Chewelah Gets a Name

The town of Chewelah probably received its name from the Salish Indian word Sku-qua-wel-hau. Christine Quintasket, writing under the pen name of Mourning Dove, wrote that the literal translation of Chewelah means "garter snake".

James Teit stated in his Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus that the Chewelah Indians living in the Upper Colville Valley derived their name "from one of their principal winter camps" near the present town by the same name. Teit further writes that "There were two bands of the Chewelah, as some people speak of them having had two winter camps."

One of these two winter camps was near what is now called Indian Hill a mile south of Chewelah. The second camp was at the artesian spring on the property presently owned by Rollie and Janet Goulet. This second camp, according to local legend, was called Chewelah. Teit says that the name of this camp was originally pronounced "Tcewi'la".

More recent historians, however, believe there is more symbolism to the word Chewelah. Some say the name refers to the fact that there were many water snakes within the valley, especially in the swampy lands to the south of the present community of Chewelah. Others speculate that the name also describes the meandering rivers and streams that snaked their way through the valley.

In the early 1800s, the area surrounding the present town of Chewelah was called Fool's Prairie. It derived its name from a colorful member of the Chewelah Tribe who was known to the fur traders and early white settlers of the valley as "The Fool'. What we now call the Chewelah Valley was once known as Fool's Prairie because it was the place where he lived, raised horses, and trained young boys in the customs and traditions of the tribe.

It was near this same artesian spring that Father Pierre DeSmet located a mission in 1845 to convert the local Indians to Christianity and serve the religious needs of the Catholic fur trappers. The research of local Chewelah historian Walt Goodman includes an excerpt from a letter written by Father DeSmet in which the priest says that "several buildings were commencea. near the spring "where a great number of mixed race and beaver hunters have resolved to settle with their families." Since there were no white women here at this time, the fur trappers had married Indian wives and were raising families of mixed blood. Their village near the mission and the spring was the initial settlement of the town later to be named Chewelah.

Over the years, the settlement migrated east along a branch of the old wagon road that linked Fort Colville with Fort Walla Walla. The business district of town began near the intersection of Victoria Street and Valley Avenue. The first stores were built here to provide for the needs of the local residents.

In the late 1860s, an Indian Agency was constructed along Chewelah Creek near the intersection of Park Street and Webster Avenue with the goal of converting the local Indians from their nomadic lifestyle and turning them into sedentary farmers. New businesses quickly located nearby to provide for the needs of the soldiers who operated the agency, the Indians, and the new settlers to the area. This brought the business district closer to its present location.

It was at this Indian Agency in 1879 that the federal government decided to establish a post office. The new post office had to have a name, so mail could be addressed to it properly. A committee of residents was formed to select a permanent name for the town. The name chosen by the committee was "Chewelah". Luckily, the committee's choice was not Fool's Prairie.