Mattawa is an incorporated city in Grant County, Washington, on the Wahluke Slope, a broad plateau of orchards and vineyards along the east side of the Columbia River, about 15 miles south of Interstate 90. The Saddle Mountains rise to the north, and the Columbia flows past to the west, framing a town whose entire identity is agricultural. With a population of roughly 3,300, Mattawa is a small but vital part of Washington's fruit and wine economy. The town's modern form took shape in the mid-20th century. Mattawa incorporated in 1958, just as the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams were coming online along the Columbia, and the irrigation they enabled transformed the Wahluke Slope into productive farmland. Over the following decades, the plateau filled with orchards and vineyards, and Mattawa grew as the community serving that agricultural workforce. Today the Wahluke Slope produces roughly a quarter of Washington's grape crop, and the town is at the center of a region of cherries, apples, and wine grapes. Mattawa is a predominantly Latino community, reflecting the workforce that built the region's agriculture, and its schools, churches, and markets carry a bilingual, family-centered character. The town's economy is rooted in farming and food processing, with the Port of Mattawa supporting the area's agricultural infrastructure. The community suits those connected to the agricultural economy or seeking an affordable, close-knit small town in rural eastern Washington. It is a place defined by work, family, and the sun-drenched land between the river and the mountains. Mattawa's character is shaped by migration and work. Its Latino majority reflects generations of farmworkers and orchard families who built the Wahluke Slope's agricultural economy, and the town's institutions — schools, churches, and markets — carry that heritage forward. The scale of the surrounding vineyards and orchards, visible in every direction, is a constant reminder of the land's productivity and the labor it requires. For visitors and residents alike, Mattawa is first and foremost a farming town, and its identity follows from that fact.