Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Disautel, WA

Disautel is an unincorporated census-designated place (CDP) in Okanogan County, Washington, located within the Colville Indian Reservation in the Greater Omak Area.

The community was established in 1919, about 15 miles east of Omak along what is now Washington State Route 155, at an elevation of about 2,871 feet.

Disautel was formerly a logging town that served as the headquarters of the Biles-Coleman Logging Company.

The Biles-Coleman narrow-gauge logging railroad that served Disautel operated from 1921 until 1948 and is chronicled as the last narrow-gauge logging railroad in Washington state.

When the highway toward Nespelem was improved, sawmill workers began commuting from Omak instead of living in Disautel, and the town's population dwindled.

After the sawmill closed at the beginning of the Great Depression, Disautel shrank further and was eventually largely abandoned, earning it a place in books on Northwest ghost towns.

For a time the state Highway Department used Disautel's empty warehouses to store road-working equipment, but that use did not last.

The population was just 47 at the 2020 census, down from 78 at the 2010 census, the first census in which Disautel appeared as a census-designated place.

About 79 percent of Disautel's 2020 residents identified as Native American alone, and the area is served by the Omak School District.