Mica is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Spokane County,

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, United States. Mica is located along State Route 27 southeast of downtown

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south ...

. Mica had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with ZIP code 99023.

History

A post office called Mica was established in 1887, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1975. The community was named for deposits of

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...

. Mica's economy has been dominated by brick making since the town's early days. The current factory is owned by Mutual Materials and located on the site of American Fire Brick, founded by Mica pioneers the late 1800s. The American Firebrick Company campus was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1982. The oldest grave in Mica Cemetery dates to 1883. Due to its location about ten minutes by car from suburban Spokane Valley, Mica and the surrounding area have lost some of their completely rural identity as people have moved in and transformed it somewhat into a

bedroom community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

Geography

Mica is located along State Route 27 which connects the town with

Spokane Valley The Spokane Valley is a valley of the Spokane River through the southern Selkirk Mountains in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. The valley is home to the cities of Spokane and its suburbs Spokane Valley, Washington, Spokane Vall ...

, a few miles to the north, and the rest of the

area. To the south, State Route 27 connects Mica with numerous other small towns on the

Palouse The Palouse ( ) is a geographic region of the northwestern United States, encompassing parts of North Central Idaho, north central Idaho, southeastern Washington (part of eastern Washington), and by some definitions, parts of northeast Oregon. ...

. Mica itself is located on the northern edge of the Palouse farming region, with its gentle rolling hills quickly giving way to the foothills of the

Selkirk Mountains The Selkirk Mountains are a mountain range spanning the northern portion of the Idaho Panhandle, eastern Washington, and southeastern British Columbia which are part of a larger grouping of mountains, the Columbia Mountains. They begin at Mic ...

. Krell Hill, known locally as Tower Mountain for the television towers it houses, is located just to the northwest of town and Mica Peak just to the east. California Creek, a tributary of Latah Creek, flows from the slopes of Mica Peak and along the southeastern edge of town. Mica is located in the Freeman School District, with elementary, middle and high schools located a three miles south of the town on State Route 27. Mica sits in the transition zone between three

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

s as defined by the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...

, giving the area traits from all three. The

Okanagan dry forests Okanagan dry forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion in the Pacific Northwest of North America, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system. It is closely associated with the Okanagan region of British Columbia an ...

ecoregion begins just down State Route 27 at Freeman and stretches northwest through

, the

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also called the Okanagan Valley and sometimes the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is part of ...

, and into the

Thompson Plateau The Thompson Plateau forms the southern portion of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, Canada, lying to the west of Okanagan Lake, south of the Thompson River and east of (although never adjoining it) the Fraser River. At its most southern ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. Tall

ponderosa pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine, is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is t ...

trees are a remnant of the nature of the ecoregion prior to development of the community and agriculture. The Okanagan dry forests transition into the North Central Rockies forests as the land climbs up the slopes of the Selkirk Mountains immediately to the north and east. A couple of miles to the south of Mica, at Freeman, the Okanagan dry forests transition into the rolling, grassy hills of Palouse grasslands ecoregion.

Gallery

Mica Peak.png, Mica Peak as seen from the eastern edge of Mica from Belmont Road. Mica Brick Works.png, Brickyard in Mica, where bricks have been made since 1902, as seen from Washington State Route 27.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Spokane County, Washington Unincorporated communities in Washington (state)