The newspaper is named after Chinook, Washington, where the paper was founded in 1900 by George Hibbert and Frank Gaither.[2]
Chinook Observer staff July 4, 1903, taken at the newspaper's first office.
Hibbert sold the paper to John and Margaret Durkee in about 1923, who sold it to Bill Clancey in 1933, adding James O'Neil as a co-owner in 1937. O'Neil moved the paper to Long Beach in 1938.[2] James' son Wayne and daughter in law Frances took over the paper in 1963 and operated it for the next 20 years.[3]
As of about 2013 the paper claimed a circulation of 6,700, making it one of Washington's larger weekly newspapers.[3] In 2018, the Chinook Observer won the statewide Public Service Award from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association in recognition of its coverage of immigration issues and ICE enforcement activities.[2]