Tokio, Washington — Three Names, a Weigh Station, and an Afterlife

Tokio changed names more often than it changed size.

Northern Pacific officials called the stop Iona in 1888. It became Tracy in 1905 and Tokio a year later. A school and grain facilities followed, but the settlement never grew into a substantial town.

Eventually most of the buildings disappeared while the name remained attached to the Interstate 90 exit and surrounding wheat country.

Then “Tokio Weigh Station” acquired an entirely different life when Spokane musician Isamu Jordan used the name for a band. An obscure highway reference had somehow become culture.

The community also carries a darker memory. A fast-moving 1998 wildfire burned thousands of acres and killed a local farmer; neighbors later harvested his remaining crop together.

Tokio survives less as a town center than as a coordinate with unusually stubborn branding. The railroad renamed it three times. The freeway kept the last version alive.