friends.
On this June day, the
sign outside City Hall
says “Farewell Buddy
good luck.” Visitors may
be confused by the sign,
which refers to longtime
Kittitas police officer
Jerry “Buddy” Shuart III,
who left the department
at the end of the
month.
But in Kittitas,
that sign needs no
explanation. ■ Curly’s Dinin
g
local haunts, and Spirits is one of the m
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screen TV. ol and sports e popular
on the big
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14 | OUR TOWNS 2008

Kittitas one of many
railroad towns
By DON GRONNING
stff writer
K ittitas, like many of the small
towns in the West, grew up
around the railroad. In her 1996 book
“Standing by the Side of Your Arm,
An Illustrated History of the City of
Kittitas, Washington,” Virginia Paul
collected the stories of long-time
residents.
“The depot was a busy place,” wrote
Paul. “There were several passenger
trains daily, east and west.”
People would ride the train into
Ellensburg, catching it in Kittitas at 7
a.m. and arriving in Ellensburg before
the stores opened. They would shop
and return to Kittitas by 3 p.m.
Since the station agent also
represented Railway Express and could
ticket passengers on other railroads
and ocean liners, transportation was
arranged to anywhere in the world,
she wrote.
Myrtle Cameron told about hobos
in her story in the book.
She said about 1931-32 the boxcars
that went by were full of men. Many
would come to her parents’ house
offering to work for food.
“When the train stopped, one would cellar to take with them. People cared
be sure to come knocking at their door
for a handout,” Cameron wrote.
CHILLY WILLIE • DELI • BEER • PROPANE • DIESEL • ICE
Historic Tidbits:
The thieving monkey of Kittitas
During the 1920s and ’30s, Kittitas was a lively place, according to
Ben Cameron and Mrs. Vern Farnham, writing in the book “History of
Kittitas County.”
They told the story of Jeff Jones’ monkey. In 1924, Jones ran the
pool hall in Kittitas.
“He had a monkey that was known for swiping anything loose from
the salesmen who came into the pool hall. No one could figure out
what became of all the loot until years later when they tore down the
old water tank and found the remains,” they wrote.
The monkey caused quite a bit of trouble. In addition to swiping
stuff, he whipped every dog in town and would kill chickens.
“One day he grabbed one of Mrs. Van Alstein’s prize roosters, so
she went into the house and got her gun while the monkey ran up the
tree. Evidently she was a good shot because his life ended abruptly,”
wrote Farnham and Cameron.
Kerouac kin lived in Kittitas
The famous novelist Jack Kerouac had a Kittitas
connection, albeit a distant one. His daughter,
Jan Kerouac and ex-wife, Joan Harvey, lived for
a time in Kittitas in the late ’60s and early ’70s,
Todays train depot in Kittitas, a former according to the book “Use My Name, Jack Kerouac’s
commercial hub now turned to a Forgotten Families” by Jim Jones.
community park. “Just as Joan was settling in, Jack Kerouac died of
alcoholism in Florida.
Her mother never refused anyone,
“Jan heard the news on her way up the coast,”
though they were having tough times
wrote Jones.
themselves during the Depression.
Luverne Bohnen, a Kittitas teacher
“In the rugged surroundings of the far West,
quoted in the book, said hobos were nearing the age of forty, Joan found expression
common in those days. for her many eccentricities. Amid the
“Many men rode the rails looking brown treeless hill of the Kittitas Valley,
for work. Those who lived near the with the snowcapped peaks of the
tracks often prepared sack lunches for Cascades in the background, she finally
them and gave them food from the let it all hang out,” he wrote. “She was
crazy, it appears, but she was also free ...”
for each other more than they do
today,” she wrote. ■
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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 15
 This article originally appeared in the April 14, 2007

South Cle Elum

edition of the Daily Record.

By DON GRONNING
staff writer

Factoids:
Population: 546
Location: About 30 miles
northwest of Ellensburg, south
of Interstate 90, adjacent to Cle
Elum.
Origin of name: Well, it’s South
of Cle Elum. Cle Elum is said to
originate from the Kittitas Indian
words for “swift water.”
S
o why is there a South Cle Elum?
It is an incorporated town, with its own
town government but it is located within
a few blocks of Cle Elum, its much larger sister.
It could easily be a part of Cle Elum, but it’s
not.
The easy answer as to why it isn’t a part of
Cle Elum is because of the railroad. Cle Elum
grew up around the Northern Pacific Railroad,
while South Cle Elum was formed around the
Milwaukee Railroad depot, roundhouse and
icehouse.
There is definitely a difference between
the two towns, and South Cle Elum people
obviously like having their own town. A
former South Cle Elum town councilman used
to refer to Cle Elum, with its 1,800 people, as
North Cle Elum.
“We have our own mayor, city council and
zip code,” said Mary Pittis, who, along with
her husband and town planning commissioner
Doug Pittis, operates the Iron Horse Bed and
Breakfast in South Cle Elum. “The citizens like
it separate.” South Cle Elum Mayor Jim DeVere
said there is a definite difference in the way the
two towns approach problems.

16 | OUR TOWNS 2008

 “It’s different generations, different
solutions,” he said.
“It just happened to shake out
that way.” DeVere takes pride in the
fact that South Cle Elum was the
first town in the county to adopt a
comprehensive plan for growth under
the state’s growth management act in
1996.
Cle Elum didn’t pass its plan until
March 2007.
He said it is no accident that
South Cle Elum doesn’t have many
businesses.
“We made a conscious decision to
be a small, rural community when we
did the comprehensive plan,” he said.
The lack of large businesses means
it is more difficult for the town to
have money to pay for services, he
said.
Still, there are businesses in town.
In addition to the bed and breakfast,
there are massage therapists, an auto
body repair shop, a gift shop and a
builder of yard art.
DeVere, who has served as mayor
since the early 1990s, was unopposed
the last time he ran. He said he may
be biased, but he believes South Cle
Elum has good government.
“We get our streets plowed on time
when there is snow,” he said.
In 2002, there was some talk of
merging the two towns, but it ended
when the town council and DeVere
declined to pursue the matter. DeVere
said at the time that it would send the
business briefs
PROMOTIONS!
wrong message that South Cle Elum
was not financially viable.
“That simply is not true,” he said
then.
The two communities do share
some things, like police.
“We contract with Cle Elum for
police,” said DeVere.
He said he eventually would like to
see regional law enforcement.
There are other shared services,
such as sewer and water. South Cle
Elum’s volunteer fire department has
a mutual aid agreement with other
agencies. DeVere describes it this way.
“We help you and you help us,”
he said. “We don’t pay you and you
don’t pay us.”
South Cle Elum has changed over
the years, although it is still a quiet
little town.
“We’ve probably gained 250
people,” said DeVere. He said the
town’s population is now about 540.
He said there have been advances in
the last few years. South Cle Elum
now has access to a regional water
supply and regional wastewater
treatment, for instance.
Approximately 40 percent of the
town’s population is retired people,
according to a 2000 Census report.
“But there are a fair amount of
younger people here, too,” said
DeVere.
One of those younger people is
Brian Lee, who manages The Depot,
the newly restored train depot that
NEW HIRES!
A caboose is one
of the may railroa
d artifacts in Sout
h Cle Elum.
serves as café and mini-museum on and was the only late-night eatery in
the site of the old Milwaukee Railroad northern Kittitas County.
station. The Depot Café attracts a variety
He came to South Cle Elum as of tourists, including a lot of railroad
a general contractor to work on buffs, said Lee. It is located in Iron
restoring the station. Horse State Park, a 110-mile park that
“That’s how I got involved, stretches along the right of way of the
pounding nails,” he said. “I went from old Milwaukee Railroad.
contractor to cook.” The site includes an interpretive
He is also vice-president of the trail and a 1946 caboose donated by
Cascade Rail Foundation, which was the Othello Chamber of Commerce.
instrumental in getting funding to Future plans include an H-O scale
rebuild the old depot. train diorama of the Renslow Trestle
The Depot opened in July 2006 and a telegraph that guests will be
after a seven-year, $1 million able to use, he said.
restoration. The original depot was While the railroad history is
built in 1909 and, until it was closed appreciated, it’s the small-town
in 1974, fed railroad workers at The nature of South Cle Elum that the
Beanery. It was open around the clock (Continued on next page)
The Daily Record is looking for news and photos
about local businesses.
New employees, promotions of current work-
ers, training sessions and building expansions
or remodeling are some of the items we want to
cover.
If your business is doing something newsworthy,
please let us know, preferably by e-mail. People
in business items will be limited to 250 words.
Send news releases and digital photos to assis-
tant editor Michael Gallagher at
mgallagher@kvnews.com.
You can also drop information and photos off at
the Daily Record office or mail them to 401 N.
Main St., Ellensburg, WA 98926.
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 17

Brian Lee prepares a batch of soup for the Depot Café & Milwaukee
Railroad Museum.
(South Cle Elum continued)
residents prize.
Postmaster David Thompson has worked climate here.
at bigger Post Offices, but likes South Cle
Elum better.
“I really enjoy the size of this Post
Office,” he said between talking with
customers.
The Post Office has 590 Post Office
boxes, but they include boxes for people
from outlying areas such as Peoh Point, he
said.
Joan Irwin moved back to South Cle
Elum three years ago.
“I’m happy to be back,” she said. The
town has grown since she and her late
husband, Wes, first bought a home here in
1976.
Elaine Minerich has lived in South Cle
Elum since 1976. She likes the small town
and the quiet here.
“It’s 100 percent better than the West
The
wants to send you
to the movies!
Call (509) 925-1414 for details or stop by our office at 401 N. Main St.
18 | OUR TOWNS 2008
Historic Tidbits:
Side,” she said. “I
Tough Crowd
wouldn’t go back to Audiences used
all that traffic for the
world.”
to be harder on
Still, she can’t pastors
completely escape the
outside world. It’s funny what you can
As she thumbs uncover while researching in
through her mail, she the Ellensburg Public Library.
remarks about all the This tidbit was found in the “History of Churches in
junk mail she gets. Cle Elum and Vicinity,” part of a 1955 history report
“Every Democrat prepared as part of a community development study.
and Republican and “It was not uncommon for people from other
missionary knows me,” denominations to attend different churches, throw
she said. peanuts at the ministers and boo them. The Wild West
Mary Pittis, who moved must have been trying at times for Men of the Gospel.”
here eight years ago “I haven’t had it quite that tough,” laughed Pastor
after 20 years in Burien, said she likes the
James Ruppel of the Good Faith Evangelical Lutheran
Church in South Cle Elum, when told of the practice.
“It’s a little bit sunnier, a little bit
About 47 people attend his church, where Pastor
warmer,” she said.
“The fewer days of gray make a big Ruppel presides over weddings, baptisms and funerals.
difference.” Bible study starts at 8 a.m. on Sundays, with services at
She said people enjoy being able to ski in 9 a.m.
the winter and picnic in the summer. Janet Bunch, administrative assistant for the Christian
DeVere, who moved to South Cle Elum & Missionary Church, also found the idea funny.
in 1968, said South Cle Elum is a small “I’m sure the pastor could relate to that,” she said.
community, where everybody pretty much Matt Knighton is pastor for the church, which
knows everyone else. He appreciates the is also located in South Cle Elum, where it serves a
lack of traffic, but also appreciates the congregation of 120-150 people.
uncomplaining nature of the residents. Sunday service starts at 9:30 a.m. In addition to
“People really don’t have a lot of the Sunday service, the church also plays host to bible
unhappiness to bother anyone else with,” studies for men, women and children, as well as home
he said. studies.
It’s an observation many politicians can People are invited to attend either church, but
only dream about making. ■ peanuts are not supplied.
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Ronald
A far cry from its mining town days
Factoids:
Location: About two miles
north of Roslyn on SR 903.
Population: There are 350 Post
Office boxes, with about the
same number of people living in
Ronald, although it’s estimated
several hundred more people live
on the outskirts of town.
Origin of name: Ronald
was named after mine Supt.
Alexander Ronald in the late
1880s.
By DON GRONNING
staff writer
This article originally appeared in the April 27, 2007 edition of the Daily Record.
A
typical winter in Ronald starts at
Thanksgiving and goes until about April.
“Sometimes a little longer, sometimes
shorter,” said John Vukonich, 21, who was
born and raised in Ronald. He works at the
Ronald General Store, a store that has a little of
everything.
“The main thing that goes out is beer, pop
and ice,” he said, especially around the Fourth
of July, which he said is the busiest time of
year for the store.
“It gets hoppin’ in the summer, but when it
gets cold it drops off like a brick in a lake,” said
Tina, who also works at the store. She wouldn’t
give her last name.
“I wasn’t raised here,” she said, although
she has lived in Ronald the last 27 years. She
is amazed at the amount of change in the last
few years.
“It’s pretty crazy how many houses
appeared out of nowhere,” she said. She said
the growth started happening about the same
time Suncadia resort started being developed.
She is ambivalent about the large luxury
development located a few miles away.
“I’m no fan of Suncadia, but I think when
you buy property you should be able to do
(Continued on next page)
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 19

h, who
John Vukonic
(Ronald continued)
what you want with it,” she said.
She said that for such a big
development, people have a hard time on the other side of the hill,” said
locating it.
“I probably get 20 people a day
who can’t find it,” she said.
Dave Chase was raised in Ronald.
His father and grandfather worked in
the coal mines. He moved away then
moved back 17 years ago. He agreed
Ronald is changing.
or ks at th e R onald Gen
ald, w
w as bo rn an d raised in Ron , which has a little of everyt
ss
Store, a busine
“This jewel is not going to sit
undiscovered with that many people
Chase, referring to the West Side of
the state.
“Every inch of the (state Route) 903
corridor is getting developed.” Chase
said.
He probably is best known in
the area for feeding the 80 elk
that appeared in a pasture behind
his house in the mines.
downtown Wallgren, who was 89 when this
Ronald in the article was written, has lived in
winter of 2006. Ronald all her life, the last 70-plus
That and his years in the same house. Her three
cars. children attended Ronald School, as
He has she did before them.
several, In some ways, she misses the old
including a 1979 days.
Porsche and a “People didn’t have much, but they
classic Mercedes. enjoyed life,” she said. “Before, life
Chase looks was very simple. People didn’t have to
at the growth in have everything to be happy.”
Ronald as both She had her share of hard times,
good and bad, or though. Her husband died when he
maybe neither was just 54.
good nor bad. “He got the flu and died the same
“This area has day,” she said. “It was Christmas Eve,
always had to 1968.”
sell its future,” The last of the coal mines closed
he said. in 1963, she said. She went to work
er al Young people at Safeway in Cle Elum in 1957, one
have had to of the few women working full-time
hing.
leave to find there. She worked six days a week,
work. Now, with and started at about $1 an hour.
Suncadia and In addition to the mines, Ronald
the construction may be best known for the 1928 fire
jobs, there is work here, but the gap that started when a still blew up.
between rich and poor is spreading. Wallgren was 10 years old at the time
There used to be plenty of work in and remembers the fire.
Ronald. “The fire was in the middle of the
Hard work. Work in the coal mines. day,” she said. “It was a windy day.”
That’s what Julia Wallgren’s father, They heard an explosion and saw a
Joe, did. He immigrated to the U.S. smoke ring rise into the sky, she said.
from his native Croatia, one of many “The fire was getting away and
Croatians who made their home in going toward the powder house,” she
Ronald. said.
Her husband, Bill, also worked in Explosives were kept there and the

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20 | OUR TOWNS 2008

miners were called out to help put the fire
out.
It was extinguished, but not before it
claimed 32 houses.
The only person to die was the person
tending the still, who died from burns
that night.
That same night her younger sister was
born.
Ronald is famous for its bootlegging
past, but it is also famous in black history.
During a miners’ strike in the late
1800s, black miners were recruited from
back east to work in the mines and break
the strike.
They didn’t know they would be
strikebreakers until too late, but by the
time they arrived they were prepared.
“When the colored men came from
the east to take over the striking miners’
jobs, the miners met the train with guns,”
Ethel Craven, told interviewer Charles
Lovell in 1983.
“They didn’t know that the colored
men had guns.” Craven, who died in
1993, was one of the early black pioneers
and a historian for the vibrant black
community.
Her son, William Craven, became the
mayor of nearby Roslyn, the first black
person to hold such a position in the
state.
He worked as a custodian for
the school and had a side job as a
gravedigger.
The family had a sense of humor, if
this ad for his brother’s grave digging
business was any indication.
Historic Tidbits:
“If you want an old fashioned burial,
I’ll be the last one to let you down,” Wes
Craven’s ad read.
Ronald may be quite a bit different
today than it was when the mines were
going and it had 11 businesses, a school
with six teachers and a population of
about 600.
But the people who live here still like
it and care for one another. If you stop
by the Old No. 3 tavern, as this reporter
did, you can hear that concern expressed
in the conversations between the patrons
and the waitresses.
After the good-natured joshing, the
waitress became concerned when one
of the regulars told her of a hearing
problem.
“You need to go to the doctor, I worry
about you,” she said.
Mary Friedley moved to Ronald about
16 years ago. She works at the Post Office,
located in the same building as the
Baptist Church.
She lives with her three dogs near
work. The weather doesn’t bother her.
“When I get snowed in, I just walk to
work,” she said.
She didn’t say if it was the people or
the natural beauty of the area that drew
her to Ronald. She had a friend who lived
here that she used to visit and she liked
the place so much she moved here. She
hasn’t looked back.
“I just love it up here,” she said. She
isn’t alone. ■
Hooch
History
Ronald used to be a regional hub of bootlegging the
Upper County was a hotbed of bootlegging during the
Prohibition days, when a still blew up in Ronald on Aug.
18, 1928. The resulting fire claimed 32 homes that day.
Daily Record reporter Alma Burns wrote a 1974
story looking back on those days. One grocer in nearby
Roslyn sold a railroad carload of sugar a month to feed
the 250-gallon still, she wrote. “And I wasn’t the only
grocer,” he told Burns.
Another grocer told her he used to sell 10-12 carloads
of lemons and oranges a year to feed the still. When
suspicious produce suppliers asked about it he “told
them these people like lemon in their tea,” she wrote.
People described the Ronald still as a smooth
operation, all underground, with a still room connected
to the Danadio Garage by tunnel. Barrels of “White
Mule” whiskey were loaded into furniture trucks for
transport to Seattle.
After the fire, some residents didn’t want the whiskey
to go to waste.
“With pitchers, pails, dishpans and bedpans, residents
scooped up the amber liquid,” Burns wrote. “No one
seemed to mind the ashes and bits of charred wood
that floated to the surface.”
“Half the town was burned out. The other half was
drunk,” she quoted an unnamed person as saying.
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This article originally appeared in the
May 5, 2007 edition of the Daily Record.
Thorp
Factoids:
Population: 273
Location: About nine miles west
of Ellensburg off Interstate 90
Origin of name: Named after F.
Mortimer Thorp, an early settler
Rich in history,
people By DON GRONNING
staff writer
I
f you have driven I-90 to Seattle, you
probably are aware of the name Thorp. The
Thorp Fruit stand, with its huge letters, is
clearly visible from the roadway.
But you have to drive a little farther to get
to Thorp itself. The historic Thorp Mill dates
back to the 1800s and is the only gristmill in
the state that has its original machinery and
equipment.
But its present is also rich in culture and
people.
People like Joy Fields, a volunteer firefighter
and EMT who works as a paraeducator at
Thorp school, where she provides individual
assistance to students.
“I’ve had family in the Valley for 100 years,”
said Fields. She grew up in Thorp and jokingly
describes herself as one of the town kids, so
called because they lived in the three-block
area that was old Thorp.
She was a sophomore at Thorp High
School when Sig Egbert came to work there.
He is assistant principal and now Fields’
granddaughter attends Thorp, the third
generation of Fields to attend school with
Egbert. Fields jokes that he may be there for
another generation.
(Continued on next page)
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 23

in Th
rks in her garden
Kathy Sanford wo Thorpe to be closer to their grandc
husband moved to
(Thorp continued)
Fields said Thorp has changed over
the years.
“When I was little, we used to have
two stores and a gas station,” she said.
After a devastating fire in February
(2007), Thorp finds itself without a
store.
Fields was among the firefighters
who battled the blaze that destroyed
Robin’s Grocery and Grill Feb. 28,
2007.
“I was there 16 hours,” she said. “It
was devastating.”
The store had been around since
1909, she said, and its loss was deeply
felt in the community.
But it didn’t destroy the town’s
spirit, which is one of the things that
she likes most about living in Thorp.
“We’re still in the good old days,
where neighbors help neighbors,” she
said.
Just the other day, she said, her
daughter noticed her neighbor’s mule
was out. They got in their pickup
and caught the
animal.
You notice
that people
are friendly
in Thorp, but
you also notice
they like their
or pe . Sh e an d her livestock. Take
hildren. Howard Barlow,
a sculptor. He
keeps chickens
in his backyard. He keeps them for the
eggs, but also because he likes them.
“They make good pets,” he said,
holding Lester, his big gray rooster.
Barlow and his wife, Lori, moved to
Thorp about four years ago.
“I grew up in Olympia,” he said.
He came to the Kittitas Valley to go
to school at Central Washington
University, where he earned a master
of fine arts degree in 2000.
“I fell in love with the area and
never left,” he said. The Barlows live
in the old firehouse. Lori is a teacher
who works in the Mattawa Elementary
School, about 40 miles southeast in
Grant County.
She and others from the area
commute to Mattawa daily, he said.
“There are actually a lot of people
who teach out there,” he said.
They carpool.
Barlow said the relatively
inexpensive price of housing was one
of the reasons he moved to Thorp. He
suspects it is also a reason other artists
moved here. these days, and said that gives him
“We could afford to buy places that an opportunity to get to know his
others didn’t know what to do with,” neighbors. He said most of them are
he said. nice people.
While he loves it now, it took him “But there are also a couple of
some time to get used to the area grapes,” he said.
when he started school at Central. He also misses Robin’s Grocery.
“At first I missed all the green and “It was so nice to have it right here
the city,” he said. It took him about in town,” he said. “It’s sad to see it
three years to come to appreciate the gone.”
Kittitas Valley. Tallman also has animals, in his
“Now it’s home,” he said. case, cats. He likes his cats, a mother
His neighbor, Hubert Tallman, is cat and her adult offspring, but he
also a relative newcomer to Thorp, said they haven’t really reduced the
although he and his wife, Doris, lived number of mice on his place.
in the Upper County when they met. “They catch them and play with
She was from Cle Elum and he was them until they get tired,” he said.
from Roslyn.
“When we
decided to
be together,
we picked
Thorp,” he
said. He was a
career military
man, a staff
sergeant in
the Marine
Corps, who
served three
tours in
Vietnam, he
said.
“I love
Thorp, I really
do,” he said.
He works as Howard Barlow is one of the artists who moved to Thorp. Seen
a mailman here with the chickens he keeps in his backyard.

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But they don’t kill the rodents.
“Then they let them go,” he said. The mice
retreat to the backyard. “Now my place is
infested,” he laughs.
Kathy Sanford was out doing yard work
when this reporter stopped by. She said she and
her husband, Jerry, moved to Thorp from the
West Side of the state about two years ago.
“We were tired of the rain,” she said. The
Sanfords’ son and grandchildren were already
in Thorp, so it seemed like a logical place to
move to when they retired.
She likes having a larger garden and
appreciates the natural beauty of the area.
“The scenery is really pretty here,” she said.
Aloa Mitchell is another who appreciates the
natural beauty of the area. She was saddling her
horses and preparing to go for a ride at the Lazy
H Ranch, located across the tracks near the
downtown area.
“I like it here,” she said.
She likes the wide variety of birds she sees
on her rides, the red-headed woodpecker, the
pygmy owls, the blue and white herons, the
bald eagles and Canadian geese, as well as the
little finch that inhabit the area.
She likes the fact that Thorp isn’t that
remote but is still rural.
People know that Thorp, which was founded
in the 1800s, can’t remain static. Barlow, the
sculptor, expressed the fear of many in the
Kittitas Valley.
“I hope development doesn’t spoil it,” he
said, although he fears it may be just a matter
of time before Thorp is discovered. “We’re
going to enjoy it while it lasts.”
If Thorp’s century of history is anything to
go by, it will likely last a long time. n
C U S T O M P I C T U R E
Historic Tidbits:
‘Entire community insulted’
‘A shameless exhibition of depravity on the streets of Thorp’
Those were the headlines for a 1906 story that appeared in the Ellensburg Capital newspaper.
“The people of Thorp are very indignant over an incident that occurred a few days ago, and if the
Capital is correctly informed they are justified,” the paper reported. It went on to tell of a party of men
and women from Ellensburg who arrived in Thorp after an afternoon of drinking.
“One of the depraved females, as the story goes, marched up and down the main street of the
village blowing a horn,” reported the Capital.
“When a good sized crowd had collected she deliberately raised all her clothes above her head and
gave an exhibition of the hoochee cochee dance. Then, blowing her horn, she marched back to the
starting point where the performance was repeated.”
The Capital writer was as offended as the citizens.
“The miserable creature, of course, was drunk, as were her beastly companions,” the reporter wrote.
That didn’t excuse them for exposing the children of Thorp to “a display of degradation seldom
equalled in the haunts of vice and never exceeded it its vileness.”
The writer opined that the people of Thorp would have “been justified had their wrath taken a
violent form. As several were heard to remark ‘a load of birdshot would not have been out of place.’”
Thorp schools valued
Thorp has had a school dating back to 1895. The Thorp School consists of 174 students, kindergarten
through high school. The local papers, then as now, covered school activities.
Here are some of the items noted in a history paper written in 1973 by William Fields.
The Dawn newspaper, whose motto was “Keep in the Middle of the Road,” reported that:
• Sept. 17, 1895, Thorp school opened with 60 students.
• Dec. 21, 1895, “Mr. Hinman is the teacher. There is perhaps only one person in the community
whom he can speak to without a downward glance.”
• Feb. 4, 1898, Thorp schoolteachers average salary was $48 per month.
The Ellensburgh Localizer, a paper published 1894-1900, reported that:
• June 29, 1895, “The Thorp baseball nine had a game with the Ellensburgh nine on Sunday; the
Thorps were badly worsted, scoring 3 to Ellensburgh’s 30. They can, perhaps, play some other
game better than baseball. They were scarcely in it at all with the Ellensburghers.”
• Jan. 25, 1896, “The boys of the public school have formed a non-tobacacconist league. Any
member caught chewing the vile weed is fined a dollar; the dollar goes to purchase books for
the library. The girls have formed a similar league, only they discard gum instead of tobacco.
Consequently the boys will chew gum and the girls will chew — their tongues.”
JOSEPH GUGGINO
Artist in Residence
300 W. Third, Ellensburg, WA 98926
509-962-2799
Mon.- Fri. 10-5 Sat. 12-5
F R A M I N G
OUR TOWNS 2008 | 25

Factoids:
Location: 38 miles west of
Ellensburg off I-90
Population: 500
Origin of name: Easton got
its name because it was the
first town east of the Cascades,
according the “History of
Kittitas County,” book. It had a
counterpart, Weston, on the West
Side of the mountains.
26 | OUR TOWNS 2008
By DON GRONNING
staff writer
Unusual things hapen in Easton or so the story goes
S
usan McKee has two miniature horses,
tiny horses the size of dogs. That isn’t that
unusual, but how she acquired the first
horse is.
“I went home for lunch one day and here is
this miniature horse and a goat,” said McKee,
who operates the Easton Post Office. “I didn’t
know where they came from.”
So she kept the horse for a couple days until
she found the owner. She took the horse back
and two more times it got out and appeared at
her door.
This article originally appeared in
the April 14, 2007 edition
of the Daily Record.
The third time she asked the owner if she
could keep it and he agreed.
The miniature horse joined her three other
horses but she felt like she should get it a
buddy its own size, so she acquired another
miniature horse.
Unusual things happen to some people
who live in Easton, the old railroad town. At
the opposite end of town from the Post Office
is CB’s general store, motel and coffee shop.
There, a man who didn’t want to be identified
told this reporter that he had won $6 million
in Washington’s lottery a few years ago. CB’s is also home to a morning coffee
Improbable? group that gathers daily.
Maybe. Impossible? Who’s to say? “They’re waiting for me when I get
That man wasn’t the only person this here,” she said.
reporter encountered who didn’t want to Fitzgerald especially likes the local
be quoted but had plenty to say. school, where two of her children
“If you really want a good story, see attend.
if someone will tell you about the local “Everything about it is good,” she
politics,” said another man, who insisted said.
his name not be used. The Easton School District is one of
He said that, like other parts of the the smallest districts in the state, with
state, the town seems divided between the 111 students in kindergarten through
long-time residents and newcomers. high school.
“The newcomers are for change and There are 34 high school students
growth and the old timers want things to — eight seniors, eight juniors, seven
stay the same,” he said. sophomores and 11 freshmen, said
McKee, from the Post Office, said the Easton School District Superintendent
area has seen change in the 19 years she Suellen White (who retired in 2008).
has been here. The school combines with Thorp for
“The town has stayed the same, but the Photo courtesy the Frederick Krueger Collection at Central Washington some sports, but the Easton Jaguars
outlying areas have seen growth,” she said. University. A group of loggers takes a break from working with a steam ‘donkey’ have their own basketball and volleyball
There are 522 Easton Post Office boxes in this circa 1914 photo, which has Easton denoted on the back. teams. And the Easton archery team is
and when the mail comes in, the tiny Post the wdefending state champions.
Office is full of people coming and going. Transportation land near town about nine years The Easton school underwent an extensive
Don Fronsdahl was one of those people. He first ago. $4.6 million renovation and expansion that was
bought property in Easton in 1983 and moved here “We adopted that with the help of DOT,” he said. completed in 2004.
in 1993 from Kent. His friends had property nearby The committee keeps the park cleaned up and built White said she and her husband, Bill, have felt
so he bought some. a couple of covers that people use to get out of the welcomed by the people of Easton, both long-time
What does he like best about Easton? weather. Each year a free fishing day takes place residents and newcomers.
“It’s folksy, I guess,” he said. “It’s a small town.” there a couple weeks after the Memorial Day Parade. She doesn’t think there is much animosity
It’s a small town with a big Memorial Day Parade, Tami Fitzgerald moved to Easton about eight between newcomers and longtime residents.
which Fronsdahl helps put on. Celebrations like this years ago from Sydney, Mont. She works at CB’s, “This isn’t as bad as other places I’ve lived in,”
don’t just happen; they require work and planning. where, in addition to the other services, Lotto she said.
“That takes up about two months,” he said. The tickets are sold. You can’t talk about Easton without talking
parade, which began in 1991, is something the “We had a local guy hit a $1,000 a while back,” about snowmobiling. The local 4-H Club has a
town takes pride in. she said, which led to the conversation about snowmobiling group and people come from all
The parade committee has also established winning things, which led to the $6 million lottery over to snowmobile in the Easton area. That’s what
Easton Ponds Park on some state Department of tale. (Continued on next page)

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Riders of the Lake
in between flags Ea sto n RV Resort
and balloons durin float peer out
Memorial Day Ce g
lebration Parade the Easton
in 2006.
(Easton continued)
drew Martha Bennett and her husband, Dean
Bulpin, to the area about two years ago.
“We enjoy snowmobiling,” she said.
She and her husband both commute to
jobs in King County, on the other side of the
mountains. She said the people in Easton
have been friendly.
“I love the people here,” she said. “It feels
like home.”
Easton figured prominently in the history
of transportation between the eastern and
western parts of the state, according to Morris
Jenkins’ entry in the book “History of Kittitas
County.”
Indians had a well-traveled route in the
area when white settlers started to arrive in
the mid-1880s. Cattle were driven over the
pass as early as 1869. In 1881, 3,000 head
were driven over the old wagon trail that
became a toll road, at a toll of 33 cents per
head, wrote Jenkins.
By 1886, railroad service was established.
For years the railroad used Easton as a site to
hook auxiliary locomotives to the trains for
the pull up over Stampede Pass.
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28 | OUR TOWNS 2008
A hotel with 12 rooms and
six fireplaces was built on land
homesteaded by E.L. McGinnnis
about a mile east of Easton, wrote
Jenkins. It became known as
Halfway House because it was
thought to be halfway between
Yakima and Seattle.
Jenkins wrote Easton was platted
by the Johnson Brothers in 1902,
who operated a general store there.
“When the railroad construction
started saloons sprang up like
mushrooms and soon there were 12
operating,” wrote Jenkins.
But a Thanksgiving Day fire claimed all but
one in 1907.
That one was built of brick and cement
and was converted to a jail. It was the first
of several fires in Easton’s history, according
to Jenkins. In 1913 and again in 1934 fires
devastated the business district.
Logging and mining were also an
important part of Easton’s past.
Today Easton is evolving or devolving,
depending on whom you talk to. There is no
denying it is a beautiful area with plenty of
outdoor recreational opportunities.
Lake Easton State Park is nearby. It is easy
to see why it is attractive to outsiders and
guarded by residents.
Larry Everett sells real estate in the area. He
said the same amount of money that would
buy a modest house on a small lot in Seattle
can buy a nice house and 10-15 acres in
Easton.
“Instead of having a neighbor right next
door, you can look out and see elk,” he said. ■
114 THORP HIGHWAY - THORP, WA 98926
History Tidbits:
Early-day Easton through the pages of the Cle Elum
Echo:
Twenty-round prizefights, sleighing parties and an
arrest for attempting to wreck a train were some of
the items chronicled in the Cle Elum Echo, Easton’s
closest newspaper.
Del Ames wrote a paper for Professor Glauert at
Central Washington University in the 1970s. It is kept
with a file on Easton at the Ellensburg Library.
Ames examined old issues of the Cle Elum Echo.
Here are some news items he highlighted:
• June 12, 1902 — Eddie Kyer, champion lightweight
of Easton, was knocked out in the 15th round of a
20-round boxing match by Old Yellowstone.
• Oct. 30, 1902 — Cases of pilfering became
so numerous at Easton lately that the railroad
company found it necessary to put a detective on
the grounds.
• July 16, 1903 — Northern Pacific is putting in a
new turntable at Easton. It is at this point where the
“battleships” are put on the tracks to pull over the
Cascade divide, and dropping down to Lester to
return with eastbound trains.
• March 19, 1903 —Easton reports that roads are
impassible and ranchers are compelled to walk into
town.
• March 10, 1904 — A sleighing party of 65 drove
from Easton to the home of E.L. McGinnis on
Saturday night.
• Aug. 13, 1904 — The forests and valleys north and
west of Cle Elum for miles are a mass of flame. This
has been the driest summer since 1884.
• Aug. 27, 1904 — The forest fires have crossed the
Cascade Range and are now dangerously close to
Easton.
• Aug. 26. 1905 — The son of J.R. Sovereign,
president of the Knights of Labor, was arrested in
Easton on charges of attempting to wreck a train.
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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 29
 Snoqualmie
Pass
Factoids:
Location: About 55 miles west of
Ellensburg on Interstate 90.
Population: According to
Susan Black, former editor of The
Cascade Times, there are about
300 full-time residents. There are
229 regular Post Office Boxes and
10 large boxes at Bob’s Chevron
and Deli.
Origin of name: People seem
to agree that Snoqualmie comes
from the Snoqualmie Indians, a
tribe that lived west of the pass
and spoke Salish. Depending on
what source you use it means,
“People of the Moon,” or “Plenty
of Waters.”
30 | OUR TOWNS 2008
This article originally appeared in the April 27, 2007 edition of the Daily Record.
P
eople know about the snow at
Snoqualmie Pass. If you don’t live
there but have to cross in the winter
months, you may keep your eye on the state
Department of Transportation’s Web cams to
see road conditions.
Or you may one of the hundreds of
thousands of skiers who flock to The Summit
at Snoqualmie Pass ski area each year.
But the community of Snoqualmie Pass is
about more than skiing and driving. It’s where
people live and work.
Many of the estimated 300-400 full-time
By DON GRONNING
staff writer
residents come from elsewhere, even if it was a
long time ago.
“I came here in 1968,” said Dick Smith, who
was 85 when this article was written. “I was
looking for a summer retreat.”
Smith came from Mercer Island, or as he
calls it, Misery Island. He currently lives in
Alpental, a Snoqualmie Pass neighborhood
located in King County.
The Snoqualmie Pass community is partially
in Kittitas County and partially in King
County.
Smith, who sells real estate and designs
chateaus, said he grew up around The high country of Snoqualmie
snow on the East Coast. Pass reminds him of the Sierra Madre
“I used to deliver newspapers on Mountains in Mexico, where he was
skis,” he said. raised.
If Smith is separated by time from “I like the mountains,” he said.
where he lived before he came to He also likes the small-town nature
Snoqualmie Pass, Polo Ortiz, 33, of Snoqualmie Pass. “I’m not a city
is separated by distance from his person,” he said.
hometown in Michoacan, Mexico. The snowfall in the winter of
Ortiz has been working the last 2006-’07 was about the same as the
eight years at Bob’s Summit Deli and year before, he said. Still, it was bad
Chevron, where the Post Office boxes enough to keep him from getting
are located. Ortiz lives in Easton home a couple times.
with his wife and baby and drives to “I have a room in the back,” he
Snoqualmie Pass each day to work. said. “This is like my second home.”
Heather Griggs, 31,
has worked at the ski
resort for nine years.
For the first four years
she worked there
she commuted from
Ellensburg.
But then she
moved here full-time.
“It definitely was
a change,” she said.
“You find yourself
craving a real hot
day.”
Griggs snowboards,
so she enjoys the
snow, but she also
appreciates summers.
“In the summers
there are lots of
beautiful hikes,” she
Historic photos courtesy of the Frederick Krueger said. The Snow Lake
Collection at CWU. Trail is popular, she
said.
Jessica
Meacham, 28,
works as a waitress
at the Family
Pancake House.
She moved to
Snoqualmie
Pass eight years
ago from Port
Orchard.
“I had a friend
who worked at
the Pancake House who said I should
come and check it out,” she said.
People in Snoqualmie Pass are like
people elsewhere, she has found.
“Most are pretty nice,” she said.
Meacham enjoys snowshoeing in the
winter and hiking in the summer.
“I don’t think people know how
nice it is here in the summer,” she
said.
Brian Canfield, also appreciates the
outdoor recreation in the area.
“For six years I was a weekend
warrior,” he said.
He came to Snoqualmie Pass from
the Olympia area where he grew up
to snowshoe in the winter and hike in
the summer. He moved here full-time
in October 2006. He sells real estate in
the same office as Smith. Canfield said
living here full time is different than
when he used to commute.
“You have the benefits of a small
town,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like a
city.”
And when he wants to go to the
city, the drive from Snoqualmie Pass
to Seattle takes less time than driving
in traffic from Lynnwood to Seattle.
Snoqualmie Pass has changed
over the years, with more full-time
residents and developments.
“The price of housing is terrible,”
Smith said.
He said homes that sold for
$175,000 when he first moved here
are going for $500,000 now. The
upscale Village at the Summit has
homes that cost upward of $1 million.
Susan Black, former editor of the
Cascade Times weekly newspaper, said
the growth has been steady since she
and her husband, David, built their
home here in 1992.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth, but it’s
been consistent,” she said.
She and her husband, the former
head of the Kittitas County Planning
Commission, also own the cable
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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 31

(Snoqualmie Pass continued)
television company at Snoqualmie Pass.
The snow that is the lifeblood of the
area also causes problems with traffic.
That’s where Allen Minerich comes
in. He is a 26-year veteran with the
state Department of Transportation.
He worked out of Cle Elum for most of
that time but last year became assistant
maintenance superintendent at Hyak.
“November (2006) was a record
setting month for snowfall,” he said. The
eight feet of snow that fell in November
kept the 12 snow plows, six graders, five
snow blowers and four liquidizers that
the DOT keeps in the area busy.
Actually there have been Novembers
in which more snow has fallen, but not
many. According to DOT records, in
1994 more than 10 feet of snow fell in
November, in 1973 more than 11 feet
and in 1955 more than 12 feet.
On the other hand, in many years less
than a foot of snow falls in November,
including in 2002, when only an inch
fell during the month. Whenever the
weather forecast called for more than six
inches of snow this season, the DOT’s
Active Resource Management system
kicked in. Crews from other areas, some
as far away as Pasco, were called in to
help.
“That really helped us keep the pass
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32 | OUR TOWNS 2008
Historic Tidbits:
open,” said Minerich.
Drivers today have it far easier than
in the early days. Former Daily Record
contributor Yvonne Prater wrote
“Snoqualmie Pass, From Indian Trail to
Interstate,” published in 1981.
She tells the history of Snoqualmie
Pass and the area in that book. She writes
that “Without fanfare, motorized traffic
first went through Snoqualmie Pass in
1905, when Bert Harrison and a partner
drove a 1898 Fryer-Miller automobile
from Indianapolis to Seattle.”
It took the men two days to get from
the Kittitas Valley to the summit, she
said one of the men’s sons told her. In
July of that year, Charles L. Ray and
John Kelleher of Ellensburg drove their
high power Winton over the pass. They
camped out along the way.
By 1909, 105 cars went over the
pass, she wrote. In August 1913, two
men rode motorcycles over the pass
from Seattle to Ellensburg “in the
unbelievably short time of 12 hours,”
Prater wrote.
There are difficulties in driving the
pass now, as anyone caught in the 50-
vehicle pileup last February 2007 knows,
but nothing like it used to be.
Winter is long but for the people who
have made Snoqualmie Pass their home,
the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Griggs, the former Ellensburger, said
she is happy she moved.
“I see myself living here awhile,” she
said. ■
www.dailyrecordonline.com
$5 per Month - or -$1 per Day Full access to entire newspaper archives.
First woman to drive across
the pass from Ellensburg
Yvonne Prater tells the story of several interesting personalities
in her book “Snoqualmie Pass From Indian Trail to Interstate,”
but the story of Clara Wasson illustrates the difficulties facing
early drivers.
Wasson, a widow with three children, was the first woman
in Ellensburg to own and drive a car, according to Prater. She
first drove on a family outing to meet relatives for a Fourth of
July picnic in 1914.
Wasson gave Prater an interview before she died at age 102
in 1981. She had just learned how to drive before making the
1914 trip.
“I doubt I had driven 25 miles before that trip to
Snoqualmie Pass,” she said. She arrived safely at the summit,
where she met family members and had a picnic.
Unfortunately, the family coming from the West Side broke
an axle on their Buick and had to leave the car at the summit.
The smaller children were rowed across Lake Keechelus and
a train was flagged down to get them back to Seattle.
The rest of the family got in Wasson’s Ford to drive on to
Ballard.
She really didn’t want to drive and tried to get her brother-
in-law to do it.
He said, “No, a Buick is a lot different from a Ford. I
wouldn’t know a thing about a Ford. You drive and I’ll sit in
the front seat,” Wasson told Prater.
On the way she ran over a dog and forced a motorcycle off
the road but finally made it.
“I just kept going until we got there,” she said.
She was able to caravan with another car for the trip back
to Ellensburg, a two-day trip.
“Mrs. Wasson recalled that her hands were blistered from
the trip,” wrote Prater, who quoted her as saying, “I was so
exhausted. I don’t think I tackled Seattle again very soon after
that, but it was a glorious ride.”
Liberty
This article originally appeared in the March 31, 2007 edition of the Daily Record.

A living By DON GRONNING

staff writer

ghost town

Factoids:
Location: In the north central
part of Kittitas County, 15 miles
east of Cle Elum, 20 miles north of
Ellensburg, off U.S. Highway 97.

Population: 14 full-time
residents, although there are more
vacation homes. In the entire
Swauk Basin area, where Liberty
is located, there are about 180
homes.

Origin of name: The story is

I
that postmaster “Bull” Nelson, aka
t was the discovery of gold in 1873 that from the government, which finally happened
Gustaf Nilson, told some miners,
first made the town of Liberty possible. But in 1981.
“You’re at Liberty here boys,
it is the persistence of its people that allows But it wasn’t the persistence of the
so set down, lay down or do as
it to exist today. inhabitants that impressed Harry Kirwin, an
you please.” When the original
They have survived the ebb and flow of gold itinerant journalist who lived in Liberty from
name of the post office had to
mining, an assault on the town by a mining 1939-1941. It was the Saturday night dances
be changed from Swauk because
company and, in the 1970s, an effort by the at the Wildcat Dance Hall that caught his
there already was a Sauk, so
U.S. Forest Service to force the occupants out. attention.
Liberty stuck.
It took an act of Congress to allow the 19 The people in Liberty mostly kept to
occupants of the town to buy their property (Continued on next page)

OUR TOWNS 2008 | 33

(Liberty continued) the kind you turn into jewelry, but he before opening a coffee shop, Liberty
themselves, except did uncover a gold mine of history. Latte, next to the cafe. Both the cafe
for the Saturday He credits his mother-in-law, the and the coffee shop attract regular
night dances, when late Henrietta Fackler, for much of visitors. “They come for the pies. It’s
they “get cockeyed what appears in his book. She led different than Applebee’s,” Thomsen
drunk and holler the fight to save the resident’s homes said.
all night long,” he from the U.S. Forest Service. Fackler She said people come to camp
wrote friends in uncovered much of the history while or snowmobile or hike. “They’re
Seattle. trying to prove that Liberty was a surprised people live out here,” she
“Now and bonafide town and that its people said.
then there is the weren’t squatters, as the Forest Service Nancy Holter is another
occasional melee in claimed when they tried to evict them businesswoman who set up shop in
the only street we in 1971. Liberty at the Liberty Trading Post.
have and the next At one time the Liberty area had “I like it here,” she said. “The
day the boys go a schoolhouse, a post office, a store, winter’s a little long, though.”
around with shiners a Women’s Literary Society and the She has been here 12 years,
and busted noses,” Wildcat Dance Hall. In 1963 Fackler migrating from Redmond.
Kirwin wrote. helped keep a mining company Her husband, Del, used to come
“The ladies also from destroying Liberty by diverting over to mine gold with the late Jacob
swing haymakers Williams Creek through the town. Hirsch, an old-time miner.
side by side with She was recognized in 1989 by Kittitas Harry Mamizuka was raised on the
their kinfolk.” County as one of 100 people who Hawaiian island of Molokai. He has
Although he made a significant contribution over been in the Northwest for some time,
lived a block and the last 100 years. but moved to Liberty a couple years
a half from the dance hall, he only Liberty is also one of the only Liberty was formally recognized as ago.
attended one dance. “It is too close to places in the world where crystalline a historic district in 1974. Mamizuka, who is retired from
nature to suit us,” he wrote. wire gold is found. The fine, delicate Some people may think of Chevron, said Liberty is like a
Wes Engstrom is a modern-day looking crystalline wire gold is Liberty Cafe when they think of gathering place and that people are
resident of Liberty. He put together valued at about 10 times what gold is Liberty, although it really isn’t in the willing to help each other. “It reminds
“The Spirit of Liberty” a self-published worth, Engstrom said. An example of Liberty historic district. It is located me of the old days in Hawaii.”
book and CD on the history of the crystalline wire gold from Liberty is in on Highway 97, just south of the Liberty still has a Fourth of July
mining district, which includes the the Smithsonian Institute. Liberty Road turnoff. Bill and Jerry celebration, but it is far more sedate
Kirwin quotes. Like many before him, Engstrom is a retired Boeing Snyder have owned and operated the than the celebrations of old.
Engstrom came to Liberty in pursuit executive. He describes himself as one cafe since 1988, according to their In those days hundreds of people
of gold. of the 206ers, a name given to people daughter, Kelly Thomsen. would show up from throughout the
“The biggest nuggets in the state who moved to the area from the 206 Thomsen, a graduate of Cle Elum county. The Liberty program for the
were found here,” he said. One nugget area code on the West Side of the state. High School, spent 21 years working two-day, 1916 event is showcased
found in 1901 weighed 70 ounces. He didn’t strike gold, at least not for the state as a juvenile counselor on the wall of the community hall.

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 Historic
Among other things, the two-day event featured bronco
riding, horse racing, foot races, women’s nail driving
Tidbits:
competitions, greased pole climbing and a tug-of-war. The story of the Liberty frogs has to be
Even then the dance, or grand ball, as it was called, was one of the most fantastic bits of history in
the highlight. Featuring “imported music,” it took place “Spirit of Liberty” by Wesley Engstrom.
from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. According to a 1938 Ellensburg
The current parade and barbecue is a little more laid Evening Record newspaper story, miners
back. blasted six frozen frogs from a tunnel in
“Whoever shows up at 11 a.m. can be in it,” said the Jordan gold mine.When thawed, the
Engstrom. “We used to have a bigger one but when it frogs croaked, changed color and jumped
got to be about 500 people, we sort of lost control.” higher than most frogs their size. Because
The celebration is really a fundraiser for the fire hall, of the mineralized shale the frogs were
which also serves as the community hall. There is still found in, it was thought that they came
some interior work to do but the structure is largely from the Eocene age, 50 million years
complete. The money to pay for it was donated. So far ago, the newspaper reported.
about $45,000 has gone into the building, said Engstrom. Prof. George F. Beck, head of
This sense of community is what ties the people the science department at Central
together — both in the past and today. When Mamizuka Washington College of Education, took
talks of his adopted home, he probably expresses what
two of the frogs for further study.
many people in the area feel.
But Beck didn’t know what to feed
“I just love Liberty,” he said. “I’d never give this up.” ■
them and the frogs died. The remaining
frogs were kept by miner Ollie Jordin,
who turned them loose in the yard,
where they found their own food.
After surviving being frozen and
dynamited, the Jordin frogs were stepped
on and killed while firefighters were
putting out a house fire at Jordin’s home.
Beck’s papers were lost, so it’s
unknown what he discovered about the
frogs. In addition to the newspaper story,
Engstrom writes that Jordin told the story
on audiotape in 1972. True or not, it
makes a good story.

since 1909
What does that mean?
We respect the importance of local news coverage. You live, work and play in
Kittitas County. You take your community involvement seriously and so do we.
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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 35

 Vantage
Residents want to retain
small-town life, values

Growth
on the
horizon?
By MIKE JOHNSTON
staff writer

Factoids:
Location: 29 miles east of
Ellensburg

Population: about 85 full-time

residents
This article originally appeared in the March 31, 2007 edition of the Daily Record.
Origin of name: “According

to the History of Kittitas County,
Washington,” Vantage is derived
from the name of the name of the
W.D. Van Slyke family, who started
ferry operations shutting people
and cargo across the Columbia
River on a ferry from the early
1900s until late 1917 when Grant
and Kittitas counties took over
ferry operations.
O
ne of the 66 post boxes now in use at the
small post office tucked away in a corner
of the Vantage General Store belongs to
Charlotte Gonzales, who has lived off and on in
the unincorporated community 28 miles east of
Ellensburg for the last 20-plus years.
Gonzales, who runs the post office and clerks
at the store, on Friday afternoon said there are
150 post boxes available, so there’s room to grow
— just as there’s room to grow in Vantage. Indeed,
many expect more residents will come in the next
few years from a residential development planned
immediately to the south.
Yet she would like to see the kind of growth that
somehow maintains the small-town feel to the
community — homes and businesses perched on
a bluff over the scenic Columbia River gorge with
the busy Interstate 90 freeway passing through it.
Gonzales estimates there are about 85 full-time
residents in Vantage, up by maybe 10 from a few
years ago.
“It will grow some, I know, but I’d sure like
it keep that quiet, peaceful atmosphere, at least
in the off season when we don’t have concerts,”

36 | OUR TOWNS 2008

said Gonzales, referring to the Gorge
Amphitheatre near George that causes
a spike in late spring and summer
business from visitors going to and
from the concert venue.
“I love it here. You don’t have the
hustle and bustle like in town, in
Ellensburg. There are so many cars in
Ellensburg when you go shopping.”
Gonzales’ sentiments are similar
to other Vantage business people and
residents who were asked about its
future.

Poised for growth

Harold Kortum, who was 83 when
this article was written, has lived in
Vantage for 29 years and is chairman
of the Kittitas County Water District
6 Board of Commissioners, which
operates a wastewater treatment plant
serving Vantage. The district has 115
customers.
He agrees Vantage is poised for
growth. A sign near the street through Vantage seems to sum up how local residents and business people feel about their small community
“I’m hoping for successful east of Ellensburg. Perched on a bluff along the scenic Columbia River they expect people will continue to be attracted to it, and
growth, the kind that fits into our they foresee what some believe will be significant residential growth in the near future.
community,” Kortum said. “It will be
residential growth, and I believe it will to meet all requirements before selling Vantage’s beauty and peacefulness and took over Blustery’s last May just as
be good growth.” lots. to the river,” he said. the Gorge’s concert season began.
He is referring to Vantage Bay, a Kortum said the district is working Montaño has also established a sub
76-acre planned unit development with the developer, BCSCBN Inc. of Potential sandwich business next door and a
that could have more than 300 Woodinville, in a plan to update the Greg Montaño, owner and operator catering business that offers food to
homes south of the freeway along district’s plant and expand its capacity of Blustery’s Restaurant at Vantage, Vantage visitors outdoors.
the Columbia River. County with a low-interest loan from the lives in Ellensburg but wants to move His sense is that Vantage will see
commissioners approved the state. to Vantage in the near future. He has steady, moderate growth.
development’s preliminary plat in “Like many of the people who now 30-plus years of experience in the “It has a ton of potential, just a
November 2006 and it has five years live here, others are being drawn to restaurant and catering business and (Continued on next page)

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OUR TOWNS 2008 | 37


(Vantage continued)
ton,” he said about Vantage. “In
the summer this place really buzzes,
but the potential isn’t just for the
summer.”
He said Vantage area business
and resort owner Bryan Stockdale
has a vision to fully develop a
year-round conference and retreat
center, and Montaño wants to be
part of making it a reality.
“He (Stockdale) wants to see
Vantage grow into a place where
people can obtain the help they
need in their personal lives,”
Montaño said. “Sure, there would
be businesses to serve them, but
that wouldn’t be the main focus.”
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Inn, owned by Stockdale, is being
viewed as a potential conference
center location after much repair,
remodeling and expansion, he
said.
A helping hand Jean Wagner,
who was 67 when this article was
written, got to know Vantage
when she and her husband lived
in an RV there in 2004 while he
worked to inspect new Bonneville
Power Administration lines under
construction.
Her husband died suddenly in
December 2004.
Stockdale later offered her a job
working at the general store, and
now she also works at the Vantage
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Tidbits:
Vantage Bay
Vista Shell target: sell lots in
station.
“I just didn’t fall 2009
know what
to do with Skip Coddington, project manager for
myself after the Vantage Bay development south
my husband of Interstate 90 in Vantage, said the
died,” Wagner tentative goal is to gain final subdivision
said. “Working approval from Kittitas County in late
here has helped 2008 and begin lot sales about fall 2009.
me. The people The 76-acre site east of Huntzinger
here have been Road is being developed by BCSCBN
very, very nice. Inc. of Woodinville. Planned is up to
I haven’t met 315 houses built as second homes or
anyone I didn’t retirement or recreational homes in a
like.” gated community with its own water
She planned system.
to move from Coddington said there was
Vantage before “tremendous demand and growth” in
summer to
developments along the Columbia River.
take care of family property in
He said the development company
Wyoming and Montana.
“I’m going to really hate
has agreed, in principle, to spend up to
leaving.” $200,000 in engineering plans to help
Stockdale said the goal in his Kittitas County Water District 6 update
businesses is to help “build a sense and expand its wastewater treatment
of community and fellowship. plant. The plans will be part of the
A place of rest, sanctuary and district’s application for a low-interest
fulfillment.” loan from the state public works trust
He sees a period of “gentle” fund to improve the plant.
growth coming. He said this was a cooperative
“My hope is that living and effort knowing the plant needs to be
working here has a wider purpose upgraded. The funding will be repaid
than just business and just when the state loan is approved, he
maximizing the dollar,” Stockdale said, and hookup fees will be paid to the
said. “My approach is to encourage district as homes are built.
a sustainable community in which
its values are upheld. ■
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