Twenty years ago, Microsoft flipped the switch on its very first data center in Quincy — a small farm town most of the world had never heard of. Two decades later, the company marked the anniversary with a community party in town, handing out $210,000 in grants to local organizations.

The bigger story is what happened in between. Property taxes from Microsoft's presence helped fund real infrastructure Quincy needed: a new high school, a police station. And over the past decade, the town's poverty rate has more than halved, dropping to 13 percent by 2023.

"The story of Quincy, Washington, and Grant County is a story of data centers gone right," Microsoft President Brad Smith said, crediting the town as a model other communities are now studying as data centers spread nationwide — and often spark backlash.

Quincy has since become Washington's data center hub, with Microsoft as the largest operator and other major tech companies continuing to build there. Keeping up with demand isn't simple: Grant County PUD is planning to expand its transmission capacity to handle the load, a project Microsoft itself has helped fund.

Twenty years in, the arrangement that turned a quiet farm town into a tech-industry case study is still being written.

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Moses Lake City Council voted unanimously to restrict kratom sales to adults 21 and older, following a county health district warning about a synthetic derivative called 7-OH, sometimes packaged to look like candy. Retailers will have to lock kratom behind the counter and check ID, with fines starting at $1,000. The rule takes effect October 2. Othello, Mattawa, and Ephrata have all passed their own restrictions this year too.

The county's warning doesn't sugarcoat it →

If you've visited Confluence Health's Moses Lake campus or the Royal City clinic lately, your provider may have asked to record the visit — the health system is now using AI transcription tools clinic-wide, with 150 licenses in use and more on the way. Chief Medical Information Officer Dr. Becket Mahnke says patients notice the difference: when providers aren't typing notes mid-visit, they say the care feels more attentive.

Their new scribe never gets writer's cramp →

Ephrata is on track to become a "Purple Heart City," honoring military members wounded or killed in combat. Councilman Phil Borck proposed it after seeing Purple Heart signs in western Washington — his own father was a Purple Heart recipient, wounded serving in the Marine Corps during World War II. The city will post signs at all four road entryways, and the proclamation will be read every year during the first week of August.

Read how one council member's father inspired it →