Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Touchet, WA

Touchet (pronounced TOO-shee) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Walla Walla County, Washington, that has never been officially incorporated.

The townsite was once a village of the Walla Walla people called Tuushi, a name meaning "baking salmon on sticks over coals," drawn from a coyote myth.

Lewis and Clark passed through the Walla Walla Valley on their return journey in 1806, and the bands using the Touchet area were among those they collectively called Nez Perce.

Homesteaders returned to the valley in 1859 after earlier settlers had left during conflicts with Native people in the early 1850s.

The Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad reached Touchet by March 1874, a year before the line was completed to Walla Walla, and by the end of 1874 Touchet farmers had shipped 4,000 tons of wheat and received 1,100 tons of merchandise.

The 2020 census counted 425 people in the Touchet CDP, a near-flat line from 421 in 2010 and 396 in 2000, when the community had 135 households and an average household size of 2.93.

Touchet's population has grown steadily more Hispanic or Latino, rising from about 16 percent in 2000 to roughly 35 percent in the 2020 census.

The CDP covers just 1.2 square miles of farmland in the Touchet River valley and has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers typical of the Walla Walla Valley.

Touchet gives its name to the Touchet River and to the Touchet Formation, the layered flood deposits exposed across the region from the Ice Age Missoula floods, and local children attend the Touchet School District.