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Phoenix Risen

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COURTESY OF ELLENSBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY The Davidson Building in Ellensburg was built after fire destroyed downtown in 1889. PAUL DORPAT Thanks to real-estate agent Scott Repp, the building is one of the region's lovingly restored Victorian delights.

THIS LITTLE revelation of the Victorian delights found in Ellensburg's historic business district begins with the urge to consume not architecture but a salad.

While returning with a friend to Seattle from Spokane, we left Interstate 90 for dinner in the college town whose founder, John Shoudy, named for his wife, Ellen. As we ordered our greens, the sun continued on over Snoqualmie Pass and cast a rosy light back over the Davidson Building. I left the table to take this "now" photo of the corner tower of what may be the state's most sportive example of Victorian architecture.

Like parts of Seattle and Spokane, Ellensburg burned down in the summer of 1889. John and Jean Davidson lost a building to the fire, but they quickly rebuilt this elegant showpiece on the same northeast corner of Pearl Street and Fourth Avenue, and perched a phoenix above its south façade — on the right — as a sign of their and the town's defiant resurrection out of its own ashes.

In another four years, the couple would lose their landmark in the financial crash of 1893, but Judge John Davidson — also a rancher and a miner — would rise to prosper again. Jean Davidson would become the first librarian in Ellensburg's Carnegie library. Fittingly, it was Ellensburg librarian Milton Wagy, a contemporary expert on the community's pictorial past, who picked the historical photo that made the closest match to my sunset snapshot.

In 1979, when Ellensburg real-estate agent Scott Repp purchased the Davidson Building, it was nearly vacant and painted all white — even the windows. Ellensburg is fortunate that its jewel has been restored, and, no doubt, the Davidsons would be pleased with Repp's good work.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.