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Metaline Falls is a town in Pend Oreille County, Washington, United States. The population was 272 at the 2020 census.[1] [edit] History
Evidence of early indigenous peoples in the area dates to some 12,000 years ago. By 1810, European fur traders were crossing the area. The settlement of Metaline Falls was founded in 1900, with most of its residents then employed by the Mammoth and Morning lead-zinc mines. Metaline Falls was officially incorporated on May 3, 1911. The name Metaline comes from the abundance of lead ore, galena, found in the region. Though these lead deposits were known since 1869, mining did not commence until 1886. Then in 1910, Metaline Falls was connected with the Idaho and Washington Northern Railroad. The Lehigh Portland Cement Co. plant was soon built, taking advantage of the region's limestone deposits. The Pend Oreille Mine was developed in 1929 by Lewis P. Larsen, and combined with production from the Grandview Mine and the Metaline Mine, the area became the state's largest producer of lead and zinc.
In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was issued, resulting in the forced internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans. George Kubota, Sr., the patriarch of a Japanese-American family who ran a hardware store in town, was arrested and imprisoned by the FBI in Spokane. The editors of the Metaline Falls newspaper and the majority of residents in town protested the arrest, vouching for the Kubota family's loyalty. The FBI eventually released Kubota from custody and did not send the family to an internment camp. The train sequences of the 1993 film Benny & Joon were filmed in the Metaline Falls area; the 1997 film The Postman was filmed in part in the area. The town's geographic location is similar to that of the fictitious town of Twin Peaks from the TV series of the same name ("Five miles south of the Canadian border, twelve miles west of the state line"). Metaline Falls is home to four of Pend Oreille County's six locations on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lewis P. Larson House, built in 1910 and designed by Kirtland Cutter is an English cottage style home. The Pend Oreille Mines and Metals Building, now known as the Lewis Larson Apartments, is the last remaining structure in town that was part of Larson's mining empire. The Washington Hotel, built in 1910 by Larson. The Metaline Falls School, also designed by Cutter, was built in 1912 in the classical revival style. The school was abandoned in 1972 and sat unmaintained until 1990 when local residents came together to take care of the historic building, which is now known as the Cutter Theater and serves as a community center. [edit] Research Tips
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