Works by Local Authors

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  Ellensburg Ski Club

  John W. Lundin

  In 1921, the Cle Elum Ski Club was formed by local residents, led by John “Syke” Bresko, opening what has been called the first organized ski area west of Denver, “a skiers paradise,” that attracted between 100 - 400 locals every weekend. The Club sponsored ski races, jumping competitions, carnivals, and special contests from 1924 until 1933, attracting spectators and competitors from all over the Northwest. Northern Pacific trains provided access to Cle Elum from Seattle, Ellensburg and Yakima, and Norwegian jumpers dominated the events. Sports fans from Ellensburg attended the Cle Elum tournaments from its early years.

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  MOUNTAINEERS PATROL RACES AT SNOQUALMIE PASS: A GRAND TRADITION REVISITED

  John W. Lundin

  In February 2014, the Mountaineers recreated one of the club’s grand traditions by holding the first Patrol Race since 1941, an 18.5 mile cross-country event along the crest of the Cascades between its two lodges, Snoqualmie Lodge and Meany Ski Hut at Martin near Stampede Pass. The race was variously reported to be 18, 18.5 or 20 miles long. From 1930 to 1941, three man patrol teams competed in the event that was based on military patrol races which were common in Europe. Initially the race was just for club members, but beginning in 1936, Open Patrol Races were held in which teams from clubs associated with the Pacific Northwest Ski Association could participate. Competitors had to carry a 12 pound pack containing prescribed equipment.

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  SEATTLE’S MUNICIPAL SKI PARK AT SNOQUALMIE SUMMIT 1934-1940

  John W. Lundin

  The Seattle Park Board opened its Municipal Ski Park at Snoqualmie Summit in January 1934, on U.S. Forest Service land, and operated it as a park facility through the ski season of 1940. This was likely the only municipally owned and operated ski area in the country at the time. The Ski Park was made possible by the availability of federal funds under programs adopted by the Roosevelt Administration to put people back to work in the Great Depression, and reflects how skiing had grown in popularity in the Northwest by the early 1930s.

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  SKIING AT MARTIN THE NORTHERN PACIFIC STOP AT STAMPEDE PASS

  John W. Lundin

  Martin is a stop on the Northern Pacific Railroad at the east portal of its tunnel under Stampede Pass, going through the Cascade Mountains, named for the nearby Martin Creek. Since the 1920s, Northwest skiers took the Northern Pacific Railroad to Martin to take advantage of the deep snow that fell there. The story of skiing at Martin is virtually unknown these days, and Martin is one of the Lost Ski Areas of Washington.

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  WINTER SPORTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: 1934 - 1950

  John W. Lundin

  An Excerpt from Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass Written for the Husky Winter Sports Club. Skiing at the University of Washington goes back to January 1934, when the University of Washington Ski Club formed with a membership of 100 men and women. The club developed a race course at Paradise on Mt. Rainier, rented a cabin at Paradise for the season, and formed a ski team that trained at Paradise and Snoqualmie Summit. The University Book Store ran a bus to Paradise on weekends in 1934, and in 1936, rented ski equipment and offered a bus service from Seattle to Snoqualmie Pass on Sundays. The Washington Ski Team dominated west coast competition during the 1930s and early 1940s, regularly winning Pacific Coast Championships. University of Washington skiers competed in many of the country’s major races, with racers such as John Woodward, Darroch Crookes, Bill Redlin, David Fairies, Gus Raaum and others establishing national reputations.

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  Frontiersmen Settlers & Cattle Rustlers: Pease Stories

  Carol Steinhauer

  Carol Steinhauer traces the Pease family back through nine generations. Frontiersmen Settlers & Catle Rustlers: Pease Stories includes photographs, historical details, and family legends.

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  Liberty's Last Post Office: A Story of a Gold MIning Camp in Washington State

  Wesley C. Engstrom

  There was once a large center of activity in the Swauk Basin of upper Kittitas County. The place is called Liberty. Liberty was once the most action packed place in Kittitas County. At least it was for a while after gold was discovered in Swauk Creek. Like many gold camps the place boomed and ebbed over the years. Unlike some other places it never quite went completely bust. It came close, and fortunately for some it didn’t. It still exists today as a living ghost town.

  The Liberty story has been told before in various ways. This telling of the story revolves around the end of Liberty’s role as an active mining community and its close call with complete destruction. It is about four Nicholson brothers and their store, the last post office in Liberty, and the people who later saved the mining camp as a historic site to show the next generation what came before.

  My thanks to Fred Krueger for preserving Liberty history in the form of oral interviews of old time miners and for his encouragement to write history in my own way. That is, to simply preserve history, not to rewrite it. Thanks also to Pattie Nicholson, Robert Nicholson’s wife, and Warren Leyde, Freida Nicholson’s nephew, for graciously sharing family documents and pictures that made this story possible.

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  My Slovak Family: Madash Stories, from Old Country to New

  Carol Steinhauer

  Carol Steinhauer, a long-time resident of Bothell, Washington, is a devoted student of family history. This book gives the Madash family history as they immigrated from Slovakia to Roslyn Washington. Previously she has written Frontiersmen, Settlers, and Rustlers: the Pease Story (2014) about her maternal grandfather’s family. It is archived in the Ellensburg Library and the University of Washington Library (Pacific Northwest Special Collection). She lives with Loren Steinhauer, her husband of forty-eight years. They have two sons, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren. Besides family history, her interests are gardening and reading.

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  Whispers From the Grave: Stories of the Evans Family and Other Early Settlers on Swauk Prairie

  Wesley C. Engstrom and Mary Lou Dills

  In 1882 Jesse James Evans and his family were one of the last pioneers to follow the Oregon trail by Wagon, pulled by mules, intending to settle in the Puget Sound area. Instead they ended up joining a half-dozen or so early settlers on Swauk Prairie in Kittitas County. They sent word back to Missouri to neighbors and relatives and eventually most of the early settlers on Swauk Prairie were connected in some way to the Evans.

  This book was written because an Evans family historian, Mary Lou Dills, and a local Swauk historian, Wesley Engstrom, just happened to meet one day and decided that, by combining resources, a bit of local history could be preserved.

  The result of that joint effort was a book that describes what conditions were like when settlers first arrived on Swauk Prairie. Who the people were, what the towns looked like, who claimed the land, where the schools and churches were built, where the dead were buried and, lastly, what the family stories were of those in the southwest corner of the Swauk Cemetery where Mary Malinda Evans and her unborn child were buried in June of 1884.

  The Swauk Cemetery is a community heirloom. It started without any formal organization or plan, just a place where neighbors buried their dead. Now, to comply with state law, there is a non-profit corporation to administer its affairs. It is still a non-endowed cemetery without a fund for its perpetual care where the descendants of those buried there are expect-ed to take care of the graves.

  Swauk Cemetery is a place of serenity and beauty befitting of the hardy pioneers resting there.

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  Spirit of Liberty: History of a Gold Mining Camp and Its School

  Wesley C. Engstrom

  This book presents the history of a school in a mining camp of the late 1800's with emphasis on preserving names of early pioneers involved in creating the school. To put the school itself in proper perspective the history of the development of the gold mines is included as well as the history of Liberty, Washington.

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  The Land of Plenty: Kittitas County

  Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce

  The Land of Plenty is a promotional pamphlet published by the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce in 1908. Designed and printed by The Stuff printing concern in Seattle Washington. The book is a promotional narrative about the potential for farming and orchards on the irrigated lands of Kittitas county. It contains facts about local farming sucesses and photos of produce and homes in Ellensburg.