Rice, Washington — Farm Country Above Lake Roosevelt

Rice occupies the open plateau west of Lake Roosevelt, where farms, ranches and scattered homes spread across southern Stevens County.

Agriculture shaped the community long before the reservoir existed. Grain, livestock and rural roads tied families together across country where a “neighbor” might live considerably farther away than the word suggests.

Then Grand Coulee Dam transformed the Columbia below into Lake Roosevelt. The shoreline changed, fishing and recreation changed, and some regional travel patterns changed with it, even though Rice remained inland from the water.

The contrast is striking: a twentieth-century reservoir fills the canyon while the plateau above continues doing much older work.

Rice belongs to both landscapes—the engineered lake below and the working farm country above it.