Pasco

History

On October 16, 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped in the Pasco area, at a site now commemorated by Sacajawea State Park. The area was frequented by fur trappers and gold traders. In the 1880s, the Northern Pacific Railway was built near the Columbia River, bringing many settlers to the area. Pasco was officially incorporated on September 3, 1891. It was named by Virgil Bogue, a construction engineer for the Northern Pacific Railway after Cerro de Pasco, a city in the Peruvian Andes, where he had helped build a railroad. In its early years Pasco was a small railroad town, but the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1941 brought irrigation and agriculture to the area. Due largely to the presence of the Hanford Site (which made the plutonium for the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb used on Nagasaki in 1945), the entire Tri-Cities area grew rapidly from the 1940s through 1950s. However, most of the population influx resided in Richland and Kennewick, as Pasco remained primarily driven by the agricultural industry, and to a lesser degree the NP Pasco rail yards. After the end of World War II, the entire region went through several "boom" and "bust" periods, cycling approximately every 10 years and heavily based on available government funding for Hanford-related work. Farming continues to be the economic driver for most of the city's industrial tax base. Pasco was not a sundown town in the same way as Richland and Kennewick; however, Jim Crow laws restricted African Americans to living only on the east side of the railroad tracks, which was largely underdeveloped and lacked public water or garbage service. In the 1940s, Edward R. Dudley visited as an investigator from the NAACP and observed widespread discrimination from businesses and law enforcement. In a 1947 survey,…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The Columbia River borders the south side of the city, separating it from the neighboring cities of Richland and Kennewick. As Pasco is located in Southeastern Washington, the city lies in the rain shadow of the Cascade Range. As a result, the area is a windswept desert, receiving little precipitation throughout the year. Hot summers, warm springs, and cold winters provide a stark contrast to other areas of the state. Climate data is sparse, as there is no functioning weather station in the city; more reliable data is provided by the weather station in nearby Walla Walla.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  15,801
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  11,913
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  11,848
• Ring-billed Gull

  Larus delawarensis Ord, 1815 · Aves
  9,703
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  9,581
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  9,472
• Song Sparrow

  Melospiza melodia (A.Wilson, 1810) · Aves
  8,826
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  8,576

Most recent

• M 2.8000000000000003 — 2026-02-02
  5 km ESE of Benton City, Washington
• M 2.94 — 2024-09-23
  12 km SE of Desert Aire, Washington
• M 2.84 — 2024-04-20
  4 km S of Richland, Washington
• M 2.53 — 2019-09-29
  9 km SE of Desert Aire, Washington
• M 2.51 — 2019-07-12
  11 km SW of Royal City, Washington
• M 3.25 — 2019-06-16
  11 km SW of Royal City, Washington