Ice Age Floods Explorer

Mammoth Undertaking for Cheney Students

In the early 1990s, second-graders in Mrs. Sara Jane Aebly's class at Windsor Elementary School discovered that Washington State did not have an official state fossil. Encouraged by their teacher,…

Granite Boulder in the Scablands: Mountain Top or Glacial Erratic?

By Justin Luppens

Due to the ice age floods, when a large granitic rock is found near the Spokane Airport it can be hard to determine if it is an old mountain top surrounded by younger geological features or rafted in…

Medical Lake Bluff, Diving into the Geology

By Alyssa Fitzgerald

Looking at the beauty of Medical Lake is very relaxing, especially seeing the stoic bluffs or cliffs at the south end of the lake next to Waterfront Park. But have you ever wondered what kind of…

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Starbuck Grade School

By Joanne Percy

Nineteenth-century Americans believed that a strong public school system was necessary for a town to prosper, and the city fathers of Starbuck were no different. The first school was built in the 1880s. In 1892, the school moved again to a small…

History of Starbuck

By Miranda Caudill

Starbuck is a small town of only 129 residents located in southeastern Washington near the Snake River. It has a warm climate and mild winters. The Snake River, Tucannon River, and surrounding land make the area ideal for farming and ranching. One…

The Bank of Starbuck

By Josh M Bliesner

The Bank of Starbuck has stood for over 100 years and looks ahead for the next century. When the bank was constructed in 1904, there were no federal protections for depositors. What kept money safe were the strong walls for protection. In…

Doing Hard Time in a Small Town

By Josh M Bliesner

The oldest building in Starbuck isn't the bank, the grange hall, or even the horse stable. It is the jail. Built before 1900, the old jail is made of concrete fourteen inches thick with reinforced iron bars, the same iron used on railways. A large…

The Cool(ing) Structures of Columbia River Flood Basalts

By Wes Silvey

Walking through the Columbia Plateau, you might find a similarity to the Great Plains throughout the American Midwest, though under the surface a very different setting exists. An enormous network of solidified lava flows holds record of one of the…

Mammoth Undertaking for Cheney Students

By Larry Cebula

In the early 1990s, second-graders in Mrs. Sara Jane Aebly's class at Windsor Elementary School discovered that Washington State did not have an official state fossil. Encouraged by their teacher, they decided to try to create one. After some…

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Ice Age Floods Explorer

Ice Age Floods Explorer is a web and mobile platform for telling stories of the Missoula Floods and is an ongoing endevour focusing on student research. Ice Age Floods Explorer is a project of the Public History program and Department of Geology at Eastern Washington University. Most of the stories were created by EWU students. Co-editors are Drs. Chad Pritchard, Larry Cebula, and Paul Lindholdt from Eastern Washington University. Dr. Chad Pritchard is an Assistant Professor in the Geology Department. Dr. Larry Cebula is Editor of Spokane Historical. He is a Professor of History at Eastern Washington University and the Assistant Digital Archivist for the State of Washington. Dr. Paul Lindholdt is a Professor or English. Assistant Edit... Read more About Us