There are four irrigating canals in the Ellensburg district. One, the Teanaway Ditch Company's canal, is fifty miles in length, and can water seventy-five thousand acres of land. It is claimed that, without irrigation, forty bushels to the acre of wheat can be produced! It is in evidence that the Ellensburg Yalley produced, in 1887. one million bushels of wheat, without artificial moisture. Fruit, vegetables, hops, and hay do well without irrigation; but with it, they produce larger crops.
Ellensburg is the county-seat of Kittitass County. It is situated on Wilson Creek, a short distance from the Yakima Fiver, on a plain sloping south. The Cascades and Mount Rainier close in the western view; the water-shed between the Yakima and Wenatchee defines the valley on the northeast, and the hills of the Cowiche on the southwest, while the Yakima on the southeast is closed in by highlands forming a long, crooked, and narrow defile, shutting off all the landscape on the farther side. The town is regularly laid out, with wide streets, good sidewalks, and well-kept public grounds. There has been a large accession to the population since the completion of the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific.
Ellensburg controls the trade of a wide section, and is reaching out after that of the Okanogan mining region and the Big Bend country. Its business men built a steamboat in 1889 to run on the Columbia, between a point about thirty miles from Ellensburg and the mouth of the Okanogan River, and, although it was run at a loss the first year, voted a subsidy to keep it on the route the second year, a measure which is bringing its reward. All the freight from the West for the mines had heretofore been sent to Spokane Falls, and thence across the country by rail- and wagon-roads, making a long and expensive detour. The Ellensburg and Northern Railroad is being constructed to the Columbia River to connect with the steamer for the Okanogan mines.
Ellensburg has a good water-system, electric-light service, one street railway, a telephone exchange, two banks, three newspapers, a foundry and machine-shops, and other manufactures. There are six flouring-mills in the valley, three saw-mills, three sash- and door factories, with numerous well-stocked general merchandise establishments. A company has recently been
