Tumtum, Washington — River Community Beside a Manufactured Lake

Tumtum sits along the Spokane River west of Nine Mile Falls, beside water whose modern shoreline dates to 1915.

That year Long Lake Dam was completed downstream, backing the river into a reservoir more than twenty miles long and supplying electricity to the growing Spokane region.

The dam also ended salmon migration into the upper Spokane River system, a profound change for the Spokane Tribe and other Indigenous communities whose lives had long been tied to those runs.

Homes and recreation later spread along the reservoir. What looks today like an established lake landscape is actually a relatively recent layer over the river corridor.

Tumtum lives beside both versions of the place: the scenic reservoir visible now and the salmon river remembered beneath its history.