Editing Cle Elum, Washington (section)

===Great fire of 1918===
Cle Elum's greatest disaster occurred on June 25, 1918, when a huge fire wiped out over seventy acres of the city (29 city blocks) causing over $500,000 (about ${{Formatprice|{{Inflation|US|500000|1918|r=-3}}}} today) in damages. The cause was later determined to most likely to be a cigarette butt thrown into a pile of garbage behind a theater. Thirty businesses and 205 houses were destroyed, leaving more than 1,800 people homeless. Following the incident, aid from across the state began pouring in. The Red Cross brought tents from [[Joint Base Lewis-McChord|Camp Lewis]] to house displaced citizens while soldiers were sent from Ellensburg to guard businesses. [[Yakima, Washington|Yakima]] and [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]] also sent aid to the city. No people died in the incident.<ref>"City Of Tents Is Rising American Red Cross Sends Shelters From Camp Lewis", ''The Oregonian'', June 28, 1918.</ref>

High insurance rates on Cle Elum's many wooden structures inhibited many people from purchasing them. One of the few buildings in downtown Cle Elum to survive the fire was the Cle Elum State Bank Building, built in 1906; it still stands today. The rest of downtown was quickly rebuilt with brick and many of these buildings still stand.