Chewelah ( chə-WEE-lə) is a city in Stevens County, Washington, United States. It is located approximately 45 miles north northwest of Spokane. The population was 2,607 at the 2010 census, a 19.3% increase from 2000.

The declare of the town comes from a Kalispel word, sč̓ewíleʔ, meaning ‘watersnake’ or ‘gartersnake’. Alice Sherwood Abrahamson stated that “The proclaim Chewelah comes from the Native American word “S che wee leh”, meaning water or garter snake. There was a spring in what is now the southwest halt of Chewelah. The old McCreas lived there, and their homestead was called “Sche wee leh ee” for the spring bubbled up there. The commotion of the water gave the magic of snakes upsetting about in the water.” Prior to colonization by European-Americans, Chewelah was house to a band of the Kalispel people. The band was known as the slet̓éw̓si, meaning “valley people”. Originally, the area was called Fool’s Prairie, after the Kalispel Indian who left his own tribe because of a dispute. Chewelah and the on fire of the Colville River Valley were allowance of the Colville Indian Reservation from April 9, 1872, when the reservation was created, until July 2, 1872, when a subsequent government order reduced the size of the reservation. The Chewelah Band of Indians is currently ration of the Spokane Tribe.^{[citation needed]}

Thomas and Mary Brown moved to the Fool’s Prairie in 1859. On May 8, 1872, Thomas Brown customary authority to establish a proclaim office named Chewelah. The make known was first used in Stevens County Commissioner Journals upon May 6, 1872. That read out office disbanded on February 23, 1875. In 1879, the declare office was reestablished past Major John Simms, Indian Agent, as postmaster. Chewelah was officially incorporated upon January 26, 1903.

Chewelah is a town of firsts in Stevens County. It had the first Protestant Congregational Church in 1891, the first university in 1869, the Spokane Falls and Northern Railroad arrived in 1889, a Catholic church was expected in 1885, and the first county newspaper was founded in July 1885.

Initially, Chewelah was a typical pioneer settlement, being an agricultural center as far incite as the to the lead 1870s and having its allowance of prospectors on the go the adjacent countryside as to the fore as 1842. The town was platted in 1884 and became known for swine a rasping and tumble mining town; the first help and silver mines were established more or less 1886, and others followed in Embry and surrounding areas.^{[citation needed]}