Washington State Route 25

Washington State Route 25

State Route 25 (SR 25), named the Coulee Reservoir Highway, is a 121.17-mile (195.00 km) long state highway serving communities in Lincoln and Stevens counties in the U.S. state of Washington. The highway begins at an intersection with U.S. Route 2 (US 2) east of Davenport and continues northwest to cross the Spokane River on the Spokane River Bridge. From the bridge, SR 25 parallels the Columbia River and Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake upstream through several small communities, passing the Gifford–Inchelium Ferry, to Kettle Falls. In Kettle Falls, the roadway intersects US 395, co-signed with SR 20 and continues north to Northport, where former SR 251 is intersected and SR 25 crosses the Columbia River on the Northport Bridge. The highway travels northwest to the Canadian border, where it becomes British Columbia Highway 22 (BC 22).

SR 25 was originally a series of county roads built before 1912, but became part of the Inland Empire Highway in 1913 between Meyers Falls, now known as Kettle Falls, and Northport. In 1915, the highway was realigned west and roads from Davenport to Meyers Falls became State Road 22 (SR 22), which was extended north to Canada in 1931. In 1937, SR 22 became Primary State Highway 22 (PSH 22) and the border crossing was moved west of the Columbia River. PSH 22 was decommissioned in favor of SR 25 in a state highway renumbering in 1964. SR 25 also had an auxiliary route, SR 251, that existed from 1964 until 1983 and ran north from Northport to the Canadian border at Boundary.

SR 25 crosses the Spokane and Columbia rivers on the Spokane River Bridge and Columbia River Bridge, respectively. The Spokane River Bridge was built in 1941 to replace an earlier span, known as the Detillion Bridge, that was flooded by Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake. The Columbia River Bridge was completed in 1951 to serve the town of Northport. Both bridges are steel cantilever spans that were inducted onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The Gifford–Inchelium Ferry that connects the highway to Inchelium began operating in 1898, but was closed from 1974 until 1981, when the Colville Confederated Tribes began operating the MV Columbian Princess with a free fare.