The original name for this site was Rich Bar, which was attained in 1862 when a gold discovery was made nearby. The report is that there were as many as five hundred miners working the gravel along the river in the fifteen mile span between present day Pateros and Bridgeport. But it was only a flurry and the name Rich Bar was snuffed out with the rapid exit of the miners.

As settlers began to enter the Okanogan country in numbers, there grew a need for navigation up the Columbia River. The confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers was the limit to which steamers could go on the big river.

About a mile above Virginia City a man named John Bruster homesteaded a piece of land where there was an unusually smooth flat area on a cove where the water was deep enough to anchor a sternwheeler. Bruster sold this portion of his land to the manager of the steamboat company. On it was platted Bruster’s town on April 10, 1896.

Gradually all that was Virginia City moved to Bruster, even all of the store buildings except the post office. The Post Office Department would not accept the name Bruster so the name Brewster was submitted and accepted.