A War of Words Across the Mountains
North Yakima takes a sharp jab at Ellensburgh’s reputation for windstorms and failing infrastructure.
Ellensburgh’s jealous antics over the prosperity and growth of Yakima are more laughable than a minstrel show. The latest comic gyration of one of its papers is over what it terms 'the unpleasant winds' of this section. Holy mackerel! How can an Ellensburgher ever have nerve to talk about winds prevailing in other places? With a climate that is its greatest drawback, it should keep as mum as a clam. It should remember the experience it had with Sells Brothers’ and Barrett’s circus: how the bill-boards, usually so brazen, modestly retired to Mother Earth before an Ellensburgh zephyr, and how the poor showmen were unable to raise their tent. The last incident occurred only Tuesday, when Lloyd Bros.' new brick building was blown down, seriously injuring two of the men working thereon. If she had her desire of becoming the capital, the public might be kept on the anxious seat from fear that the legislature would be found on some windy occasion blown into an adjoining county.
“If she had her desire of becoming the capital, the public might be kept on the anxious seat from fear that the legislature would be found on some windy occasion blown into an adjoining county.”
Inter-city rivalry was a common trope in 19th-century regional newspapers. This 'war of words' between Yakima and Ellensburgh captures the fierce, sometimes petty competition for economic dominance that characterized the settlement of Central Washington.
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