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History · Inchelium

Inchelium’s post office opened in 1910

Most of Inchelium was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1978. Below: maps from 1950 on and the census since 2000.

1910first post office
0on the National Register
0.0%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Inchelium began

When was Inchelium founded?

1910

The Inchelium post office opened in 1910, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Impach (1922), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

First census: 389 in 20002020 census: 431116 years
Founding year: the first Inchelium post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Inchelium’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Inchelium are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Inchelium’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Inchelium’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story so far

Inchelium, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Inchelium yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Inchelium (Okanagan: N̓čaʔlíwm̓) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Ferry County, Washington, United States on the Colville Indian Reservation. The population was 431 at the 2020 Census. Inchelium was relocated from an earlier site in the early 1940s. Old Inchelium had been located on the banks of the Columbia River before the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. As the waters rose behind the dam, the town had to be moved. A description of life in the last years of Old Inchelium and of the move can be found in Lawney Reyes' memoir White Grizzly Bear's Legacy: Learning to be Indian and his history/memoir B Street: The Notorious Playground of Coulee Dam. Inchelium is the demographic heart…

Its first post office opened in 1910. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 409 to 431 (+5%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Inchelium, 1910 to 1954

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1910Post officeThe Inchelium post office opens
  3. 1922Post officeThe Impach post office opens
  4. 1950On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1954Post officeThe Impach post office closes
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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On the map

Inchelium on the map, 1950 to 1985

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Inchelium. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Inchelium on the 1950 USGS mapInchelium on the 1985 USGS map1950Inchelium sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Inchelium.

People over time

Inchelium, census by census

010020030040020002020Peak: 431

Between 389 and 431 people in every census since 2000.

3 censuses, 2000–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Inchelium’s Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners and places now gone

Inchelium’s post office has been open since 1910. Another post office, Impach, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Inchelium
1910–today
Impach
1922–1954
19101970today
Hamlets and corners on the map
Impach
Gone or out of use
Guinn Minemine

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Inchelium’s history

What year was Inchelium founded?

The Inchelium post office opened in 1910, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.