Initially, the settlers hunted predominantly bison and antelope, but after the game migrated out of the region, the native people became dependent on gathering various roots, berries, and nuts, and harvesting fish.

[3] The Spokane tribe, after which the county is named, means "Children of the Sun" or "sun people" in Salishan[4] Explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department, became the first European to explore what is now the Inland Northwest.

He sent out two trappers, Jacques Raphael Finlay and Finan McDonald, to construct a fur-trading post on the Spokane River in Washington and trade with the local Indians.

[4] Spokane County was established by the Washington Territorial Legislature effective January 29, 1858, from a portion of Walla Walla County, which originally encompassed most of eastern Washington Territory between the Cascades and Rockies.

The new county was bound to the west by the Columbia and Snake rivers and to the east by the Rockies; it included portions of modern-day Idaho and Montana.

In late 1859, a group of settlers in the Bitterroot Valley petitioned to create their own county, which was not granted at that time; the territorial legislature reorganized Spokane County on January 17, 1860, with a seat on a land claim near Fort Colville.

[10][11] These areas became part of the new Idaho Territory, which was organized by the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1863, and reduced the size of Spokane County even further.

[16] The selection of a permanent county seat was to be decided in an election in November 1880 between the growing cities of Cheney and Spokane Falls, both candidates for a major Northern Pacific Railway hub.

The unofficial returns showed a 14-vote margin in favor of Cheney, but the result was disputed by county officials from Spokane Falls based on "irregularities" in the ballots.

[17] According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,781 sq mi (4,610 km2), of which 17 square miles (44 km2) (0.9%) are covered by water.

(Virtually no change in elevation occurs between the dam and the mouth of the Little Spokane River inside Riverside State Park.)

Spokane County lies in a transition area between the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plains to the west and the rugged, timbered Rocky Mountain foothills to the east.

[22] In ecology, as with the topography, the county is also in a transition area, roughly split between the Columbia Plateau ecoregion in the southwest portion, where it is at the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plain and the Northern Rockies ecoregion in the northwest portion, which is the rugged and forested Selkirk Mountains.

[31] The population density was 305.7 inhabitants per square mile (118.0/km2) averaging 2.46 persons per household.

[39] The previous Sheriff was Ozzie D. Knezovich,[40] who was appointed on April 11, 2006, and retired on December 31, 2022.

[41][42] The current elected Sheriff of Spokane County is John Nowels, whose term began on January 1, 2023.

Democratic strength is concentrated in Spokane itself and in Cheney, which is home to Eastern Washington University, while the suburban areas are heavily Republican.

The winning entry from Stephanie Bumgarner-Ott, the daughter of state legislator Gary Bumgarner, depicts the ceremonial headdress of the Spokane people against a yellow sun; the background is green with a diagonal blue stripe to represent the Spokane River.

[48] The flag was sent for display at the Washington State Capitol for the state centennial in 1989 and 25 copies were made at a cost of $1,751.75; it was used for official events, including the funeral of a county commissioner, but was not on permanent display in Spokane County buildings.

[49][50] The county government announced plans to decommission the design in 2002 and hold a new public contest due to the original flag's appearance, which was deemed potentially offensive to Native Americans.