The Wall

The west hillside of the Grand Coulee was known as "The Wall" by the early residents of Coulee City. The wagon road from Waterville came down this hill into and during the summer, you could see the large clouds of dust that was kicked up by the galloping horses of the stagecoaches as they came roaring down the grade into town.

In 1879 Lt. Symon's built a military road up the wall to Camp Chelan from Ritzville and wrote the following.

“At its juncture with the Columbia the coulee is crossed by a very bad wagon road, and a trail crosses it about seven miles from the Columbia. The only other place where it can be crossed is at the middle pass mentioned above. I first called attention to this middle pass in 1879, and located a wagon road across it in 1880. It is the only place where, by any means, the Coulee can be crossed by a railroad from the Columbia to its end near Moses Lake. The southern portion of the coulee from this point cannot be crossed or traversed owing to the lakes and steep walls. To the west of the Grand Coulee there is another running nearly parallel with it, known as Moses, or Little Coulee.”