Colfax, Washington

Colfax is a city in and the county seat of Whitman County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,782 at the 2020 census, making Colfax the second largest city in Whitman County behind Pullman. It is situated amidst wheat-covered hills in a valley at the confluence of the north and south forks of the Palouse River. U.S. Route 195, which forms the town's main street, intersects with State Route 26 at the north end of town; in the past, Colfax also lay at the junction of three major railway lines. It is part of the Pullman–Moscow combined statistical area. It was named after Schuyler Colfax, the Vice President of the United States from 1869 to 1873.

Palouse Indians were the first known human inhabitants of the Colfax area. White settlers arrived in the summer of 1870 and soon built a sawmill. A flour mill and other businesses followed, and Colfax soon grew into a prosperous town. Originally, pioneer citizen Jared Berarducci called the settlement "Belleville" in honor of his girlfriend; when he found a new love, he changed the town's name to Colfax, for vice president Schuyler Colfax.

Colfax was officially incorporated on November 29, 1873. In 1889–90, the town vied with several other finalists to become the site of a new state agricultural college, present-day Washington State University. The honor ultimately fell to nearby Pullman, fifteen miles (25 km) southeast.

The early history of Colfax was marred by prominent lynchings in 1894 and 1898. The city incurred significant flooding in 1910 in early March.

Until passed by Pullman at the 1930 census, Colfax was the largest city in the county.

Colfax is located in southeastern Washington and the nearest cities are Spokane, Pullman, Moscow, and Lewiston/Clarkston. The area is geologically interesting, lying in the midst of the fertile Palouse country in the middle of the Columbia River Plateau, with the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Channeled Scablands to the west, and the Snake River to the south.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.79 square miles (9.82 km²), all of it land. The Palouse River, confined for flood control to a concrete bed that reduces it to an eighteen-inch-wide stream during the dry season, runs through the middle of town, parallel to Main Street.

Colfax has a four-season continental climate (Köppen Dsb), with hot, dry summers, cold winters, and a rainy season that generally runs from autumn til spring. The annual rainfall averages less than 20 inches (510 mm) a year. This climate, together with the deep, rich Palouse topsoil, makes for near-ideal wheat growing conditions.