The City in Ashes
After a devastating fire leaves Ellensburgh in ruins, North Yakima reflects on the fragile nature of boomtown prosperity.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The business portion of Ellensburgh is in ashes. An accident or an incendiary has struck the thriving metropolis of Kittitas valley a blow which she will have occasion to long remember and from which she will not fully recover for years to come. Ellensburgh was a place of marvelous growth and great enterprise. Her people were active and untiring; they left no means untried to advance and build up their town. Financial institutions were accommodating and the citizens went largely into debt. A splendid little city was built—a city in advance of the business support that could be given by the Kittitas valley. The business men recognized this and reached out for the trade of the Big Bend country and the Coeur d'Alene mines. While Ellensburgh is building up, the demands of the northern country must be provided for by some other city. Kittitas is a sightly valley and a productive hay and grain country. It will support a goodly sized and thrifty town, and that Ellensburgh will always be. Ellensburgh has had an honest rival for preeminence in Yakima. The rivalry has been in the direction of pushing to the fore, which is commendable in both. Ellensburgh has had a great backset, and in this she has the sympathy and well-wishes of Yakima.
“A splendid little city was built—a city in advance of the business support that could be given by the Kittitas valley.”
This reflects the volatile nature of 19th-century urban development, where speculative growth often outpaced infrastructure. Today, it echoes the vulnerability of small-town economies reliant on single industries or regional trade corridors.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.