The Hidden Wealth of Kittitas
A researcher discovers remarkably rich aluminum clay near Ellensburg, potentially transforming the region's industrial future.
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For several months Prof. W. H. F. Briggs, representing J. M. Hirsh, the aluminum manufacturer of Chicago, has been in Ellensburg looking into the matter of clays from which aluminum is extracted. His researches have been very thorough and extended from Spokane to the Sound. He kept his own counsel but worked very quietly and with great diligence. Prof. Briggs has analyzed twelve samples of clay from Kittitas valley, and his principal, Hirsh, has made a check analysis of them also, and the result is not only gratifying, but astonishing. The factory has been working clay for aluminum with a yield as low as 7 per cent, but the ore, or clay, which Briggs has found here averages from 30 to 50 per cent and is the richest ever found west of the Rocky Mountains. He says there is an inexhaustible supply of this grade within six miles of Ellensburg.
“The ore, or clay, which Briggs has found here averages from 30 to 50 per cent and is the richest ever found west of the Rocky mountains.”
The late 19th-century hunt for industrial minerals shaped the development of the Pacific Northwest. While the aluminum boom later shifted to the coast, this early quest reflects the era's relentless search for the next great resource extraction opportunity.
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