An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho, Part 198

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1524

USA > Idaho > Kootenai County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 198
USA > Idaho > Nez Perce County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 198
USA > Idaho > Shoshone County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 198
USA > Idaho > Latah County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 198

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

under way. The company owning these ditches, and of which D. C. Corbin is president, is known as the Spokane Valley Irrigation Co. Another company has recently been formed, the Valley Improvement Co., which proposes to irrigate a tract of over 6,000 acres on the Rathdrum prairie, north of the Spokane river and joining the Washington state line. The men be- hind this enterprise are J. K. Smith, president of the Washington Grain and Milling company ; Charles W. Clark and Jas. C. Cunningham, all of Spokane; B. S. Wadsworth. vice-president of the Franklin county bank at Connell, and J. H. Edwards, vice-president of the Conrad National Bank of Kalispell, Mont. Mr. Cunningham is president, Mr. Wadsworth, vice-presi- dent, and Mr. Clark secretary and treasurer of the company, which has a paid in capital of $60,000. It is proposed to bring water to this section from Fish lake through the ditch now being constructed by the Spokane Valley Irrigation Co. As has been stated there are differences of opinion among the farmers as to the possibility of irrigating the prairie, but if ex- periments soon to be made prove successful, this will speedily become one of the richest valleys in the north- west.

Perhaps the richest agricultural lands in Kootenai county arc found in the Coeur d'Alene Indian reserva- tion. In this tract are approximately 400,000 acres, the greater portion of which is cultivable. It is occu- pied at present by a total Indian population of 717. divided as follows: Adult male Spokane Indians 46, female Spokanes 37, children of the same tribe, 12; adult Coeur d'Alene male Indians 250, female Coeur d'Alenes 245, Coeur d'Alene children, 127. Besides the Indians there is a small number of whites, mis- sionaries and sisters of charity engaged in church and school work at De Smet. Charles O. Worley, U. S. Sub Indian Agent, also resides at De Smet. Of the reservation lands 101,000 acres are under fence and over 30,000 acres are under cultivation. The Coeur d'Alenes are good traders and average farmers. Statis- tics show that 130 of their number can read and 160 can use enough English for ordinary conversation. Two hundred and thirty-two frame dwellings are oc- cupied by the Indians and their families. In 1902 there were actually cultivated by the Indians 30,750 acres, from which they produced 122,000 bushels of wheat, 130,000 bushels of oats, barley and rye, 18,000 bushels of vegetables, and 3.000 tons of hay. There are owned by the Indians, 2,760 horses, 1,540 cattle, 1,100 swine and 2,800 domestic fowls. In 1892 the government erected a saw mill and flouring mill about ten miles northeast of De Smet and six miles east of the Washington state line. These mills cost about $14,000 and were erected expressly for the Indians, where all their sawing and grinding is done free of charge. The expense of running the mills is paid from funds in possession of the government belonging to the Indians. The flouring mill has a capacity of twenty-five barrels and the sawmill ten thousand feet of lumber per day. They are operated by steam and have thirty and twenty-five horsepower, respectively. From the statistics given above, which are taken from

the government reports, it will be seen that fully seventy-five per cent. of the lands of the reservation is unoccupied by the Indians. In his last report to the government, U. S. Indian Agent Albert M. Anderson says : "The Coeur d'Alene tribe is comparatively well advanced and well to do. The reservation which they occupy is a fertile and valuable piece of territory sur- rounded by a progressive white community. These Indians should have their lands allotted to them in severalty and be thrown on their own resources as promptly as possible." While the tribe is self support- ing, receiving no aid whatever from the government. the nnoccupied portion of the reservation should cer- tainly be thrown open to the homeseeker as the Indians do not need it and cannot possibly utilize it. Doubt- less it is only a question of a short time until this action will be taken, thereby adding very materially to the agricultural wealth of Kootenai county.

Kootenai county's greatest source of wealth is the lumber, pole and tie industries. In the northern part of the county is one of the greatest areas of unbroken timber ever found on the continent. It covers 2,600 square miles. Other areas of dense forests are found in the valleys of the Priest and Pend Oreille rivers, along the St. Joe, St. Maries and Coeur d'Alene rivers, and upon the uplands bor- dering all these valleys and surrounding all the lakes in the county much of this timber is far back from present railway lines, lumber mills and markets. It is estimated that it will require at least forty years to manufacture into lumber the forests of Kootenai county. Small saw mills were put up in the county very early in the eighties, the first being those of O. A. Dodge at the outlet of Fish lake and Frederick Post at Rathdrum, both built in 1882. For more than a decade following the organization of the county the lumber industry made but little progress. During the past four or five years, however, it has pushed to the front by leaps and bounds. Besides several small mills that supply local demands there are now upwards of twenty large mills, some of them capitalized at $500,- 000. The larger mills are located at Coeur d'Alene, Harrison, Sand Point. Priest River and Bonner's Ferry, and have various capacities, ranging from 25 .- 000 to 150,000 feet of lumber per day. These mills have been built by eastern capital principally although considerable stock is held hy citizens of the various towns where they are located. Each company has secured title from the Northern Pacific Railro: 1 Co., and from private individuals, to immense arras of timber land, insuring permanency of the industry and with improved facilities for handling logs, a continual increase in the mill products. Among the larger cor- porations are the Weyerhaeuser Syndicate, operating principally at Sandpoint and Priest River, the Stern Lumber Co. and the Bonner Co., at Bonner's Ferry ; the Coeur d'Alene Lumber Co., the Howard Lumber Co., the Empire Lumber Co., at Coeur d'Alene : the Grant and the Cameron Cos., at Harrison : the Priest River Co. and the White Pine Co., at Priest River : and the Idaho Lumber and Manufacturing Co., at Post Falls. In the histories of the various towns of the

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HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

county will be found particulars concerning these and other plants. In order to facilitate the handling of logs from the heavily timbered sections a number of franchises have been granted companies for the im- provement of the streams. Among these is a franchise granted the Weyerhaeuser Co., for the improvement of Priest river, and another to the St. Joe Improvement Co. for clearing Santa Creek, St. Joe and St. Maries rivers of obstructions, thereby opening a passage way for logs into Lake Coeur d'Alene from the timbered region in the southeastern part of the county. There is every indication that the lumber industry will con- tinue to grow in Kootenai county, and its growth will not only keep a vast amount of capital in circulation. thus bringing prosperity to the people of the numer- ous communities where mills are operated, but it will clear and open large areas of valuable farming and grazing lands for profitable development.

That there are rich deposits of the precious metals in Kootenai county is a well established fact, although there are at present but few producing mines. Much of the county is vet a mountain wilderness which none but the early argonaut has penetrated. The ranchers have made their homes in the valleys : the lumbermen have visited the low foothills of the ranges, which are covered with merchantable timber, but the higher al- titudes of the rugged fastnesses yet remain to be ex- plored by the prospector. On the slopes of the lower timbered foothills, however, and along the margins of the valleys, many discoveries have been made of great- er or lesser vaine. The first discoveries were made many years ago. It is said that French Canadian trappers found gold in the Pend Oreille river in 1852, and in 1854, we are told, gold was found near the same place, hy General Lauder while exploring a route for a military road east from the Columbia river. The first authentic record is that of discoveries made by members of the party who assisted in the con- struction of the Mullan road in 1858 and 1859. In a letter dated Washington, D. C., June 4, 1884, and ad- dressed to A. F. Parker, now of Grangeville, Idaho, Captain Mullan says: "I am not at all surprised at the discovery of numerous rich gold deposits in your mountains, because both on the waters of the St. Jo- seph and the Coeur d'Alene, when there many years ago, I frequently noticed vast masses of quartz strew- ing the ground particularly on the St. Joseph river, and wide veins of quartz projecting at numerous points along the line of my road up the Coeur d'Alene, all of which indicated the presence of gold. Nay, more: I now recall quite vividly the fact that one of my herd- ers and hunters, a man by the name of Morse, coming into camp one day with a handful of coarse gold, which he said he found on the waters of the north fork of the Coeur d' Alene river while out hunting for onr expedition. This was in 1858 or 1859. The mem- bers of my expedition were composed very largely of old miners from California, and having had more or less experience in noticing the indications of mineral deposits, their universal verdict was that the entire country, from Coeur d' Alene lake on toward and in- cluding the east slope of the Rocky mountains, was one

vast gold bearing country, and I was always nervous as to the possible discovery of gold along the line of my road ; and I am now frank to say that I did nothing to encourage its discovery at that time, for I feared that any rich discovery would lead to a general stamp- ede of my men from my expedition, and thus destroy the probable consummation of my work during the time within which I desired to complete the same."

Since the discovery of gold in the Coeur d'Alene mountains in 1883 many sections of Kootenai county have been thoroughly prospected. The most promis- ing and valuable mines are located near Lakeview on Pend Oreille lake; in the Black Tail mountain re- gion east of Sandpoint ; on Boulder creek in the north- east part of the county, and near Tyson in the south- east. In other regions, however, good assays have been obtained, and development work continues. Among these locations are Porthill, Mica Bay. Ander- son mountain, Priest River, Medimont, Wold Lodge, Rathdrum mountain and Heyden lake. In the Lake- view region the Weber. Keep Cool and Conjecture mines are well known properties. The Weber mines were discovered in 1888 by Billy Bell and others while prospecting for Fred Weber and S. P. Donnelly. The Keep Cool, now owned by Thomas Griffith and others, Spokane, was discovered in 1888 by W. Franklin and Harry J. Steffey. The Conjecture was located in 1894 by Charles Graham. These have all been paying en- terprises and it is said that $75,000 were taken from the Keep Cool in three years' development work. Silver, copper and gold are found here. In 1890 C. P. Price discovered a mine of free milling silver ore on the west side of Pend Oreille lake from which one specimen assaved 400 oz. and another 128 oz. per ton. The property was sold to Joseph Clark, a mining man of Butte. Montana. for $20,000. In the Black Tail region. northeast of Sandpoint, the Mexico, owned by Wisconsin people and managed by James Forgu- son, is a valuable mine from which assays have been made showing upwards of $80 per ton in silver and gray copper. From the B. F. & H. mine in the same iocality, J. A. Evans, the owner, netted from one ship- ment of 18 tons of silver ore, $6,000, and from another shipment of 16 tons, $3,280. Other claims here are bringing in fair returns. In the Yank mining district in the northern part of the county, are the Buckhorn, Hoosier Boy. Boston, Keystone, Scout, Lucky Three, and other mines. In February, 1901, the Buckhorn, owned by I. J. Brant, Joseph King, Charles Ewing and David Langley, was sold to G. P. Mulcahy of Spokane, and associates, for $100,000. On Boulder creek, eight miles above Bonner's Ferry, some placer mining was done by returning Wild Horse prospectors, as early as 1867. In 1884, H. H. Markley, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, had the placer grounds thoroughly tested, but found they could not be worked at a profit be- cause of immense boulders, difficult to handle. He then located some quartz claims. In the spring of the same year Sandy Morrow discovered the Eureka and the Kate Fry claims which he sold to Richard Fry. Considerable wire silver and galena ore have been taken from these mines and from the Homestead and

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HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

Ebba, located later. In the winter of 1888 the Granite creek mines were discovered and a great deal of de- velopment work has been done there. The mines yield a high grade of galena ore and have assayed besides, right to twenty dollars in gold. Last winter John Edgar and Retzer Bros. bonded the Independence group to Glass and Winthrope for $35,000. Near Clark's Fork there are several good silver and lead prospects. North and East of Hope considerable pros- pecting' has been done and some promising claims lo- cated. A prospect discovered by Harry Oxer fourteen years ago is now being developed by Mr. Oxer, Brandt Bros., and others who have organized the Concord Mining Co. The Coeur d'Alene Mining Co., of which J. W. Phillipps is president, F. H. Bradbury, vice- president, and S. G. Soule, treasurer, has done some development work on a group of claims near Heyden lake. The group includes five claims, Phillipps No. 1. Phillipps No. 2, Daisy, Ellen and Gordon, from which assays have shown from $II to $16 per ton in gold, besides a small per cent. of silver. Claims were located here fifteen years ago but until recently not much work has been done on them. Good assays of gold and copper have been obtained from prospects in Rathdrum mountain. In December, 1902, Samuel Gompers, living two miles east of Rathdrum obtained an assay of $60 in gold per ton, from a sample of black sand taken, at a depth of seven feet, from the side of a well that was being dug on his place. In the Mica Bay mines, seven miles south of Coeur d'Alene, assays running from $5 to $60 per ton in gold and silver. have been obtained. In the Priest River dis- trict G. W. Armstrong. C. D. Cunningham, A. L. and A. J. Marsten, J. E. Peterkin and others, own claims north of. the town. The Medimont district on the Coeur d'Alene river has been prospected for 10 years ; but little work has been done here, however, until the past two years ; splendid assays have been obtained in gold and silver and it is regarded as a promising dis- trict. At Anderson mountain, a few miles east of Har- rison, several mines have been opened, the Waters Mining and Manufacturing Co. owning twenty-two claims. Of this company. Nathan Bowers of St. Paul. is president and P. T. Wagner, secretary. The latest discovered and probably the most valuable mines are on Santa Creek, in Camas Cove, in the southeastern part of the county. This is known as the Tyson min- ing region and particulars concerning discovery and development wil be found in the chapter on towns. Other prospects have been opened on Hagus creek, twelve miles above the head of navigation on St. Joe river by Daniel Davis and others. For handling ores, mills are being put up in the Tyson region and at Lakeview. At Sandpoint, on a site just east of the Humbird Lumber Company's mill, preparations are being made for the erection of a smelter to handle the ores from the Lakeview, Black Tail and other regions. H. M. Williams is the promoter and general superin- tendent of the enterprise. Other officers are Jacob Hines, Minneapolis, president : M. A. Murphy, St. Paul, vice-president ; W. E. Nelson, Denver, secretary and manager : Paul Johnson has the contract for the

building of the works. Two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars will be expended on the smelter, and in the purchase of boats and tugs for handling the business from the mines. Several groups of mines have also been purchased by the company which will be ready by fall to commence operations. The erection of this smelter will aid very materially in the development of all mining properties in the north end of the county and will make of many a prospect, a valuable mine.

Owing to the remoteness of several mineral loca- tions it will be some time before all sections reach the highest state of development as the cost of transport- ing the ores at the present time is too great to admit of profitable investment in such properties. Although transportation facilities are lacking in a few sections, the county as a whole is remarkably well equipped with means of reaching the markets and mills not only with the products of the mines, but with those of all other industries. There are 256 miles of navigable lakes and rivers. These include Lake Pend Oreille, Lake Coeur d'Alene, the Coeur d' Alene river from Harri- son to Cataldo or Old Mission, the St. Joe river from its mouth to St. Joe, and the Kootenai river from the International Boundary to Bonner's Ferry. In the matter of railroads Kootenai has more than any other county in the state, aggregating 260 miles, divided as follows: Great Northern, 81 miles ; Northern Pacific, 84 miles ; Couer d'Alene Branch, 14 miles ; O. R. & N., 55 miles ; Kootenai Valley, 26 miles. There are 250 miles of Western Union telegraph, and about 125 miles of telephone lines. In addition to the railroads already built across the county, several others are projected. Last winter the Spokane & Kootenai Railroad was incorporated by D. C. Corbin and ex- Senator George Turner, of Spokane, Jacob Furth, president of the Puget Sound National Bank, of Seat- tle, and Charles S. Bihler, of Tacoma, formerly assistant chief engineer of the Northern Pacific rail- road. The capital stock of the company was placed at $3,000,000. The route to be followed by this road, over which some preliminary lines have been run, is from Spokane to Rathdrum; thence north to the Seneaquoteen ferry on Pend Oreille river; thence to the town of Priest River ; thence northeast to Bonner's Ferry and up the Kootenai river to the mouth of Movie creek ; thence up Movie creek to the International Boundary. This route is over the old historic trail used forty years ago by placer miners on their way to the Pend Oreille country and to the Wild Horse region in British Columbia. Another line is said to have been surveyed by the O. R. & N. from Rockford, Washington, through the thickly timbered land section in the western part of Kootenai county to Coeur d'Alene. The Coeur d'Alene and Spokane Electric Ry., of which F. A. Blackwell is president and A. Bettis manager. is already under headway. The sur- veys have been made by Chief Engineer J. C. White and the contract for the grading of the road bed has been let to M. D. Wright and S. A. Eslick, of Spokane. The road will be ready for use early in the fall. It will do both a freight and passenger business.

Kootenai county is becoming famed as one of the

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HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

scenic regions of the northwest. For rugged snow- clad mountains, for misty waterfalls and roaring cat- aracts, for a picturesque profusion of evergreen trees and fern-like shrubs, it is unsurpassed. The greater portion of the surface is broken and extremely moun- tainous, belonging in reality to the great mountain range which forms the backbone of the western conti- nent. It is rich in mountains, in valley lands, and most fortunately too, in waters. The rushing mountain streams and placid mountain lakes of Kootenai coun- ty, complete, by contrast with the wild wilderness en- vironments, one of the most fascinating pictures to be found in western wonderland. A brief description of the principal water courses and lakes, with the regions cirained, will give the reader a more vivid conception of the diversified character of the surface. Of the Lake Coeur d' Alene basin the St. Joe river is the largest and drains the most extensive area. About forty miles from its lake outlet it forks into three streams, two of which head in Shoshone county, in the ridges which form the divide between the North Fork of the Clear- water and the Coeur d'Alene basin. The third heads in the Bitter Root range a short distance south of Stevens' Peak. This latter is the longest of the tribu- taries and may be regarded as the continuation of the main stream. Regarding it as such the river is 137 miles long. It empties into Lake Coeur d'Alene at the southern extremity, and is navigable for lake steani- ers a distance of 26 miles from its mouth. The area covered by its basin is in the form of a trapezoid. The elevation of the upper portion of the valleys of the vari- ous forks is, in mean, 4.900 feet, and of the valley at the head of navigation, 2,198 feet. From the head of navigation to the outlet the fall is but 23 feet. Fif- teen miles from its outlet it receives its largest tribu- tary, the St. Maries river. The east fork of the St. Maries rises in the Clearwater divide in Shoshone county. and the west fork near the source of the Pal- ouse river in the extreme southeastern corner of Koo- tenai county. The upper portion of its valley has a mean elevation of about 3,400 feet. At its junction with the St. Joseph the elevation is 2,200 feet. The lower and navigable portions of the St. Joseph, and also of the Coeur d'Alene river, have but a slight fall and a deep channel. This is due to the fact that this portion of their course is cut through a deep diluvial soil, clearly the old bottom of Lake Coeur d'Alene, which, not so very remotely in a geological sense, was far larger and extended well up into what is now in part the valleys of Coeur d'Alene and St. Joseph rivers. Above the navigable portions, the streams are clear, the valleys rise rapidly, the mountains close in, and the current becomes swift.

The Coeur d'Alene river empties into Lake Coeur d'Alene about twenty miles from the north end of the lake. Forty miles from the lake it divides into two streams, the North and South forks. The North Fork, which is the larger of the two, heads in the Coeur d' Alene mountains near the south end of Lake Pend Oreille. This branch is about 10 miles long. The elevation of the valley is 3,900 feet in the upper portion and 2,200 feet at its junction with the South Fork.

The South Fork heads in the ridges of the Bitter Roots some distance north of Sohon's Pass. The ele- vation of the upper valley is 3,478 feet. The Coeur d'Alene is navigable in high water, to the junction of its two forks, a distance of four miles from its outlet. During the summer and fall stages of water, steamers do not ply farther than Old Mission, a dis- tance of 29 miles. The total fall of the river from the head of summer navigation to the lake, is only sixteen feet. A multitude of canyons and ravines branch off from the larger stream valleys in all directions, each with a swift-flowing stream at the bottom, which in its turn is supplied by the springs that break out at frequent intervals from the inclosing ridges along their course. The mountain ridges in this portion of the county are extemely serpentine in their course, swing- ing often from east to west and from north to south, and vice versa. These twisting and turning divides, with their deep saddles and corresponding rises, dense forests, long, steep, tortuous ridges, deep, narrow can- yons and rushing roaring streams, enclose a region of pristine wilderness, charming beauty and exceeding grandeur.

Lake Coeur d'Alene is about thirty miles long and averages two miles in width. Its elevation is 2,175 feet and its depth in some portions is said to be 185 feet. It fills a gorge in the mountains whose pine cov- ered slopes are reflected most beautifully in its clear waters. On a cloudless summer day the lake presents a picture of rare beauty that appeals at once to man's love of nature and to his poetic fancy. From the crest of the ridges at the north end of the lake there is af- forded a most entrancing view of a landscape that rolls for miles in every direction, embracing a pleasing va- tiety of wooded and snow-clad peaks, of sunlit valleys and somber dells, of grassy slopes and rugged points. Below, and sweeping far away into the mountain re- cesses, lies the clear, blue lake. the matchless gem of the mountains, and winding away toward the valley, is the river, on its way with the waters of the lake, to the great Columbia. And yet, with all the matchless beauty of the prospect, a subtle charm is wanting, a crowning glory is lacking for it all ; the associations of history are not here ; as yet no poet's wand has touched this scene and invested it with that absorbing interest which Scott has given to the lochs of Scotland and Ir- ving to the terraced slopes of the Hudson. Some day. when the passion for gold and power shall have a little abated, there will arise, perhaps from the secluded haunts of the prospector or the shepherd, a flame of poetic genius, that will supply this subtle charm and weave a garment of fancy that will complete the fas- cinating beauty of the scenic environments; but not while town lots and material resources are the sole topic of conversation and brick blocks and golden treas- ure the supreme aspiration of the people.

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An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho, Part 198

Author: Publication date: 1903 Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1524

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1524