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Welcome to Kittitas
County Washington Genealogy Research
First horse show in Ellensburg
1888
My name is Bob
Jenkins and I created this
website to provide genealogy
information and links to genealogy
information to assist people in
researching
their Kittitas County Washington
ancestors.
I would appreciate any
contribution that you would like to
make to this site:
biographies, obituaries, birth,
marriage, death info, grave info,
photographs....etc
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Use the box below to
search
for Kittitas
County Data
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Brief
History:
The county was organized in
November 1883 by the Washington
Territorial Legislature, carved from the
northern
part of Yakima County.
There are numerous interpretations
of the county's name, which is from the
language of the Yakama Nation.
According to one source, it "has
been said to mean everything from 'white
chalk' to 'shale rock' to 'shoal people'
to
'land of plenty'". Most
anthropologists and historians concede
that each interpretation has some validity
depending
upon the particular dialect spoken.
Indigenous peoples known as Kittitas
(or Upper Yakima) occupied the lands along
the Yakima River for hundreds
of years before the present era. The
Kittitas Valley was a traditional
gathering place for tribes east of the
Cascades.
White settlers began pouring into
the Kittitas Valley in the late 1850s.
Their arrival forced dislocation and
displacement of the native
inhabitants, who were eventually forced
into the Yakama Indian Reservation. White
settlers introduced livestock
raising, crop farming, dairying, logging,
lumber processing, and mining. The
abundant
grassland and the
generally-favorable terrain made beef and
cattle production become the county's
mainstay. That
was assisted by the introduction of
railways into the area and the large-scale
irrigation systems introduced in the
1930s.
Wheat planting in Kittitas Valley
began in 1868. The county's first flour
mill was established near Ellensburg in
1873. Production of alfalfa was also
seen from the county's early days.
Lumber extraction was an important
county activity from its early days,
mostly in the west end. Logging camps
were established near the county's
three largest lakes (Cle Elum, Kachess,
Keechelus).
Mining for coal and minerals was
established by the mid-1880s.
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