Biohazard Cleanup Near Spangle Historic District Spangle, WA

Spangle is a small incorporated city in Spokane County, Washington — classified as a city by the U.S. Census Bureau — about 18 miles south of downtown Spokane.

Spangle was first settled in 1872 by William Spangle, an Illinois Civil War veteran who had served in General William Tecumseh Sherman's army, and the town takes its name from him.

William Spangle bought out an earlier squatter's claim and established a stage station, a post office, and a blacksmith shop; the townsite was platted in 1879 and Spangle was incorporated in 1888.

The city covers only about 0.36 square miles of land, entirely surrounded by the rolling farmland of the Palouse, at an elevation of about 2,435 feet.

Spangle's population peaked at 331 in 1900 and has hovered in the 200s for most of the past century; the 2020 census counted 280 residents in 123 households.

U.S. Route 195, an important north–south highway, once ran through Spangle, but a realignment bypassed the town; the old highway south to Rosalia, 14 miles away, remains open as an alternate route.

Spangle High School graduated its first class in 1908 and its last in 1960, after the Liberty Consolidated District was formed with nearby communities; its class composites are now kept at the Spangle Service Club.

Upper Columbia Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding high school about two miles southeast of town, is closely associated with Spangle, and Liberty High School, a few miles east, serves Spangle, Plaza, Fairfield, Mount Hope, Latah, and Waverly.

Local lore holds that the outlaw Butch Cassidy may have died in Spangle in 1937, though the place and date of his death remain unresolved.