City Hall Fountain - Okanogan, WA
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T0SHEA
N 48° 21.882 W 119° 34.865
11U E 308831 N 5360054
Since 1914 the county seat of Okanogan County, the city of Okanogan stretches along the west (right) bank of the Okanogan River.
Waymark Code: WM102K1
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 02/12/2019
Views: 0
A city of about 2,600, Okanogan is not 2 miles south of the larger Omak, WA, which has nearly double Okanogan's population. Strangely, though, when the county seat was moved from the town of Conconully to Okanogan. It was the coming of the Great Northern in 1914 which caused the move of the county seat, as the tracks followed the Okanogan River Valley, in which Okanogan was located, but not Conconully. As a result Okanogan thrived and Conconully collapsed.
Okanogan City Hall stands on the south side of 3rd Avenue North, across the street and a bit southwest of the mission style courthouse mentioned below. In front of the building is an area landscaped with multi colored stone, grasses and a few small shrubs. In the area are a stone slab, a memorial to a past employee of the city, Raymond Doll, and this small fountain. It is made of a group of basalt columns, a common sight in certain areas of Washington. As a result of the huge flows of water during the Glacial Lake Missoula floods 10,000 years ago, much of the land was scoured clean of topsoil, exposing these basalt columns. The columns were formed of cooled and solidified lava many years prior to that by lava flows over large areas of Washington. The fountain gurgles water through a hole bored down the centre of the tallest of the columns in the fountain.
