Ellensburg

Robber’s Roost and the Shoudy Plat

The date 1889 marks many of Ellensburg’s historic buildings, the year the town burned and quickly rebuilt.^1,3 Ellensburg, the seat of Kittitas County, lies three miles from the confluence of the Yakima River and Wilson Creek near the geographic center of Washington, on ground that was a gathering place for the Kittitas band of the Yakama Indians.¹ Beginning in 1859 cattleman Ben Snipes and his wranglers drove herds past the future townsite toward gold fields on the Fraser River, resting them on the area’s water and bunch grass.¹ In 1867 William Wilson built a small cabin on what became Wilson Creek, and the 1950 state guide calls him a renegade white who led an Indian band through the Kittitas district in the 1860’s.^1,4,5 He is said to have died in 1869 crossing the Snake River with stolen horses.⁶ The 1950 guide says Wilson put up a log trading post near a spring in 1867 and sold out to A. J. Splawn, a young cowboy who called it Robber’s Roost after his outlaw predecessor.^4,5 A HistoryLink account has it otherwise: in 1870 Andrew Jackson Splawn and Ben Burch hired Martin Davern to haul Wilson’s cabin to what is now the middle of E 3rd Avenue, and Splawn’s friend Jack Gillispie christened the store Robber’s Roost.^1,7 In 1871 John and Mary Ellen Shoudy came from Seattle and bought the store from Splawn, and with it Shoudy acquired 160 acres of land.^6,7,8 In 1875 Shoudy platted 80 of his 160 acres as the town he named Ellensburgh in honor of Mary Ellen, and the couple filed the plat in Yakima on July 20, 1875.^1,6,7 The final h was deleted at the request of the Post Office Department in 1894, though the 1950 guide gives the first name as “Ellen’s Burgh,” after Ellen Shoudy.^4,5,6

County Seat on the Northern Pacific

Growth stayed slow until 1883, when the First National Bank of Ellensburg and the Hook and Ladder Company Number 1 were organized and, on November 24, Kittitas County was established with Ellensburg as its seat.^1,8 A territorial act ratifying incorporation took effect January 1, 1884, though the 1950 guide ties incorporation to the coming of the Northern Pacific in 1886.^4,5 Late in 1884 General C. B. Lamborn of the Northern Pacific chose Ellensburg for a depot, John Shoudy and other settlers gave the railroad land in exchange, and the depot was completed in 1886.¹ With the capital of the new state at stake, firms and newspapers called Ellensburg the Capital City, Brittain A. Craig was building a prospective governor’s mansion by April 1889, and a capitalist from Portland paid $15,000 for a vacant corner lot.⁹

The Fire of July 4, 1889, and the Hard Years

The fire began about 10:30 p.m. on July 4, 1889, in a grocery store in a high wind, and it destroyed approximately 200 homes and structures on 10 business blocks; the Ellensburg National Bank and the City Hotel survived.³ A tent city sprang up, and within ten days work was under way on forty-three business blocks averaging $12,000 each, this time in brick.^1,3,6 The fire and a rivalry with North Yakima sidelined Ellensburg’s bid for the capital, and on November 4, 1890, Olympia won with 37,413 votes to Ellensburg’s 7,722, though Kittitas County voted Ellensburg 758 and Olympia 18.⁹ Business was bad in 1890, the panic of 1893 drove conditions lower, and the Ben Snipes Bank failed with no claimant paid more than 10 percent of what was owed.¹ Recovery began in 1897, and none of the later downtown buildings predates 1900.⁶

The Normal School and the Kittitas Ditches

The first state legislature established the Washington State Normal School in 1890, classes met from 1891 in four classrooms of the Washington Public School, and Barge Hall, its first building, went up in 1894.¹⁰ It became Central Washington College of Education in 1937, Central Washington State College in 1961, and Central Washington University in 1977.¹⁰ The Milwaukee railroad arrived in 1907 by the 1950 guide’s account, when Ellensburg boomed, or in 1909 by another account.^2,4,5 The High Line Canal was built across the valley between 1911 and 1920, and on December 19, 1925, the Secretary of the Interior signed a contract for the Kittitas Division of the Yakima Project, with headquarters in Ellensburg.^1,7 The 1950 state guide counted 5,944 people, among them several Chinese families descended from a band that followed the eastern Washington gold rush and worked over mine dumps.^4,5

The Brick Blocks Between Third and Sixth

On July 1, 1977, the 200 acres of downtown entered the National Register of Historic Places as a district of 49 buildings between E 3rd and E 6th streets and N Main and N Ruby streets.² Most of the district’s buildings date between 1889 and 1917, and the Ellensburg City Hall occupies the National Bank of Ellensburg, built in 1930.⁶ The First Railroad Historic District joined the Register on May 8, 1987, and the Kittitas County Fair and Rodeo Grounds on January 8, 1999.¹ In 2000 Ellensburg counted 15,414 people, nearly half the population of Kittitas County.¹