Coulee City, Washington
town in Grant County, Washington, United States

Coulee City is a town in Grant County, Washington. The population was 549 at the 2020 census.
History
Coulee City was commonly known as McEntee’s Crossing of the Grand Coulee in the 19th century. In 1881, Philip McEntee, after helping a group of surveyors trying to lay down a road, built the first log cabin around Coulee City. Other important pioneers soon followed in the following years.
The town was named after nearby Grand Coulee. Coulee City was officially incorporated on May 10, 1907.
Geography
Coulee City sits on the southern shore of Banks Lake, a man-made reservoir that stretches for 27 miles to Grand Coulee Dam. At Coulee City, water from the reservoir enters a system of irrigation canals taking it to Billy Clapp Lake to the south and then beyond across the broader Columbia Basin Project.
Dry Falls, site of a catastrophic and large prehistoric waterfall, is located about two miles southwest of Coulee City.
“Coulee City, Washington” enters the record as town in Grant County, Washington, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coulee, City and Washington can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Coulee City, Washington” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Coulee, City and Washington provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1507847. VIAF identifies the subject as 139909413. The Library of Congress control number is no2004120041. Authority coordinates are 47.612, -119.291. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1881 and 1907.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coulee City, Washington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.