Keller, Washington — Community That Moved for Lake Roosevelt

Keller sits on the Colville Reservation in the Sanpoil River country, but the modern community is not in exactly the place earlier residents knew.

Grand Coulee Dam changed that.

As the Columbia rose behind the dam, the future Lake Roosevelt inundated low-lying land and forced settlements around the reservoir to relocate. Keller moved to higher ground.

The consequences reached far beyond buildings. The reservoir transformed cultural sites, transportation and fisheries, while Grand Coulee Dam blocked salmon from the upper Columbia system.

Modern Keller remains an inhabited reservation community serving a large rural area where mountains and river valleys make travel distances deceptive.

The old community had to move uphill. The Columbia stayed below—only now it looks like a lake.