It is located at the narrow west end of the Kittitas Valley, where high elevation forests of the Cascade Range give way to cattle ranches surrounded by farmlands noted for timothy hay, alfalfa, vegetables, and fruit production.

Klála, an ancient Native American village and the largest indigenous settlement in the Kittitas Valley at the arrival of the first white settlers, was located about one mile above the current town site.

[10] Subsequent to the Miocene lava flows, the volcanoes of the Cascade Mountains actively erupted, depositing ash, cinders, pumice and mudflows that eventually inter-fingered with the alternating basalt layers throughout the region.

The area was rich in wild berries, fish and game, and neighboring tribes annually converged on the valley in April or May to harvest Indian onions (Allium spp.

[16] The various tribes engaged in horse trading with early British and American fur traders, and had peaceful relations with Jesuit Catholic missionaries who preceded them.

That, coupled with cultural differences such as plowing the ground, which was seen as desecrating the spirit of the earth, led to confrontation between Native Americans and white settlers.

[17] The largest indigenous settlement in the Kittitas Valley at the arrival of the white settlers was Klála, a village of around 500 people located about one mile above the present town of Thorp along the Yakima River opposite the mouth of Taneum Creek.

[18][19] Among the earliest records of Native American interaction with frontiersmen in the Kittitas Valley took place in 1858, the summer of the Yakima War, when a large contingency of Wanapum from Priest Rapids camped at the head of Taneum Canyon very close to where the town of Thorp is now located.

Smohalla claimed that visions came to him through dreams, and he preached a return to the original way of life before white influences which included ritual music and dancing.

George W. Kennedy, a frontier Methodist preacher, traveled to the location of the camp in an attempt to make peace as he had become alarmed that such a large assembly meant hostility.

[26] Settlers began to trickle into the Kittitas Valley with the opening of the Snoqualmie Wagon Road in 1867, which approximated the modern-day route of Interstate 90 past Thorp, from Seattle to Ellensburg.

[30] This location, not more than a mile from the present town of Thorp, provided ideal shelter for their wintering cattle, as well as offering water and fertile soils for agriculture.

[20] Shortly thereafter, the F. M. Thorp and Charles Splawn families were joined by their friend Walter J. Reed, the second settler in the Kittitas Valley, who later established the community of Cle Elum.

[31] Tillman Houser, another early settler who brought his family over Snoqualmie Pass to settle on Coleman Creek, entered the valley on June 16 of that same year,[24] and was later joined by Martin Dervan and his wife.

[20][32] Keneho,[33] another friendly Indian of Yakama descent, was paid ten dollars by Charles Splawn for each trip to carry the mail over the Snoqualmie Trail to and from the Taneum Station post office.

After the death of his wife, Williams went to the Puget Sound area and operated a ferry at Nisqually River and eventually moved to California where his brother owned a stage line.

[34] Today, the grave is located off Road 3120 on land owned by the Washington Department of Natural Resources in a small fenced area across a meadow from the springs.

[37] Despite being one of the earliest locations in Kittitas County to be settled, Pleasant Grove would remain sparsely populated for the next decade, with cattle ranching as the primary occupation.

In 1880, the Pleasant Grove post office was moved close to where the small commercial center was beginning to form with the establishment of a sawmill and, three years later, a gristmill.

The new settlement hoped for the eventual establishment of a railway depot as the Northern Pacific Railroad had made its intentions clear that it would soon come through the valley close to where the village was located.

A Northern Pacific section house was located at Thorp where men of the regular crew boarded, while Chinese laborers and other members of the work gang had their own sleeping cars.

[40] The Ellensburg Dawn newspaper wrote in the spring of 1901 of the promising little town: "The little village of Thorp, nine miles up the road, is one of the nicest little places in Central Washington.

"[39][46]In 1907, the energy from the water wheel at the North Star Mill was utilized to power a steam generator having a 40-horsepower dynamo, which furnished electricity for laundering clothes two mornings each week, and for lighting homes for a few hours each evening.

Rather than stopping and losing precious time, RPO (railway post office) cars featured a large hook that would catch the mailbag in its crook on the way past the station.

[43] In 1928, Thorp became one of the headquarters for the Bureau of Reclamation's Kittitas Division of the Yakima Project which focused on construction of the Highline Canal, an event that brought yet more activity to the town.

[49][51] The boost in the economy brought workers into the town, spawning the need for social venues which, with the absence of liquor during the Prohibition era, made Ellison's Hall a great attraction.

[43] It was also the home of many parties hosted by the Ladies' Aid Society, and dances featuring local favorites like "Larry's Harmony Aces"[52] and "Pinky's Roamers".

[67] Local legend holds that the cemetery is haunted by the ghost of a young Indian woman by the name of Susie, who was tragically lynched around the year 1890 at Thorp, by persons unknown in the area.

Documents held by the Kittitas County Genealogical Society confirm her death as "caused by hanging by unknown person," listing her father as Salmon La Sac.

Their work was successful, but Sarah Goodwin is not listed on the charter roll of 1895 because she had already passed to her eternal reward by the time the church was fully established.