South Cle Elum, Washington

South Cle Elum was born from a routing decision. In nineteen oh eight, the Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad was building its transcontinental line and chose to lay tracks along the south bank of the Yakima River, bypassing the town of Cle Elum on the north bank. Entrepreneurs quickly platted a new townsite on the railroad's side of the river, and the Milwaukee Road erected a depot, roundhouse, and rail yard there.

The little community filled up fast with train crews, machinists, and their families. It incorporated in nineteen eleven, and by nineteen twenty its first census counted five hundred eighty-seven residents. South Cle Elum sat at an important threshold: the point where westbound trains began the long climb into the Cascades and where crews changed for the push over Snoqualmie Pass. When the Milwaukee Road abandoned its Pacific extension in nineteen eighty, the rail yards fell quiet. The ruins of the roundhouse survive in a historic rail yard, marking the moment a railroad's decision to cross the river on one side rather than the other created an entirely new town.