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History · Kettle Falls · established 1940

86 years of Kettle Falls, in pictures

Postcards, papers and photographs of Kettle Falls from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.

1940established
15old photos & papers
1historic places
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Kettle Falls’s archive · credits on each photo

What stands out about Kettle Falls’s past

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

A town in old photos15 old photos, postcards and papers, 1880–1942.
★ What stands out · By decade

Kettle Falls, decade by decade

5 decades in the archive, from the 1880s to the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1880s–1920s5 items
Officer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co., Fort Colville near1880Officer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co., Fort Colville… FMIB 34196 Myers Falls, Coleville River1894FMIB 34196 Myers Falls, Coleville River LARO 28741925LARO 2874 LARO 33221925LARO 3322 LARO 33221925LARO 3322
1930s–1940s10 items
Rodeo and dedication of Greater Kettle Falls, Program August 4-6, 19391939Rodeo and dedication of Greater Kettle Falls, Program… LARO 26591940sLARO 2659 LARO 24701940LARO 2470 LARO 26991941LARO 2699 LARO 26981941LARO 2698 LARO 27001941LARO 2700 LARO 27921941LARO 2792 Marcus (1942) Washington 1-125000 topographic quadrangles (cut)1942Marcus (1942) Washington 1-125000 topographic quadran… Marcus (1942) Washington 1-125000 topographic quadrangles1942Marcus (1942) Washington 1-125000 topographic quadran… LARO 27931942LARO 2793
1950s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
Today3 recent
LARO 33352005LARO 3335 LARO 31872005LARO 3187 WAMap-doton-Kettle Falls2004WAMap-doton-Kettle Falls
The story

How Kettle Falls came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Kettle Falls.

Read it all →

The original Kettle Falls was officially incorporated on December 17, 1891, on the bank of the Columbia. Before it was flooded by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1940, city planners relocated the town at a community called Meyers Falls, near the railroad lines, helping to ensure its success as a trans-shipment point for the logging, agriculture, and paper industries. This is its present location, eight miles northwest of Colville and roughly 80 miles northwest of Spokane.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Kettle Falls, 1880 to 1940

Woven from the archive, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1880In the archiveOfficer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co., Fort Colville near
  3. 1894In the archiveFMIB 34196 Myers Falls, Coleville River
  4. 20th century
  5. 1925In the archiveLARO 2874
  6. 1939In the archiveRodeo and dedication of Greater Kettle Falls, Program August 4-6, 1939
  7. 1940
    FoundingKettle Falls is established
  8. 1940In the archiveLARO 2659
Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Officer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co., Fort Colville near
Retake this viewOfficer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co., Fort Colville near, 1880

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Kettle Falls’s page.

Retake this view · +15
On the National Register

1 historic place in Kettle Falls

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1995
Meyers Falls Power Plant Historic District
in Washington
#130
by listings
Meyers Falls Power Plant Historic District
Districts
All 1 listings
Meyers Falls Power Plant Historic DistrictDistrict · listed 1995

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Help out

Finish Kettle Falls’s story

Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
3 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewOfficer's quarters at Hudson's Bay Co.,…: stand where they stood+15 Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Memory lane

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

Town Square →
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From Wikimedia Commons (18), the National Register of Historic Places (1) and Wikipedia. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

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