Coulee Corridor
This 171 mile side trip follows the Coulee Corridor Scenic Byway through central Washington and connects with some of the state’s best bird watching areas.
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Start or the end of a tour leg.
Waypoint or town along the tour leg with more information.
Key waypoints and Main Street communities along the tour leg. Sites you do not want to miss!
Point of interest along the tour leg.
In the fall of 1885, Father DeRouge, a catholic priest, arrived at the Okanogan River, near the present Ellis-Forde, where he built a home and a small chapel. Later in 1886 a long chapel was built at the head of Omak Lake, east of the Okanogan River on the Colville Native American Reservation. This was the beginning of St. Mary's Mission, which in charge of Father DeRouge became one of...
Learn more about St. Mary’s MissionMile: 76
A community on the Colville Native American Reservation northeast of the Columbia River. It is a tribal name and means of large, open meadow, or big, flat land describing a large meadow adjoining the town. In 1841, the word evidently sounded like Spillnin to members of the Wilkes Expedition who charted it.
Learn more about NespelemMile: 44
Platted as Elmerton on March 2, 1937. It was also the name of the proposed post office which was judged to be too close in name to Elberton in Whatcom County. The community began as a construction town and was named for Elmer Seaton, husband of Eunice Seaton, the first post master.
Learn more about Elmer CityMile: 31
This large mesa-like rock is in the equalizing reservoir southwest of Grand Coulee Dam in northeast Grant County. Once it was an island in the course of the glacier-diverted Columbia River. It was named for an imagined resemblance to a huge ship.
Learn more about Steamboat Rock State ParkMile: 19
The park is now known as Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, a 4,027-acre camping park (open year-round) with 73,640 feet of freshwater shoreline at the foot of Dry Falls. Dry Falls is one of the great geological wonders of North America. The hexagonal shaped stone Vista House still stands, offering an excellent lookout point of the spectacular geological formations. Today, visitors may obtain information about the area at the Dry...
Learn more about Dry Falls State ParkPoints of Interest
Vista House
Dry Coulee
Mile: 93
At Blue Lake, are bathing beaches and camp grounds. The stained sections of the rock walls record the history of many lava flows and of intervening periods when soil accumulated. After the seventh flow from the top cooled, trees grew up, but the next flow covered them. Only fossilized stumps remain.
Learn more about Blue LakeMile: 89
On the eastern shore of Moses Lake, is an agricultural trading center that has grown in importance in recent years. An Army Air Base established here during World War II is actively continued as a vital link in western American defense. The town is thriving due to local prosperity based on many thousands of acres of irrigated land. It was named for the lake, which was named for Chief Moses,...
Learn more about Moses LakePoints of Interest
Moses Lake
Mile: 54
The Potholes are irregular, scattered bodies of water which are a result of glacial action and are shallow varying greatly in size. Extensive, high, rounded sand dunes are interspersed between the potholes. The name was given by U.S. Bureau of Soils during a survey conducted between 1905 and 1911.
Learn more about Potholes State ParkMile: 12
A community northeast of the east end of the Saddle Mountains. In 1907-1908, the name was accepted by H. R. Williams, vice president of Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, for the site of its western division headquarters. It had been given to the local post office in 1904 by an early homesteader in memory of the Roane County, Tennessee post office of her youth. The town was incorporated in...
Learn more about OthelloPoints of Interest
Othello Hotel
