Cle Elum: Coal Town of the Cascades

Thomas Gamble and Walter Reed homesteaded in this Yakima River valley in the early eighteen eighties. Then coal turned up in the nearby hills, and everything changed. Reed persuaded the Northern Pacific Railroad to site its depot here rather than at Teanaway. The first train arrived on October eleventh, eighteen eighty-six.

The railroad and the nearby coal mines drove a boom, and a town grew up around them. Cle Elum takes its name from a Kittitas people word meaning swift water. It incorporated in nineteen oh two. Through the early twentieth century, miners from across Europe came to work the seams beneath these mountains, making Cle Elum one of the most ethnically diverse towns in Washington. The mines eventually closed, but the mountain scenery remained, and Cle Elum today is a gateway to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.