Tonasket, Washington — Small Town Serving an Enormous Map

Tonasket carries the name of an Okanogan leader who lived before the modern town.

Chief Tonasket was a prominent nineteenth-century figure during a period when borders, treaties and settlement were rapidly reshaping the region.

The town later developed along the Okanogan River.

Irrigation supported orchards and other agriculture, while the Great Northern Railway connected the valley with markets and Canada. U.S. 97 eventually inherited much of that transportation role.

Tonasket became a service center for country far larger than its population suggests.

Medical services, schools, agricultural businesses and government functions serve people scattered across orchards, ranches, mountains and border country.

The region also attracted back-to-the-land settlers and people deliberately seeking distance from cities.

That combination gives Tonasket an unusual constituency: old agricultural families, tribal communities, orchard workers, remote homesteaders and newcomers who chose the area partly because the map looked empty.

The town is small.

Its practical territory is not.