Point 1: Cadwell Block, 114 E 3rd Avenue, 1889

The Cadwell Building, recognizable by its distinctive horseshoe-shaped windows, cost $15,000 to build and was one of at least four large commercial blocks E. P. Cadwell helped fund. Cadwell was an attorney for the Northern Pacific Railroad and his investment funds were (at least initially) a godsend to Ellensburg residents rebuilding their city after the July 4, 1889, fire. He imported most of the building materials for the Cadwell Building from the East, including tin fabricated to look like stone. In 1890, Cadwell fled town, having figuratively burned his bridges even as he helped rebuild the burned city. He retained ownership of the Cadwell Block until 1895, when it was sold in a sheriff’s sale because of unpaid mortgage payments. The downstairs housed a succession of grocery and furniture stores, while the upstairs housed offices, including the those of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, and by 1937, hotel rooms that may have been used for prostitution. The building, now owned by the Kittitas County Historical Society, has housed the Kittitas County Historic Museum since 1975. The society restored the storefront that had been covered by a remodeling attempt in the 1950s.

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