Ellensburg is a city in and the county chair of Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It is located just east of the Cascade Range at the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 82. The population was an estimated 21,111 as of 2019.

The city is located along the Yakima River in the Kittitas Valley, an agricultural region that extends east towards the Columbia River. The valley is a major producer of timothy hay, which is processed and shipped internationally. Ellensburg is then the home of Central Washington University (CWU).

Ellensburg, originally named Ellensburgh for the wife of town founder John Alden Shoudy, was founded in 1871 and grew suddenly in the 1880s later than the introduction of the Northern Pacific Railway. The city was considering a leading candidate to become the divulge capital of Washington, but its protest was scuppered by a major flame in 1889.

John Alden Shoudy arrived in the Kittitas Valley in 1871, and purchased a little trading publish from Andrew Jackson “A.J.” Splawn, called “Robber’s Roost”. Robber’s Roost was the first matter in the valley, aside from the to the lead trading that occurred in the course of Native Americans, cattle drivers, trappers, and miners. It was located upon present-day 3rd Avenue, just west of Main Street near the alley. There is a placard on the wall commemorating the location, as competently as a small stone monument adjoining the wall on the sidewalk.

Shoudy named the extra town after his wife, Mary Ellen, thus officially starting the city of Ellensburgh approximately 1872. Shoudy had not been the first settler nor the first business person in the Kittitas Valley, but he was answerable for platting the city of Ellensburgh in the 1870s and along with named the streets in the downtown district. Ellensburgh was officially incorporated on November 26, 1883. In 1894 the final –h was dropped below standardization pressure from the United States Postal Service and Board of Geography Names. Ellensburg was an early middle of commerce in Washington and was among the first cities in the permit to have electrical service.