Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Latah, WA

Latah is a small town in Spokane County, set among the rolling Palouse hills about 20 miles southeast of Spokane.

The Latah valley saw its first wave of settlers around 1872, including the Wimpy, Harvey, and Coplan families.

The town takes its name from Latah Creek, a Native word recorded by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805 as "Lau-Taw" and said to mean "fish" or "place where fish are caught."

The settlement was first called Hangman's Creek, after Colonel George Wright hanged several Native tribal members along the stream in 1858 in retaliation for the Army's defeat at the Battle of Pine Creek; the creek itself officially became Latah Creek again in 1965.

A post office opened at the settlement on March 19, 1873 under the name Hangman's Creek, became Alpha in 1881, and took the name Latah on December 11, 1883.

In 1876 more than 120 prehistoric mammoth fossils were found on two local farm properties, drawing scientists and visitors to the farming settlement.

A mammoth unearthed on Benjamin Coplan's land became the centerpiece of the Washington Pavilion at Chicago's World Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the Latah fossil collections now reside at the Field Museum in Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Latah voted to incorporate on April 9, 1892, with 48 votes in favor and four against, and Benjamin F. Coplen became its first mayor.

The town's population peaked at 339 residents in 1910 and then declined steadily for most of the century; the 2020 census counted 185 residents, and in 2010 there were 183 people in 67 households.

The brick Latah Schoolhouse, built in 1908 with a gymnasium added in 1920, is considered one of the oldest, largest, and best-preserved rural brick schoolhouses in the Palouse region.