Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Connell Connell, WA

Connell is a city in Franklin County, Washington, in the dry Columbia Basin country of Eastern Washington, where it sits in a depression formed by the meeting of Providence Coulee, Washtucna Coulee, and Esquatzel Coulee.

Connell was established in 1883 as Palouse Junction, a junction between the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, and the town was laid out by railroad official Jacob Cornelius Connell, whose surname it later adopted.

Unusual for a rail town, Palouse Junction was not located on any river, so trains and townspeople alike depended on public wells dug by the railroad; a well dug in 1903 finally struck water at 268 feet.

Much of Connell's business district was destroyed by fire in July 1905 and was quickly rebuilt in brick.

Connell was officially incorporated on November 28, 1910.

Dryland wheat farming was the lifeblood of Connell through most of the twentieth century, and agricultural chemicals remain a primary industry today.

Connell is home to the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, a state minimum- and medium-security prison capable of holding about 2,600 offenders, which is one of the community's principal employers.

The 2020 census counted 5,441 residents in Connell but only 958 households, a skew explained by the prison population: the census recorded about 267 males for every 100 females in the city.

Connell has grown rapidly in recent decades, from 311 residents in 1920 to 2,956 in 2000, 4,209 in 2010, and 5,441 in 2020, and 41.1 percent of its 2020 population was Hispanic or Latino.

Connell has a semi-arid climate with only about 10 inches of precipitation a year and is, on average, the least snowy city in Eastern Washington.