Spanaway is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 35,476 at the 2020 census, up from 27,227 in 2010. Spanaway is an unincorporated area near Tacoma, and is often identified together subsequently the more urban, less wealthy Parkland.

Spanaway’s main event thoroughfare is Pacific Avenue South, which is a north–south road that coincides following State Route 7 through the Spanaway area.

The Hudson’s Bay Company, headquartered at Fort Nisqually, had control of this region until 1863. Company maps and journals produce a result the company’s subsidiary, the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company, raised cattle, grain, and sheep at “Spanueh Station” on the south and east shores of “Spanueh Lake.” Spanueh is the Hudson Bay Company’s spelling of the native Lushootseed spadue, which means “dug roots” referring to an Place where camas and other edible roots can be found. Lushootseed underwent a loss of nasal consonants in the 1800s, so “Spanueh” simply transcribes an older pronunciation of what is now “Spadue”.

The first white settler to take a donation allegation by the lake, Henry de la Bushalier, tried to rename the lake after himself. That faded away later his death one year later. In 1890 the area was renamed “Lake Park” as a planned community by the Lake Park Land, Railway and Improvement Company, which bought everything the approachable land east of the lake and built a rail parentage to its “recreation mecca” on the shore of “Spanaway Lake.” When Mount Rainier National Park was usual in 1899, tourists would accept the train to its terminus in Lake Park and from there make the two-day journey to Mount Rainier, making Spanaway the original “gateway” to Mount Rainier. The journey was made by stagecoach, with an overnight End in Eatonville; the route was in operation as to the fore as 1893.