Colton, WA

Colton is a Whitman County town in the Palouse, with 401 residents in the 2020 census. It sits along U.S. 195 just west of the Idaho line, on the farm route between Pullman and the Snake River grain terminals. The surrounding country is broad, rolling wheat ground, but the town itself gathers around Main Street, the old rail corridor, a church, and the highway. Colton is close enough to Idaho to feel like a border town, while its daily connections run north toward Pullman and south toward Uniontown and Lewiston.

The town was planned in 1879 by L. J. Wolford, Roy Woodworth, and Dr. Cole after they split from Uniontown’s leadership. Its name combines the first three letters of Cole with the last three letters of Wolford’s son Clinton. City government formed in 1881; the Northern Pacific reached town in 1888 with one passenger and one freight round trip each day. State Route 195 took over the main road role in the 1930s. Colton is a Washington town where a rail-and-grain beginning, a named highway, a wheat landscape, and the Idaho border meet.