Valleyford, Washington — Where Spokane Gives Way to the Palouse

Valleyford sits southeast of Spokane where rolling agricultural country begins taking over the horizon.

The community developed as a rural service point for grain and livestock farms spread across southeastern Spokane County. A store, school or post office could once organize households across many square miles.

Improved roads made Spokane easier to reach, and commuting brought newer homes into the older farm landscape.

That created a different kind of pressure. Productive agricultural ground, scenic acreage and residential development now compete for the same rolling hills.

Valleyford remains small at the crossroads, but the community is larger than the cluster of buildings suggests.

Its real footprint is the farm country around it, right where metropolitan Spokane begins giving the landscape back to the Palouse.