Airway Heights, Washington

• 1. Introduction

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  Airway Heights, Washington sits just west of Spokane on land so elevated that anyone driving into the city along U.S. Route 2 climbs more than 500 feet above the Spokane city center. That climb is not incidental. It is the reason for the name. The "heights" in Airway Heights points directly to its position above the valley, and the "airway" points to something else entirely: the runways of Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport, both close enough to shape the community's identity from its very founding.

  Founded in 1942, Airway Heights spent its early decades as a modest outpost on the Columbia Plateau. Then, in quick succession, two institutions arrived and changed nearly everything. A state corrections center opened in 1992. A tribal casino followed in 2000. Between those two openings and the years that followed, a small incorporated town of roughly 4,500 people in the year 2000 had grown to nearly 11,000 by 2020, with estimates pushing past 11,900 by 2024.

  How does a city this small carry so many distinct identities at once? A military gateway, a corrections hub, a casino destination, a bedroom community for Spokane, and a landscape shaped by ancient floods? The story of Airway Heights is bound up in all of these, and none of them points in quite the same direction.

• 2. Heights and Scablands

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  Airway Heights occupies a corner of the Columbia Plateau, one of the flattest stretches of terrain in the American West. Locally, however, the ground tells a different story. The city sits within the Channeled Scablands, a region carved into rugged, irregular shapes by catastrophic ancient floods that scoured the plateau bare. The flatness that defines the plateau in general gives way here to broken, rocky terrain.

  The city covers a total area of just over 6 square miles, all of it land. Eight miles by road separates its edge from Downtown Spokane to the east. That gap shrank in 2012 when the City of Spokane incorporated Spokane International Airport and its surrounding area, after which Spokane's boundaries began to touch Airway Heights on both its eastern and southern sides.

  U.S. Route 2 serves as the main east-west road through the city, connecting Airway Heights westward to Fairchild Air Force Base and eastward toward Downtown Spokane. The city lacks what urban planners would call a traditional downtown area, and Route 2 functions more as a commercial spine than a civic center. Interstate 90 runs a few miles to the south, close enough to orient traffic but not close enough to define the local street grid.

• 3. Two Engines of Growth

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  Before 1992, Airway Heights had been incorporated for nearly four decades but had accumulated only modest growth. The opening of the Airway Heights Corrections Center by the Washington State Department of Corrections changed that. Corrections facilities generate employment, attract contractors and support services, and draw families of workers who need housing nearby. The population climbed.

  Then in 2000 the Kalispel Indian Tribe opened the Northern Quest Resort and Casino. A resort casino draws a different kind of economic energy: hospitality jobs, retail spending, and a steady flow of visitors from across the Spokane metropolitan area. Over the years that followed, the Northern Quest Casino expanded, new retailers opened, and apartment buildings rose alongside housing developments. The Spokane Tribe Casino also opened in the city during this period, adding a second gaming destination to a community that had previously been defined mostly by its proximity to military runways.

  The population numbers record the cumulative effect. The year 2000 census counted 4,500 residents. By 2010, that figure had risen to 6,114. By the 2020 census it stood at 10,757, and a 2024 estimate placed it at 11,950. That growth rate across two decades outpaced many comparable communities in eastern Washington.

• 4. Who Lives There

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  The 2020 census captured a community with an unusually skewed gender balance. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 168 males in the same age range. That ratio points unmistakably to the presence of correctional and military populations, both of which draw heavily male workforces. Earlier counts were even more pronounced: the 2000 census recorded 263.2 males for every 100 females overall, and 325.0 males for every 100 females aged 18 and over.

  The median age in 2020 was 32.8 years, a relatively young figure. About 20.5% of residents were under 18, while only 8.7% were 65 or older. By race, 67.8% of residents identified as White in 2020, down from 78.51% a decade earlier, reflecting a gradually diversifying population. Hispanic or Latino residents made up 11.8% of the 2020 population, and 12.3% of residents identified as two or more races.

  Household structure in 2020 showed a community with a high share of non-traditional arrangements. While 34.8% of households were married couples, another 25.7% were households headed by a male with no spouse or partner present. That figure is notably high by national standards and again echoes the demographics typical of corrections and military communities. About 29.8% of all households were made up of single individuals.

• 5. Civic Life and Services

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  Most of Airway Heights falls within the Cheney School District, known officially as District No. 360. A smaller northeastern section of the city is served by the Great Northern School District, District No. 312, which covers only grades kindergarten through sixth grade.

  In 2023, following a referendum of city residents, Airway Heights formally joined the Spokane County Library District. The city had already contracted with the library district to operate a branch locally, so the referendum made official an arrangement that had existed in practice for some time.

  For medical care, residents rely primarily on Deaconess Medical Center in Downtown Spokane, eight miles away. Local healthcare options within the city itself are limited to facilities such as the Airway Heights Dental Center, a chiropractic practice, and a physical therapy clinic. Public transit runs through the city via the Spokane Transit Authority; bus route 61 connects Airway Heights to the transit authority's main hub in Downtown Spokane and continues west to Fairchild Air Force Base.

• 6. A Mayor's Resignation

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  In July 2015, Mayor Patrick Rushing posted remarks on his personal Facebook page calling President Barack Obama a "monkey man" and First Lady Michelle Obama a "gorilla." The Airway Heights city council responded by asking him to resign. Rushing refused at first, stating publicly that he was not a racist.

  The episode had a recent backstory. Earlier in 2015, Rushing had resigned from a separate position as a school bus driver after being charged with a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident.

  By August 2015, Rushing submitted his resignation from the mayor's office. In a public statement, he wrote, "I find it difficult to continue due to my declining health issues." He was succeeded by then-Deputy Mayor Kevin Richey, who stepped into the role as the city worked to move past the incident.