Deer Meadows, Washington — Community Created by a New Shoreline

Deer Meadows lies in northern Lincoln County above Lake Roosevelt.

That shoreline is younger than many of the houses people casually think of as “historic.” Grand Coulee Dam transformed the Columbia into a long reservoir during the twentieth century, creating entirely new lakefront geography.

Homes and recreation properties later spread along higher ground overlooking the water. Deer Meadows therefore belongs to a settlement pattern that could not have existed in quite the same way before the dam. It was not built around a railroad depot or farm-town main street; it grew around access to a reservoir.

The community's most important geographic feature is one humans put there.