About Kettle Falls, WA

Kettle Falls, Washington, in Stevens county, is 72 miles NW of Spokane, Washington and 209 miles E of Seattle, Washington. About 1,527 people live in Kettle Falls.

The present City of Kettle Falls is located on the western edge of Stevens County 2.5 miles east of Lake Roosevelt and the mouth of the Colville River. It is situated north of the river and south of a steep hillside, Gold Hill, limiting its development to the north. Highway 25 runs north and south along the western border of town and Highway 395 runs east and west at the north end of town. Highway 395 is a primary transportation route from Spokane to Canada to the north and Republic to the west.

The original town of Kettle Falls was a forty-acre site platted in 1889 two miles south of the site of the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade post, Fort Colville. Ft Colville had been officially abandoned in 1871 but some of the family of the last chief factor still occupied the site until 1891. The town was platted and promoted as an investment scheme to attract investors from the east coast. Although a town was laid out and a large, modern hotel was constructed, it failed to sufficiently impress the investors. But what was begun continued to develop. In spite of the fact that the railroad bypassed Kettle Falls in favor of Marcus in 1891, it was a substantial community that faced relocation when the construction of Grand Coulee Dam caused the waters of the Columbia River to cover the town in 1939.

The town voted to move farther up to the location of Meyers Falls a short 2.5 miles away. Meyers Falls was originally the site of a gristmill constructed to process grain from the Hudson’s Bay Company fields. The residents of the newly formed town voted to change the name to Kettle Falls. Many of the buildings that are still found in the town were moved by truck up from the old town site.

The Kettle Falls area has a long history of habitation. Not only had it formerly been a Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade post, Fort Colville, and the site of an early Jesuit mission but, for some 9,000 years before that, it was the location of a major Native American salmon fishery. Many of the tribes in the surrounding areas traditionally gathered at the falls to trade and harvest salmon.