Ritzville is a small city in Adams County, Washington, serving as the county seat of eastern Washington's wheat country. It sits on Interstate 90, the state's main east-west corridor, roughly midway between the Columbia Basin's Moses Lake and Spokane. With about 1,700 residents, Ritzville is a classic small High Plains town whose identity is rooted in agriculture and the railroad. The first settler, William McKay, arrived in 1880, and the Northern Pacific Railway soon transformed the settlement into a grain-shipping center. Wheat poured into Ritzville from the surrounding farms, and by 1901 the town had become one of the largest wheat exporters in the world. That prosperity left a lasting mark on the community: a Carnegie library built in 1907 still serves as the town's library, the only Carnegie library in Adams County, and the historic downtown retains its early brick storefronts. Interstate 90, built around the south side of town in the 1960s, made Ritzville a familiar stop for cross-state travelers and anchored its role as a service town. The Railroad Depot Museum, housed in a turn-of-the-century depot, preserves the area's rail and farm heritage, while the Dr. Frank R. Burroughs Home Museum and the Ritz Theatre round out the town's historic attractions. The town also weathered the 1980 Mount St. Helens ash fall, when thousands of travelers were stranded there for days. Today Ritzville remains a quiet, walkable community where the county courthouse, schools, and library sit close to the historic downtown. Families are served by the Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools, and the Adams County Parks & Recreation District #4 organizes local recreation. A golf course and a summer water park add to the small-town amenities, and the surrounding Palouse wheat fields give the area its wide-open, rural character.