Kittitas: Valley of the Yakama
Washington
The name Kittitas comes from the Kittitas band of the Yakama Nation, who gathered in this broad valley for generations to harvest native roots from its fertile floor. Non-Native settlers arrived in the nineteenth century, and the town was established in eighteen eighty-three. The valley became cattle country.
The Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad pushed through and turned Kittitas into a rail stop, cementing its role as a market hub for hay and grain. Today the town holds fewer than fifteen hundred people and functions as the quiet agricultural heart of the valley that carries its name. Its depot sits on the National Register of Historic Places.
