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Marcus, Washington

The British Boundary Commission—-who was tasked, alongside the US Boundary Commission, with drawing the US-Canadian border-—established a base camp in the Marcus area in the 1850s. In 1863, Marcus Oppenheimer took over abandoned buildings the commission had left behind and filed a homestead claim on the site. The farming town of Marcus, incorporated in 1910, grew up around Oppenheimer’s homestead and was named after him. In the 1930s, a slew of businesses-—including bars, stores, a movie theater, and a hospital—-lined Marcus’s main street. While Marcus relocated before its original site was submerged by Grand Coulee Dam, many former residents chose to resettle elsewhere and the new town failed to flourish.