Springdale, WA

Springdale is a Stevens County town in northeastern Washington, where the 2020 census counted 234 residents. John Shriner and Charles O. Squire arrived around 1886, Squire built the first sawmill in 1887, and the settlement was platted as Squire City in 1889. When the Spokane Falls and Northern Railway built a depot nearby, the station was named Springdale; the town incorporated in 1903.

The railroad made Springdale a lunch stop between Spokane and Northport and helped logging, farming, and mining grow around the tracks. A fire destroyed the entire business section on July 9, 1908, forcing the town to rebuild. The name may have fit the landscape too: the town sits over underground streams that emerge as springs. Mary Walker School District now connects Springdale’s elementary, middle, high, alternative, and academy programs. The town’s story is a neat sequence of sawmill, depot, fire, springs, and school, all packed into a small Stevens County map. The small population still sits close to that sequence.