USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 38
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This famous old highway. located and built by the Lieutenant John Mullan, who attended Colonel Wright in his campaign against the hostile Indians in 1858, had fallen into such a state of negleet that the legislature was moved to address a strong memorial to congress, urging its repair. As that doenment set forth with admirable elearness the history of the road and the conditions existing in 1866 throughout the entire "upper country," it deserves, at least in part, a place in this history. After reeiting that the highway, for much of the distance through the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root mountains was in an almost impassable condition for wagons, on account of fallen timber and destruction of bridges, it went on to represent that-
"The necessity for a great national highway connecting the Missouri and Com- hia rivers by a good and substantial wagon road, was by its own importance first brought to the notice of your honorable bodies as early as the year 1819. In the spring of 1852, the neeessity felt by the government for a more thorough and satis- factory knowledge in detail of the geographical and topographical character of the country lying between the Columbia and the Missouri rivers, induced congress
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to make an appropriation for the purpose, and in the spring of 1853, by authority of congress, several corps of engineers and explorers were organized and sent forth under the direction of Honorable 1. 1. Stevens. The voluminous and truth- ful reports of these several parties induced congress to act and aet promptly, and in 1857 Captain John Mullan was ordered into the field, being fully supplied with all the necessary men and means, and was on the ground in the spring of 1858. Commencing at Wallula (then old Fort Walla Walla) on the Columbia river, he had completed the Walla Walla and Fort Benton military wagon road in Sep- tember, 1862.
"The opening of this road is of the greatest, most vital importance to the pro- ple of Washington, Idaho, and that portion of Montana lying west of the Rocky mountains : and in the opinion of your memorialists, in a military point of view its importance cannot be over-estimated.
"Your memorialists are of the opinion that $100,000 judiciously expended in repairing said road between Walla Walla and Helena cities, a distance of 145 miles, under the direction of a competent engineer from the United States topo- graphical bureau, will put the road in good condition and enable teams loaded with freight and machinery to pass over from the Columbia river into the heart of a rich mining country.
"Rich quartz veins are being discovered in the hearts of the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root mountains, which will ere long demand machinery for their de- velopment, and the working of which, in connection with the placer mines, would contribute largely to the development of Washington, Idaho and the western por- tion of Montana territories.
"The opening of this road will enable a large portion of the population now on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Cascades and Rocky mountains to use this great thoroughfare in reaching the rich gold and silver mines lying along its route from Helena west to the Columbia river. Again, it is through this national highway that the immigrant from the eastern side of the mountains, and those who ascend the Missouri river to Fort Benton must pass to reach western Montana. Washington and a large portion of Idaho territory.
"There is a constant stream of population flowing into the region of country lying along and adjacent to this so-called Mullan road. The immigrant who is seeking farming land comes on down to the Walla Walla and other rich valleys ly- ing along the western terminus of the road, and thence on to Puget sound.
"There is at the present time a population of over 100,000 inhabitants in the territories of Washington, Idaho and western Montana. Rich deposits of gokl, silver. copper. lead and iron are constantly being discovered and rapidly developed. Mining towns are springing into existence in all parts of the newly settled region. Branch roads leading From this main trunk ( Mullan road) to the different mining camps are being made by individual enterprise, and everything gives indication that at no distant day these hardy and successful pioneers will be knocking at the door of congress asking to be admitted into the sisterhood of states. But the popula- tion of this vast region of country is too new and too poor to be able to take hold of and rapidly complete such a great enterprise as the opening of this military road.
"The inhabitants, coming as they have from all parts of the United States, are
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unacquainted with each other, and admitting that they have all the necessary means within themselves for the opening of this road, a few months' acquaintance with each other is not sufficient to establish the necessary confidence to organize a com- pany and put forward to completion so great an undertaking. Nor is this all: the great length of this road and the large number of people it would benefit when opened demands that it should be a free road.
"Your memorialists wish to further show the vital importance of an early opening of a free road through this rich and fertile region of public domain, whereby the producers of the valleys may be enabled to reach the mining regions with their produce, and supply the miners with the necessaries of life at prices which will enable them to remain in and develop the mines. We will give some statistics carefully compiled and drawn from reliable sources relative to the produe- tions and ruling prices for the same, of Walla Walla valley alone, together with the number of tons of freight landed by steamers at Wallula, and the amount pass- ing over the Mullan road by pack trains to western Montana.
"The Walla Walla valley, ineluding that portion which lies in the state of Oregon, has produced this season ( 1866) 500,000 bushels of wheat, 250,000 bushels of oats. 200,000 bushels of barley, 150,000 bushels of corn, 170,000 pounds of beans. 4,500 head of hogs, 1,800 head of horses, 2,500 head of cattle.
"From January I to November 15, 1866, 1,500 head of horses have been pur- chased by individual miners at Walla Walla horse markets, 2,000 miners have out- fitted at Walla Walla, 5,000 head of cattle were driven from Walla Walla to Montana, 6,000 mules have left Walla Walla and the Columbia river, loaded with freight for Montana; fifty-two light wagons with families have left Walla Walla for Montana, thirty-one wagons with immigrants have come through from the States via the Mullan road, a portion of whom settled in Walla Walla valley and the remainder crossed the Columbia river at Wallula and settled on the Yakima river. or passed on to Puget Sound; not less than 20,000 persons have passed over the Mullan road to and from Montana during the past season; $1,000,000 in treasure has passed through Walla Walla and Walhuila during the same period.
"The Walla Walla valley conlains six flouring mills, six saw mills, two planing mills. two distilleries. one foundry and fifty-two threshing, heading and reaping machines.
"The Oregon Steam Navigation company have run a daily line of boats to Wallula (Sundays excepted) during the past season up to the fourth day of No- vember : since that time the boats have made four trips per week. These boats are of the capacity from 75 to 200 tons burden, and giving the very lowest estimates. have landed not less than 5.000 tons of freight at Wallula during the season.
"As early as 1862, about the time the Fort Benton wagon road was completed. the Oregon Steam Navigation company landed at Wallula. from the fifth day of July to the eleventh day of October inclusive, 1,705 tons of freight, making three trips per week, which is an average of over forty tons per trip.
"The government has a large warchonse al Wallula. a quartermaster's agent in charge, and all the government supplies for Fort Walla Walla, Fort Boise and a large proportion of those for Forts Colville and Lapwai are landed there. Freight is landed at Wallula for Lewiston, Florence. Pierce City, Elk City and Orofino, during the spring and fall. and for Helena, Blackfoot City. Deer Lodge, Hell
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Gate, Bitter Root valley, Cariboo, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreille lake, at all seasons of the year, ice not preventing.
"Your memorialists will further state that owing to the condition of the Mullan road, the producers of the Walla Walla and other valleys adjacent thereto are deprived of a valuable market for their products, and the inhabitants living along the line of the road and in western Montana, are compelled to pay exorbitant, not to say extortionate, prices for the necessaries of life, while the best standard mills family flour is selling at Walla Walla for five dollars per barrel, and the best of wheat is selling at sixty cents per bushel; the freight on either of these articles to Montana, via the Mullan road in its present condition, costing from thir- teen to twenty-two cents per pound by pack animals.
"Your memorialists are of the opinion that wheat can not be purchased any- where in the United States at what it is now being sold for daily at Walla Walla, sixty eents per bushel. Oats command from one to one and one-half cents per pound ; barley from one to one and one-quarter cents per pound. Last year the merchants of Walla Walla shipped over 600,000 pounds of oats to Oregon, and 113.000 pounds of wool and a large quantity of potatoes and onions."
The postoffice department had established a mail route from Wallula to Helena, making Wallula a distributing office, and the memorial concluded with the opinion "that by opening the road we are assured that we shall soon have what the requirements of the country and the number of inhabitants demand. a mail coach on the route instead of a train of packhorses."
In this memorial is presented a vivid portrayal of conditions in the Inland Empire, five and forty years ago, and a faithful picture of traffic as it moved over the historic old Mullan road. In fancy we may conjure back the scenes of other days, and contrast with the changed conditions of the present hour the stream of traffic as then it flowed along this old highway down the wild valley of the Spokane. Let us, in imagination, take a position beside the pioneer thorough- fare and await the passing of the traffic of a busy day in autumn. Comes yonder a long cavalcade of pack animals, with lading of merchandise from Portland or Walla Walla, cinched high above the rough pack saddles of frontier pattern. It is headed for the Montana mines and three hundred miles away to the east an enterprising merchant frets in impatience as he seans his empty shelves and cal- culates his daily loss in the gold dust that would be his if only he had the goods so wanted by the red-shirted, big-booted miners up the gulch.
Scarcely has the dust raised by this shuffling caravan been wafted away by the vagrant breeze than we may detect a moving picture of a different sort. An immigrant train is coming round a near-by bend and stirring up a stupendous dust as it moves along. Galloping a little in advance, a horseman sights an attract- ive camping place. with the three-fold advantages of wood, grass and water, seans, under a sheltering hand, the meridian sun, and sends back a long halloo whose cheery meaning even the jaded teams are quick to understand and answer with a quickened pace. Within a few minutes the little train has lumbered up, wagons come to rest at various vantage points around the wayside brook ; women and chil- dren climb out from the covered wagon beds; traces are unhooked, lines looped up on the hames, neckyokes quickly taken from wagon-tongues, and instantly we hear a medley of jingling harness, rattling tinware and childish voices made sharp by
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hunger's call. For they have come far since they left their camping-spot of the night before and the days are long and tedious when one travels in an immigrant wagon across the plains or through the mountains and the deep forests of the west. They are on their way, perhaps from old Missouri or more distant Illinois or In- diana, to a promised land in the Walla Walla or the Willamette valley; and have been steadily on the move sinee early spring gave promise of sufficient pasturage to sustain their teams and eattle. Grim resolution, with sunshine and the winds, has fixed upon their features lines of determination, but hope gleams in every eye, and quiet courage, and patient endurance. The long journey is nearing the end, and the land of pleasant abundance can not be far away.
It is only a conjured picture, but we lift our hats to these immigrants of fifty years ago. For they were strong, and they had confidence, and they were unafraid. Builders of empire, founders of states, creators of towns and cities-they have he- come an almost vanished type, and with their passing, state and nation have lost something of the pieturesque and somewhat of rugged courage and virtue.
The Mullan road crossed the Spokane at Schnebley's bridge, two and a half miles above the present town of Trent, or about 12 miles east of the city of Spokane. It. ran, thence, along the north bank of the river, past the old Kendall (later Cowley's) bridge, eighteen miles above Spokane; and thenee, by way of Post Falls to Lake Coeur d'Alene, through Fourth of July canyon, and up the Coeur d'Alene river, by way of the Old Mission, crossing the Coeur d'Alene river frequently, and pass- ing into Montana over the pass of St. Regis Borgias.
From the crossing of the Spokane river, it ran (towards Walla Walla) down the Spokane valley a few miles, and turned south and left the valley at a point about six miles east of the eity, passing over Moran prairie near the present coun- try residenee of J. J. Browne. It crossed Hangman creek about nine miles from Spokane. From the Hangman creek crossing it headed southwest for the ferry across Snake river near the mouth of the Palouse, passing enroute about three miles north of Spangle, and thenee to the Hines place on lower Rock ereek, where a settler named Hines ran an eating place. From the Hines place it ran by way of lake Colville, near the present town of Sprague to Cow creek, the next stopping place. and then on to the erossing of the Snake. Beyond Snake river it ran by way of the Touchet river to Waitsburg, and thenee on to Walla Walla.
CHAPTER XXXII
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY CONTINUED
MAIL BETWEEN WALLA WALLA AND PINKNEY CITY-LEGISLATURE PLEADS POVERTY- PRAIRIE FIRES-AGITATION TO ANNEX IDAHO PANHANDLE-CLAMOR FOR LAND OFFICE AT WALLA WALLA-SETTLERS COME INTO PALOUSE COUNTRY-WHITMAN COUNTY CREATED-CONDITIONS IN COLVILLE VALLEY-BEGINNING OF FAMOUS LIEU LAND STRUGGLE-AGITATION FOR AN OPEN RIVER-EARLY DAY ROAD BUILDING -- LAWFUL FENCES DEFINED-LAND OFFICE AT COLVILLE-MILITARY POST AT SPO- KANE-CREATION OF SPOKANE COUNTY-FIRST APPLICATION OF THE REFEREN- DUM-PROHIBITION STRIP ALONG THE NORTHERN PACIFIC-GROWTH OF THE TER- RITORY-MEMORIAL FOR MILITARY TELEGRAPII LINE.
A MEMORIAL to the postmaster-general, December 15, 1866, represented that "under an order issued by the postal department, the postmaster was instrueted not to pay over $4,000 for carrying the mail between Walla Walla and Pinkney City," but this sum was deemed inadequate for the distance of 220 miles and the character of the country traversed. On solicitation of citizens of Walla Walla and Stevens county, J. R. Bates and a man named Brenniek had been induced to eover the route at that rate for three months only, on an under- standing that the matter would be taken up with the department and an inerease asked to $7.000. This consideration the legislature thought reasonable, and the inerease was therefore asked. adding that the mail on this route was important, as there then existed at the Pinkney City end of the route the following government offiees : Custom house at Little Dalles. Indian agent and collector and assessor of internal revenue at Pinkney City, and a military post. By a legislative aet passed a year later, the name of Pinkney City was changed to Colville.
In furtheranee of the building of a transcontinental railroad, the legislature memorialized congress, under date of January 5, 1867, as follows: "That in aceord- ance with the rapid progress of commercial enterprise, and the inereasing demand for rapid intereourse across the domain of the United States. from the Atlantie to the Pacific oceans. the congress of the United States has provided by legislative enaet- ments for the construction of two lines of railroads, known as the Union or Cen- tral. and the Northern Paeifie railroads. but the northern road has not re- ceived the same assistance from the fostering hand of the general government which has been extended to the central road, although from the natural condition of affairs it is more necessary that such assistance should be extended to the Northern than to the Central road. for the reasons: First. that in Washington territory. the terminus
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of the road, there is not sufficient capital throughout the whole territory even to commence such an enterprise, while in California, the terminus of the Central road, sufficient capital could be obtained, were the holders thereof willing, to build the whole road without any assistance from the general government. Second, that from the geographieal position of the different rontes, the northern road when completed will build up a national and international commerce of far greater extent and value than the central, and that the nature of the soil along the northern route guarantees the more rapid growth of a rich and powerful agricultural community along the whole extent of country through which it will pass."
In view of these considerations, the legislature prayed congress to pass an act granting the same privileges to the Northern Pacific railroad company as had been already granted to the Union Pacific railroad company.
The legislatures of 15 and 50 years ago were not ashamed to plead poverty when- ever a probability arose of obtaining something from congress by making that plea, for we find frequent assertion, in old memorials and resolutions, of the financial weakness of the territory and its people. They were rich only in anticipation, and eager to dip a hand in the opulent commerce of the Orient. And a territory may beg insistently without sacrificing state pride.
At that time little had been attempted in a farming way in eastern Washington outside of the Walla Walla valley. The expansive Palouse and Big Bend sections were open grazing country, with hardly a furrow turned anywhere; and when the luxuriant bunch-grass had cured in the summer sun, danger arose constantly of wide-sweeping prairie fires. To check that peril. the legislature passed a law in January. 1868, to prohibit the setting of grass fires "on any of the unoccupied land or lands, being known as prairie or pasturage land in the counties of Walla Walla. Stevens, Yakima and Klickitat." and providing penalties of imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, or a fine not exceeding $500. or both impris- onment and fine.
Although Washington territory had allowed. almost without a protest. Idaho to be cut away from its eastern area a few years before. agitation now arose for restoration of the Panhandle, and the legislature. in January. 1868, adopted a memorial which represented that :
"By the boundaries of Idaho territory, there is a long narrow strip lying in the northern portion of said territory. bounded on the north by British Columbia, on the east by Montana territory. and on the west by Washington territory: and that the said strip of territory, at its northern extremity, is only about fifty miles wide." divided into the three counties of Nez Perce, Shoshone and Idaho.
"Your memorialists are assured, by the voice of the residents and the press of said portion of Idaho territory. that they are desirous of being annexed to the ter- ritory of Washington; that the commercial, social and political interests of the people of the said northern portion of Idaho are identical with those of the people of Washington territory.
"The great distance of these three northern countries from Boise City -- the capital of Idaho a distance of over 500 miles incurs great expense to said territory, and also to their legislators.
"And your memorialists would further show that the representatives from the
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said counties, in order to reach their capital, are compelled to travel through a large portion of Washington territory and the state of Oregon."
Believing that the people of northern Idaho desired annexation to Washington, the legislature asked congress to make the requisite change in boundary lines. The striking fact can not escape the reader that. after a lapse of more than 40 years, the conditions set out in the foregoing memorial survive today, substantially as they existed in 1868. By social and commercial ties, northern Idaho is still bound to eastern Washington; and, just as forty-three years ago, the people of the Pan- handle are required to pass through Washington and Oregon to transaet business at the enpital at Boise.
The agitation, begun in 1868. has had frequent revival, and even now is not wholly extinguished. It developed such strength when Cleveland was president that a bill restoring the Panhandle to Washington passed both houses of Congress, but failed to win executive approval.
A memorial relative to the carrying of mail between Colville and Spokane Bridge, adopted in December, 1867, reveals the unsettled state of the country. The postmaster at Colville had been instructed by the department not to pay more than $1.500 a year for that serviec, and if a contraet could not be let, to diseon- tinue the route and the postoffice at Spokane Bridge. Ira Matthews was indneed to take the contract. but on the understanding that the matter would be taken up with the department and increased pay recommended. The memorial set forth that in view of the length of the route, ninety miles, "weight of mail matter ; difficult roads, attributable to the character of the country through which the route must necessarily pass ; the absence of settlement in a distance of sixty miles, rendering it essential for the carrier to provide and transport necessary forage," the allowance of $1.500 for a weekly mail was entirely inadequate, "in fact, not sufficient to meet the necessary expense of keeping open the route." An allowance of $3,000 a year was therefore urged upon the postal department.
A memorial adopted in October, 1869, urged the establishment of a United States land office at Walla Walla, as "a matter of vital importance and pressing necessity to all the people of Washington territory who reside east of the Caseade moun- tains." It represented that "the only land office at which these people can enter their homestead and preemption land claims is at Vancouver, west of the Caseade mountains and about 250 miles distant from Walla Walla. The most of the home- stead elaimants have yet to make their final homestead proof; and the same is true of the preemption land claimants."
At that time there were in the counties of Klickitat, Yakima, Walla Walla and Stevens about 2,000 land claimants, and the memorial estimated that it would eost them. on an average, $150 in traveling expenses alone if they were required to make final proof at Vancouver. "while the government receives of the homestead settler, in all, $22 legal tender for 160 acres, and from the preemptionists $200 eurreney."
According to this memorial. not a fifteenth part of the fertile and arable land had been surveyed or settled.
Again the legislature urged upon congress the importance of aiding the build- ing of the Northern Pacific railroad. This highway, it said. would connect with the great lakes and through them with the St. Lawrence river, while the route. from the headwaters of Lake Superior to Puget Sound, was comparatively short, well
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watered and timbered, with abundance of coal. "and capable of sustaining an almost uninterrupted belt of population across the continent on either side of the road."
"This road," the memorial continued. "presents a direct, feasible and eligible route across the continent which will open the territories of Dacotah, Montana, Ida- ho, Washington and Oregon to civilization, settlement and commerce, and stimulate the development of their great agricultural and mineral resources; and which will invite the commerce of Japan and China to our Pacific coast and across the conti- nent. thereby increasing the national wealth and revenue, and promoting our foreign and domestic trade and the general industry of our people."
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