Palouse, Washington — Town That Shares Its Name With an Entire Landscape

Palouse has a naming problem.

There is the town, the river, the Indigenous Palus people and the rolling agricultural region now known worldwide for its hills.

The town sits along the Palouse River near Idaho.

Euro-American settlement expanded in the 1870s as farms and timber operations used the river corridor and railroad connections.

Around it, native prairie was converted almost entirely to cropland.

Deep windblown loess created exceptionally productive but remarkably steep fields.

Farm machinery had to adapt, including hillside combines capable of working slopes that look unreasonable from a distance.

The town had its own argument with topography.

Floods repeatedly pushed the Palouse River into streets and buildings.

Palouse rebuilt, leaving a compact historic downtown beside the water that caused so much trouble.

The name eventually escaped the town and came to describe an entire visual landscape.

Few communities lose control of their brand that thoroughly.