Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Cheney Cheney, WA

Cheney is a city in Spokane County that was incorporated on November 28, 1883.

The city is named for Benjamin Pierce Cheney, a Boston railroad tycoon and Northern Pacific director who donated $10,000 to found the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy; the railroad donated the eight acres it stood on.

Before settling on Cheney, the young railroad town went through the names Section Thirteen, Willow Springs, Depot Springs, and Billings.

Cheney briefly held the Spokane County seat after the disputed 1881 ballot recount remembered as the 'Grand Steal,' remaining county seat until Spokane Falls took it back in 1886.

Under Washington's 1889 Enabling Act legislation, one of the state's normal schools was placed in Cheney, and that school grew into today's Eastern Washington University.

Eastern Washington University enrolls roughly 10,500 students, and Cheney's population swells to around 17,600 people when classes are in session.

The 2020 census counted 13,255 residents in 4,900 households in Cheney, up from 10,590 residents in 3,902 households in 2010.

The Seattle Seahawks held most of their summer training camps at Eastern Washington University from 1976 to 1985 and again from 1997 to 2006.

Cheney is the highest point on the railroad line between Spokane and Portland.

South of the city, the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge protects wetlands and ponderosa pine habitat carved into the Channeled Scablands by the Ice Age Missoula Floods.