Transit Throwback – Ellensburg Intercity Buses

It’s no secret that intercity bus service in Eastern Washington is not what it used to be. When travelling by bus was much more common, some routes in the region would see as many as 7-8 trips a day. Nowadays, the most frequent services just run twice daily.

Out of every city in Eastern Washington, Ellensburg has always been in the most advantaged position in the intercity bus network. Sitting right on Interstate 90 just on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, every single bus that crosses into Eastern Washington has to pass through the city.

This advertisment from the Ellensburg Daily Record on November 12, 1941 gives us a better idea of just how much service Ellensburg had.

You can see immediately that a lot of this service no longer exist today. Perhaps most interesting though is the former location of Ellensburg’s bus depot. Unlike the modern Greyhound stop, which is located on the far western edge of town at a truck stop, the old depot was right in the middle of downtown. Located at the SW corner of Fifth Ave and Pine Street, buses were easily accesible by all residents, including students at Central Washington University which is just a short walk away. The Fifth and Pine depot was later closed on August 25, 1958. For a time, buses stopped in Ellensburg at Antlers Hotel (also located downtown). That didn’t last very long though, as the Antlers Hotel later was destroyed by a massive fire in 1967. After that, Greyhound built a new depot at the NW corner of 8th Ave (now University Way) and Okanogan Street. Presumably, officials with Greyhound were satisfied with that depot for about 30 years, as it wasn’t until 1997 that Greyhound announced the Okanogan Street depot was for sale. Like all the previous stop relocations, residents raised concerns that they would lose their service if a new location couldn’t be found. Three years later, the last move was finally completed as Greyhound officially moved the stop to the Pilot Truck Stop (now Love’s Truck Stop) in February 2000.