Asotin, Washington

 Asotin, population 1,100, is the county seat of Asotin County, Washington. It lies across the Snake River from Hells Gate State Park in Idaho, which is south of Lewiston.
  The Asotin County Courthouse is rather unusual. Looking at it from the front, it appears as two old red brick buildings that are about 100 years old. Just a few inches of space separate the walls of the buildings, which is typical of many downtown buildings all across the country.  The buildings are both two stories and look like they might have been stores at one time. However, driving around the side of the courthouse, the red bricks give way to fake adobe stucco about halfway back. Then, looking at the courthouse from the back side, it appears to be one building, with no demarcation between them. Evidently the county government bought two abandoned stores and combined them into one to serve as a courthouse.
Just one block away is the Asotin County Courthouse Annex. It occupies a large, landscaped plaza and dominates the town of Asotin. It is just an auxiliary county office building and not the main courthouse but it is unusual because it is quite a bit larger than the courthouse is, it occupies a plaza like courthouses do and it dominates the town like many courthouses do, yet it is not the main courthouse.
  Asotin is located in the Palouse Region, a lush and grassy, but emphatically hilly area in eastern Washington that also covers parts of northern  Idaho and northeastern Oregon.  Asotin is located in the same "hole" that Lewiston and Clarkston are in and, at the south edge of town, State Highway 129 switchbacks precipitiously up the face of a mesa. The drive down this mesa affords spectacular views of the whole area!