Wallula was founded near the site of Fort Nez Perces and is now an unincorporated census-designated place in Walla Walla County. The fort was a center for the fur trade and was one of the first European settlements in the future Evergreen State. Wallula's location near the confluence of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers became a bustling freight hub for adjacent Walla Walla and points northeast as barges became more common in the mid- and late 1800s.
As transportation became more effective, a rail route from Walla Walla to Wallula was built in 1875, greatly increasing Wallula's commerce. McNary Dam, about 30 miles downstream from Wallula on the Columbia River, began construction in 1947. The dam formed Lake Wallula, a reservoir that flooded the original (second) townsite. By 1953, the (third) town of Wallula had relocated two kilometers to higher land. The population of Wallula did not grow much following the migration, and by the twenty-first century, it was considerably below 200 people.
For uncountable years, Native Americans have lived in the area near Wallula, which was also the birthplace of Smohalla, a powerful spiritual leader in the late 1800s. There have been rumors of buried gold from a strange rail robbery, but nothing has ever been discovered.
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