Pomeroy, Washington — County Replaced the Courthouse and Kept the Town

Pomeroy is the only incorporated city in Garfield County.

When the county was created in 1881, Pomeroy became the seat of government.

Its first courthouse burned two years later.

The replacement eventually gave way to the substantial brick-and-stone courthouse opened in 1901, which still rises above town.

Wheat supplied the broader economy. Farms spread across the plateau while Pomeroy concentrated banks, stores, schools, machinery and county services for households scattered across a large rural district.

Railroads once moved much of the grain. Trucks and highways later took over, and population declined from its early-twentieth-century peak.

The courthouse and much of the historic commercial fabric survived.

Garfield County has very few people, but government still has to exist somewhere.

Somewhere is Pomeroy.