Central & Eastern Washington - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 378

often as 'good morning.' The vast Yakama Native American Reservation to the southw-
est adds a strong Native American element to the population mix.
Ellensburg
POP 18,468
Take an archetypal American small town; give it a stately college, a smattering of histor-
ic buildings, and more coffee bars per head than anywhere else in the US (allegedly);
then throw in the largest and most lauded rodeo in the Pacific Northwest. Welcome to El-
lensburg, a town where erudite college undergraduates rub shoulders with weekend cow-
boys in a collegiate town where two-thirds of the 16,000-strong population are registered
students. Like most Washington towns, Ellensburg has its fair share of peripheral motel
and mall infestations, but body-swerve the familiar big boxes and you'll uncover a com-
pact but select cluster of venerable red-brick buildings born out of the 'City Beautiful'
movement in the early 1890s.
Ellensburg's location on the cusp of the Eastern Cascades and the flat, fertile
Columbia River basin throws up two radically different types of adventure opportunities
(rugged to the east, refined to the west). Seattleites regularly cross Snoqualmie Pass to
sup local wine and enjoy seemingly endless summer sunshine. Easterners stop by on
their way to the snowier mountains.
Once touted as the 'Pittsburg of the West' for its plentiful coal and iron-ore deposits,
Ellensburg suffered the fate of many western towns in 1889 when a fire tore the heart out
of nine blocks of its central business district. The present-day historical core, though
small in size, is the result of an industrious postfire rebuilding process.
Sights
Downtown Historic District HISTORIC SITE
Beautified by a compact yet charismatic grid of Victorian buildings, central Ellensburg
deserves an unhurried morning or afternoon's exploration. Kick off at the friendly cham-
ber of commerce, where you can get informative maps of the downtown historic district,
roughly contained between Main St and 6th and 3rd Aves. Sprinkled with antique shops,
galleries and cafes, the quarter is dominated by the Davidson Building , Ellensburg's sig-
nature postcard sight, built in 1889 by local attorney John B Davidson. Also worth
checking out is the Kittitas County Historical Museum ( www.kchm.org ; donations accepted;
10am-4pm Mon-Sat Jun-Sep, from noon Tue-Sat Oct-May) , housed in the 1889 Cadwell
Building, known mostly for its petrified-wood and gemstone collections but also boast-