How Kittitas County Got Its name

By Monica Mersinger

How Kittitas County got its name is uncertain. Opinion concludes that it is a Native American name, but interpreting what Natives meant by the word is unclear.

Kittitas Valley has always been a unique place, including for Native Americans who populated the valley. Its first inhabitants were the Psch-wan-wap-pams (stoney ground people), also known as the Kittitas band of the Yakama or Upper Yakama. Although the Kitttias were distinct from the Yakama Tribe, settlers and the federal government (for treaty purposes) grouped the Kittitas with the larger Yakama Tribe.

One of the interpretations of the meaning of the word Kittitas is the meaning shale rock, white chalk, or white clay but in any case the name may refer to the soil composition in the Kittitas Valley. Another interpretation is that a bread made from the root Cous was referred to by Natives as kit-tit. “Tash” is a Native term generally accepted to mean “place of existence.” So, kit-tit tash would be “where the Cous root exists”.

The Kittitas Valley was one of the few places in Washington where both camas (sweet onion) and cous (a root used to make bread) grew. These were staples that could be dried, made into cakes, and saved for winter consumption. Yakama, Cayous, Nez Perce and other tribes gathered in the valley to harvest these foods, fish, hold council talks, settle disputes, socialize, trade goods, race horses and play games. As it still is today, the Kittitas Valley was the crossroad for the state, allowing Natives to travel from British Columbia, the Puget Sound, the Columbia and Spokane area to this bountiful valley.

Fur trader Alexander Ross was one of the first non-Indians to describe the Kittitas Valley which he entered in 1814 to trade for horses and stumbled upon an enormous tribal gathering.

Ross wrote, “This mammoth camp could not have contained less than 2,000 men, exclusive of women and children, and treble the number of horses. It was a grand and imposing sight in the wilderness, covering more than six miles in every direction. Councils, root gathering, hunting, horse-racing, foot-racing, gambling, singing, dancing, drumming, yelling and a thousand other things I cannot mention were going on around us.” The place where the camas and cous grow - Kittitas. •

Fur trader Alexander Ross was one of the first non-Indians to decribe entering the Kittitas Valley in 1814.