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Wallula, Washington

Prior to white settlement, Wallula was a permanent town site for the Walla Walla people, as well as a summer encampment for members of the Walla Walla, Nimíipuu, Umatilla, and Cayuse nations. Wanapum dreamer-prophet Smohalla, who resisted white incursion onto Indigenous land and the pressure to assimilate into settler culture, was born in the Wallula area in the early 1800s. The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through Wallula in 1805 and 1806, and the fur trading North West Company built Fort Nez Perce there in 1818. The fort was abandoned in the 1850s, during the Yakima War, but Wallula survived, in part because it was in the perfect location to serve as a port for nearby Walla Walla. A post office opened in 1862 and in the 1870s an area doctor, funders, and workers built a railroad that connected Wallula to Walla Walla. The railroad town hung on until the 1950s, when McNary Dam inundated the community. Wallula residents decided to move their town two miles to the northeast, and the government compensated them for their property and relocation costs.