Originally, Douglas County spread over the entire territory of the Big Bend of the Columbia River.

When the time came to present arguments to the state legislature regarding which town should be the county seat, someone apparently intentionally intoxicated the representative of a rival community, and Ephrata was chosen.

[9] It is generally believed that the city was named Ephrata by a man who worked for the Great Northern Railway.

Ephrata then developed as a trade and service center for cattle and sheep ranches in the area until the construction of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project.

The airport and hangars were used in Steven Spielberg's 1989 film Always, the final movie to feature Audrey Hepburn.

Ephrata was in the national spotlight in a segment on 60 Minutes II after the 2003 murder of Craig Sorger by Evan Savoie and Jake Eakin.

Beginning in July 1918, several prominent Ephrata residents started the promotion of a plan to redirect waters of the Columbia River in order to irrigate the dry but fertile soils of the Big Bend country.

Labeled "The Dam University", Ephrata residents persistently lobbied at the local, state, and federal levels to gather support for the project.

Initial funding for the Grand Coulee Dam was through the Public Works Administration created under Franklin Roosevelt's promise of a "New Deal" in 1933.

During this era, Grand Coulee Dam's main mission was to produce electricity for the Hanford Reservation and for aluminum manufacturing, vital to military aircraft production.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.09 square miles (26.13 km2), all of it land.

Ephrata is bisected by State Route 28, which travels west to Wenatchee and east to Soap Lake and Davenport.

[citation needed] These tracks also carry the Empire Builder, an Amtrak passenger train that stops in the city at Ephrata station.