Kettle Falls, WA

Kettle Falls is a Stevens County city on the Colville River just above its meeting with the Columbia, about 30 miles south of the Canadian border. The 2020 census counted 1,636 residents, with a 2024 estimate of 1,649. The name comes from the original Kettle Falls on the Columbia, an important Indigenous fishing site that disappeared beneath Lake Roosevelt after Grand Coulee Dam was built. The first town was incorporated on the river in 1891, then relocated near Meyers Falls and the railroad before the reservoir rose in 1940. Logging, agriculture, and paper shipments helped the new town keep its footing. Today, Kettle Falls sits beside the northern reach of Lake Roosevelt, with the Colville valley, back roads, campgrounds, and boat access shaping the local map.

Kettle Falls Historical Center carries the older river story, while the campground and nearby National Park Service lands bring visitors through for fishing, boating, hiking, and the area’s Indigenous and fur-trade history. The city’s streets and services still belong to a working Stevens County community, not just a lake stop. Kettle Falls is a place where the missing town is part of the present one: the reservoir changed the river, the railroad moved the settlement, and the city continues to live between those two versions of the landscape.