Eschbach, WA

Eschbach is a Yakima County census-designated place northwest of Yakima near Gleed and Selah, with 441 residents in the 2020 census. It occupies a small piece of the upper Yakima Valley where orchard country, irrigation works, and the Naches River floodplain overlap. Yakima County’s Eschbach Park and Nature Area, listed at 150 acres, is the most visible public place carrying the community’s name. The park, county roads, and nearby rural neighborhoods give Eschbach its practical shape.

This section of the Naches has changed channels over generations. County planning records note that the main river channel ran through the Eschbach Park area before the 1940s, while old channels became active during the 1996 flood and again during channel changes between 2009 and 2013. Levees, back channels, gravel, and irrigation are therefore part of the local landscape, not background scenery. Eschbach has no incorporated town government; its map is carried by the park, the river corridor, surrounding farms, and the short drive into Yakima. Eschbach is a Washington place where a small residential community sits inside a working valley shaped by water.