Colville is a city in Stevens County, Washington, United States. The population was 4,673 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stevens County.

John Work, an agent for The Hudson’s Bay Company, established Fort Colvile near the Kettle Falls fur trading site in 1825. It replaced the Spokane House and the Flathead Post as the main trading center on the Upper Columbia River. The area was named for Andrew Colvile, a Hudson’s Bay Company governor. The fort continued to be used for some times as a middle of mining and transportation/supply hold associated when gold rushes in the 1850s, particularly the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. After it was by yourself in 1870, some buildings stood until as late as 1910. The site was flooded by Lake Roosevelt after construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

Americans then wanted to undertaking in this territory. In the first half of the 19th century, the Oregon boundary dispute (or Oregon question) arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest. It was settled by the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which set the additional boundary together with Canada and the United States at the 49th Parallel, about Forty (40) miles to the north.

In 1859, the U.S. Army conventional a extra Fort Colville at Pinkney City, Washington, about 3 miles NE of the current city of Colville. That fort was lonely in 1882. In late 1871, with the given of Hudson’s Bay Company land claims, Governor Edward Selig Salomon directed John Wynne to take those lands which extended south to Orin-Rice Road, including some currently portion of the City of Colville. With the planned break of Fort Colville, businesses and buildings moved to the gift location in the Colville River Valley prior to 1882. In January 1883, W. F. Hooker filed the first plat in Stevens County in the same way as the name “Belmont” or “Bellmond” He was encouraged to alter the plat name to Colville appropriately that the county seat could be moved to this location. On December 28, 1883, the Stevens County Board of County Commissioners, including county official John U. Hofstetter, held a special session in description to the removal of county history to Belmont from the county chair of Colville, formerly called Pinkney City. In that meeting, commissioners allowed distressing the county chair and jail to the town afterward the make known of Colville, if proprietors provided a block of home for them without cost. County officers were allowed to change into a building owned by John U. Hofstetter for two years. On January 1, 1884, the Stevens County courthouse moved to Colville. City tradition says that Colville was founded by John U. Hofstetter. It was officially incorporated as a city on June 7, 1890.

In the 1950s, the Colville Air Force Station was developed and operated 14.7 miles north and east of Colville as ration of the Air Defense Command’s network of radar stations. A few buildings remain at the site today. It is used largely by paint-ballers.