24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Naches, WA

Naches is a small incorporated town in Yakima County, strung along the Naches River and U.S. Route 12 west of Yakima, near the eastern foothills of the Cascade Range.

The town takes its name from the Naches River; according to Washington State Historical Society accounts, the name combines Indigenous words meaning 'rough or turbulent water,' a description of the river's character.

The townsite was platted in 1905 by the West and Wheeler land company on land originally homesteaded by the Denton, Newton Hecox, and Abner Sinclair families, and growth followed the irrigation system that valley farmers, aided by the federal government, started in 1908.

Irrigation turned the Naches Valley into orchard country, and by the 1940s the town's two apple-packing plants were its economic backbone — one, a million-dollar concern owned by Horticultural Union Local 21, employed about 250 men and women seasonally — alongside a small sawmill that cut box shooks from yellow pine.

Naches incorporated in the early 1920s — Washington State Auditor records give 1921 — and local merchant Lewis Smith served as its first mayor under a mayor–council government.

The 2020 census counted 1,084 residents and 368 households in Naches, a 36 percent jump from 795 in 2010 that carried the town past 1,000 people for the first time.

Timber and tree fruit still anchor the economy: the surrounding valley is known for its large production of apples, cherries, and pears.

The town sits at 1,453 feet in a semi-arid pocket of the Cascade rain shadow, averaging only about 8.3 inches of precipitation a year, with hot summers and cool nights.

The Naches Valley School District operates all public schools in the town and surrounding valley, including Naches Valley High School; the town's first high school building went up in 1922 on the hill at the north end of Naches Avenue.

The Naches branch of the Yakima Valley Libraries system is funded by the town under a contract — an arrangement that kept the library open when a closure was proposed in 2025 amid state and federal funding cuts.