From the Daily Record News, October 1, 2009, article by Michael Gallagher:
The castle on Craig’s Hill, on the corner of Chestnut and Third, stands out as the city’s most distinctive residential structures, a historic treasure we enjoy to this day.
Dial back the clock 100 years or more, and the perspective shifts dramatically. At the turn of the 20th century the structure would have been considered a failed gamble.
Britton and Samuel Craig built the castle in 1889. The brothers were experienced masons. The Craigs weren’t building a castle. They were building a mansion — the governor’s mansion. Unfortunately for the brothers, in 1890 voters in the new state of Washington voted for Olympia as its capital, over Ellensburg and a North Yakima location.
In 1893, the governor-less mansion was sold in a sheriff’s sale to Nathan Cushing for $4,300. The Craigs walked away from the endeavor with a profit of $80, according to the historical record compiled at the Ellensburg Public Library. That sale would be the high-water mark for the castle for quite a spell.
Cushing died in 1903, and according to the historical records, in 1904 the building sold for $800 and two months later was sold for $950. The building has passed through many hands, but the lineage from the Craig family to contemporary Ellensburg remains unbroken.
New geocacher hint: the log goes into the cap of the container first.