Steptoe, Washington
More Than Just a Waypoint
If you’ve ever driven Highway 195 through Eastern Washington, you know the rhythm of the road. It’s mile after mile of the hypnotic, rolling waves of the Palouse hills—a landscape so vast it almost swallows you whole.
Most people are just pushing through between Spokane and Pullman, eyes fixed on the horizon. But as a photographer, my eyes are always scanning the periphery, looking for the places where time seems to have snagged.
Last weekend, that snag was Steptoe, Washington.
It’s a tiny unincorporated community that many would call a "ghost town in the making," though people still live and work there. I had no plan to stop, but as the highway curved and the massive grain elevators came into view, the light was hitting the textures of the town just right. I pulled over, grabbed my gear, and spent an hour wandering a place that feels like a living museum of rural Americana.
Here is what caught my eye.
