My kiddos used to live in Pullman and so I’ve driven through Colfax a hundred times but I’ve seldom stopped. My bad, for this little town has a history AND, today, some cute little shops.

Colfax lies in the heart of the rolling Palouse hills, and is bisected by the Palouse River. Historic Steptoe Butte can be seen to the north. 

In 2022, Colfax celebrated their 150th year anniversary. In 1870, James Perkins was the first white man to see the potential in this little valley and envisioned a nice little town. Perkins and his fellow settler, Thomas Smith, soon scouted a site for a lumber mill. By 1871, the mill cut its first lumber and had its first log drive. This lumber, ordered by Waitsburg businessman, Anderson Cox, recognized the need for lumber for buildings in order that the area towns thrive. After the sawmill was established on the Palouse River, the town quickly sprang up around it. Pine trees that once covered the hills were turned into lumber for the immigrants’ homes. 

Perkins originally named the town Belleville, perhaps after a former girlfriend named Belle or perhaps after his hometown of Belleville, Indiana. But since his wife was not named Belle, the town name soon was changed to Colfax, to honor U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax in 1873. 

There are many inviting little shops: The Colfax Mercantile, Tick Klock Drug, the Dusty Attic and Palouse River Quilts. The little hamburger place on the east side of main street has been a staple for years……….and offers great burgers! 

The Whitman County Historical Society maintains the Perkins House where the family lived from 1887 from into the 1960s, when it was sold to the Whitman County Historical Society. It is open for visits. 

One story, told to me by a friend years ago whose husband was on the Spokane police force, explained that largely unknown in a basement of a downtown building was a complete, ready-to-go, command center in case of an environmental catastrophe on the West side, ie, Olympia. True? Wasn’t able to verify that story. Do you know?