Banks Lake South, WA

Banks Lake South is a Grant County census-designated community on the east side of Banks Lake near the reservoir’s southern end, next to Coulee City in the Upper Grand Coulee. The 2020 census counted 234 residents. Banks Lake is part of the Columbia Basin Project, built with rock-faced earthfill dams at the north and south ends of an Ice Age Columbia River channel. The result is a 27-mile reservoir whose shoreline and open water define the local map.

That setting brings a working-water landscape into a small school community. Banks Lake supports boating, camping, fishing, hiking, and water sports, with bass, perch, trout, walleye, kokanee, and other fish listed for the reservoir. State Route 155 leads north from Coulee City along the lake, and Banks Lake South falls within the Coulee-Hartline School District. Residents are close to Grant County’s larger agricultural and service centers, yet their immediate reference points are the reservoir, the coulee, and the road that follows them.