The town was named for William H. Marshall who filed a homestead on January 9, 1880. The company, Marshall & Smith, cut timber for the Northern Pacific Railway Company. The town grew around the saw mill. Earlier names for the place were Marshalltown and Marshall Junction.

The Marshall Bridge, at the east side of town over the Marshall Creek, is an exceptional representative of a type of construction (T-beam). The bridge is also noteworthy for having been designed as a continuous structure using the state-of-the-art Hardy Cross mathematical analysis for indeterminate structures. The bridge demonstrates the successful adaptation of new highway bridge construction in spanning an existing major railroad transportation corridor. The bridge is associated with an important local engineer, W L “Pat” Malony. The Marshall Creek Bridge facilitated crossing of the mainline rail yard and switching center of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railroad (SP&S), Union Pacific Railroad (UP), and Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) at the community of Marshall, Washington.