Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Thorp, WA

Thorp is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Kittitas County, at the narrow west end of the Kittitas Valley above the Yakima River flood plain, about eight miles northwest of Ellensburg, the county seat.

Thorp is named for Fielden Mortimer Thorp, recognized as the first permanent white settler in the Kittitas Valley, who homesteaded at the approach to Taneum Canyon in 1868.

The community's Indigenous name is Klála, and about a mile above the present townsite stood Klála, the largest Indigenous settlement in the Kittitas Valley, with about 500 people.

The townsite was platted on July 9, 1895, around the Northern Pacific Railroad depot after the railroad reached Thorp in 1887, and the community never incorporated.

The Thorp Mill, a banked grist mill built by Oren Hutchinson in 1883, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the oldest remaining industrial artifact in Kittitas County; famous for its 'Tip Top' flour brand, it milled until 1946.

In 1907 the mill's water power drove a 40-horsepower dynamo that supplied electricity for laundry two mornings a week and home lighting a few hours each evening, making Thorp one of the first places in Washington with electric lights.

When the Milwaukee Road built its own depot at Thorp in 1909, the community became the first place where that railroad and the Northern Pacific crossed paths, and an important shipping point.

The farmland around Thorp is the oldest irrigated section in Kittitas County, and the local economy rests on agriculture — potatoes, apples and Timothy hay — along with lumber.

Thorp was first counted as a census-designated place in the 2000 census with 273 people; the 2010 census counted 240 people in 103 households, and the 2020 census counted 232 residents.

The Thorp CDP covers about 1.2 square miles at an elevation of 1,637 feet.