The Olmstead Place

The Kittitas Valley, named for the Indians who had lived there from time immemorial, drew many American settlers to Washington Territory in the 1860s because its rich natural grasslands supported prosperous farms and ranches, even as traditional uses and the people themselves were eventually displaced. Among those pioneer families were the Olmsteads from Illinois. In 1875, Samuel and Sarah Olmstead and their three children rode on horseback over Snoqualmie Pass into the sparsely settled valley, built a log cabin next to Altapes Creek, and began the farm that would support the family for a century. The arrival of the railroad in the 1880s opened connections to more distant markets, and the Olmsteads responded by switching to dairy farming. In 1968, Olmstead descendants donated the farm to the state, and today Olmstead Place State Park, with its numerous buildings and pieces of horse-drawn farm equipment, preserves an earlier way of life on the thousands of family farms east of the Cascades.

Washington · United States