Soap Lake, WA

Soap Lake is a Grant County city on the shores of the mineral-rich lake that gives it its name. The 2020 census counted 1,691 residents. Indigenous communities knew the lake and its mud as Smokiam long before the first spa opened in 1907; Soap Lake incorporated in 1919 and grew around the idea of mineral-water healing. Ice Age Flood basalt coulees and the lake's salty, meromictic water give this small Columbia Basin place a landscape with a very specific local signature. Smokiam Park and the lake beaches put the water at the center of the town, while Masquers Theater, Soap Lake Library, the community center, and the Creative District give the compact downtown its cultural side.

Soap Lake School District serves local students, and the old resort story still hangs over the shoreline even as the town's arts and recreation scene keeps evolving. Soap Lake's local scoop is a mineral-lake town where an old spa economy, a little arts energy, and the lakefront all fit into the same small center.