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13 Ross called this valley in which he encountered the encampment “the Eyakema Valley” but subsequent histories of the region identify the location as the Kittitas Valley. Early settlements Beginning in 1847 Catholic Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate established missions in the lower Yakima Valley. In 1848 Oblate Father Charles Pandosy founded the Immaculate Conception Mission on Manastash Creek near what would become Ellensburg. Pandosy served at the mission until 1849. On March 2, 1853, Isaac Stevens the newly appointed Territorial Governor established the Washington Territory. On June 9, 1855, Yakama Chief Kamiakin and other tribal leaders signed a treaty with Stevens ceding claim to all 16,920 square miles of the tribe's lands except a 1,875-square-mile portion of land to be used for a reservation. The future Kittitas County was part of the ceded land, along with the present Chelan, Yakima, Franklin, Adams, and large portions of Douglas and Klickitat Counties, about one-fourth of the present state of Washington. Although the treaty was not scheduled to be ratified and go into effect until 1859, within one month of obtaining Kamiakin’s signature, Territorial Governor Stevens advertised in the Puget Sound Courier that the ceded lands were open to settlement. Gold and the Indian Wars Gold miners crossing the Kittitas and Yakima Valleys on the way to northeastern Washington combined with the threat of imminent white settlement angered the Indians. Kamiakin and other tribal leaders, having signed the treaty reluctantly, rejected it almost immediately. The Yakama Indian Wars of 1855-1856 and of 1858 followed. From May to September of 1856, Major Granville O. Haller directed a military encampment in the Kittitas Valley. It was not until after 1859 that many of the Yakamas were forced onto the reservation near Fort Simcoe. Congress ratified the Treaty of Yakama and President James Buchanan signed the ratification proclamation on April 18, 1859. Gold miners crossing the Kittitas region continued in volume as they had been during the Indian Wars. Cattlemen brought herds to graze in the Kittitas Valley almost immediately, and within a few years non-Indian settlement in the area began in earnest. Cattle of Kittitas Valley The Kittitas Valley became a stopping place for cowboys driving herds north toward mining camps in Canada and northwest toward the Seattle-Tacoma market. By the late 1860s, cattle ranchers established land claims and cattle became the area’s foremost industry. By the late 1890s, the beef cattle ranching industry was somewhat eclipsed by farming, especially growing hay and wheat. Better rail transportation to get herds to market stimulated resurgence in the region’s cattle industry shortly thereafter. From the early 1870s to the 1960s many farmers also kept dairy cows and sold milk to local creameries and shipped to Seattle. The Kittitas Valley also produced a commercial wool crop. On November 24, 1883, Territorial Governor William Augustus Newell signed the act creating Kittitas County. The land had been part of Yakima County (established January 21, 1865). Residents of the Kittitas area petitioned the Washington Territorial Legislative Assembly demanding that Yakima County either be divided into two counties or that, if the county were not divided, Ellensburg rather than Yakima City become Kittitas’s county seat. As a result, Kittitas County was split off from Yakima County and Ellensburg was named the new county’s county seat. Irrigating the Valley The farming potential of the rich Kittitas Valley bottomland was apparent to early settlers, who dug simple irrigation ditches. In 1885, the Ellensburg Water Company began surveying canal routes and building simple canals. By the early 1900s the Cascade Canal and Town Ditch on the east side of the Yakima River in Ellensburg and the West Side Ditch on the west side of the river were irrigating more than 26,000 acres in the lower part of the Kittitas Valley