In 1942, Moses Lake Army Air Base (later renamed Larson Air Force Base) was established. In September 1938, the small community voted to incorporate under the name Moses Lake, pop. Growth came slowly until irrigation from the lake was developed. By 1910, settlers formed a small community named Neppel. Yet by the 1880s enough settlers had gathered to disrupt tribal hunting grounds. White settlement came late because the land of sagebrush and bunch grass was too dry for farming. The lake was named after Chief Moses (1829-1899), head of the local tribe variously called the Kowalchina, the Sinkiuse, or the Columbias. Moses Lake was not incorporated until 1938, yet for centuries Indians gathered camas roots and waterfowl eggs on its site on the shores of a large, shallow, wildfowl-rich lake near the center of Washington.
