Northern Gold Activities Mixed, Many Headed for Boise Basin [otd 06/16]

A correspondent who signed himself as “Mudsill” wrote a letter from Lewiston on June 16, 1863, that was published in The Oregonian a week later. He said, “I arrived at this place yesterday evening. The town is dull, awful dull. Everybody has gone to Boise, and everybody else getting ready to go.”

Luna House Hotel, Lewiston. [Illust-North]

This refrain had, of course, been operable for a good many weeks. All the northern gold towns had lost people, sometimes nine out of ten from their peaks. Mudsill went on, “This is not the route for miners to travel now. I am informed that Mr. Sanborn is out at work on the trail with a force of ten or fifteen men; but saddle horses are scarce and high, and the opportunities for getting goods taken out are not good.”

That remark referred to Homer D. Sanborn, a native of New Hampshire, who had emigrated west in 1857, when he was in his early twenties. He settled first in Oregon, and then followed the rush into Idaho. By 1862, Sanborn had established himself as a Lewiston merchant.

A week or so earlier, folks in Lewiston had raised $2,000 to finance construction of a good road south to the mining camps of the Boise Basin (Placerville, and so on). Sanborn had agreed to supervise the work.  An earlier report said his team “will remove all rocks and obstructions found, will build such bridges as may [be] necessary on small streams or over deep gulches, and place ferries or rafts on such places as are necessary.”

Yet the project provided only a temporary ray of hope. Once the roads in southern Idaho improved, Lewiston lost any role for the mines there. Sanborn himself eventually gave up on Lewiston and returned to Portland.

Mudsill’s letter to the Oregonian continued, “I have been diligent in obtaining information concerning the mines near this place. … Elk City is dull, little doing. Cause, want of water. Florence is dull – causes too numerous to mention. Oro Fino is more prosperous – laborers in demand at five dollars per day, without board, and supplies cheap.”

Changing topics, he said, “Umatilla Landing is a lively place, but persons intending to sojourn or locate there, must not be too expectant.” As evidence, he mentioned “Taylor’s Restaurant,” one of the most heavily publicized establishments in town. But the eatery was actually located “in a loose board shed, some ten or twelve feet in width, and cobbled up against the side of one of the few more permanent structures of the town.”

Umatilla Landing, ca 1864.
Umatilla Museum and Historical Foundation.

Some businesses still felt the effects from everyone stocking up when freight costs on the river steamboats were low. The writer said, “I saw packers and teamsters soliciting freight for Boise at sixteen cents per pound. Some of them stated that they had been waiting for three weeks without procuring a load.”

Mudsill noted in passing that he had encountered “a real live vigilance committee” – which sounded more like a civilian posse – on his journey. He averred that it was “the first that has ever come under my immediate personal observation in this country.”

He was not “favorably impressed.” They had recovered some stolen horses from two “somewhat notorious” thieves, but had let the crooks get away. Moreover, as Mudsill's party left, the posse had decided to indulge in “Capt. Alcohol, embodied in a keg of whiskey.” And, from “the hearty welcome he received from the company,” the usual outcome could be expected.
                                                                                

References: [Illust-State]

Joseph Gaston, Portland, Oregon: It’s History and Builders, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago (1911).

“Letter from Lewiston,” The Oregonian, Portland (June 23, 1863).

Bonner County Split Off from Kootenai, Coeur d’Alene Ready to Pounce [otd 02/21]

On February 21, 1907, Idaho Governor Frank Gooding signed the legislative act that split Bonner County away from Kootenai County.

Creation of Bonner County was straightforward enough, and a general election confirmed Sandpoint as the county seat. Soon, they established a county government and built a courthouse.

Bonner County Courthouse, Sandpoint, ca 1910.
J. H. Hawley photo.

However, the legislation left the new, reduced Kootenai County with some unfinished business. The Idaho Territorial legislature had created Kootenai County in 1864 [blog, Dec 22]. Oddly enough, the original definition did not include any of the area that eventually became today’s Kootenai County.

The 1864 legislature also created a “Lahtoh” county. Between them, these two encompassed all of Idaho north of the Clearwater River, except for Shoshone County to the east. In 1867, legislators amended the creation Act to call the entire region Kootenai County, which “technically” wiped out Lahtoh.

However, the issue was moot because the whole region contained too few white inhabitants to organize a government. Thus, Nez Perce County officials in Lewiston handled administrative matters all the way to the Canadian border.

Then, in the 1870s, homesteaders began to colonize north of the Clearwater, establishing settlements along the Palouse and Potlatch rivers. These settlers thought of themselves as being in an unorganized Latah County, and chafed under Lewiston’s control. They got their own government in 1888, when the southern part of Kootenai was officially split off as Latah County.

Meanwhile, the area further north had grown some after the Army established Fort Sherman in 1879 [blog, Apr 16]. Prospects improved even more when it became known that the Northern Pacific Railroad planned to lay track across the Idaho Panhandle. Business leaders in Coeur d’Alene City, next to the Fort, watched the growth and prepared to exploit it

They completed the necessary paperwork in July 1881, when the rails reached Rathdrum. All seemed positive for Coeur d'Alene City to become the county seat until the Recorder moved his store – and all the county records – to Rathdrum. By this rather ad hoc act, Rathdrum became the county seat of Kootenai County. The county formed a rough rectangle 30-50 miles wide and 140 miles long. Few settlers lived in the northernmost sections.

Coeur d’Alene, ca. 1910. Museum of North Idaho.

With the discovery of gold and silver in the mountains east of Lake Coeur d'Alene, Coeur d'Alene City became the "gateway" to the mining districts. Off and on for the next 20 years, the town fought to capture the county seat, but they never quite had the numbers. However, after the turn of the century, the timber industry blossomed into the driving force behind the region's economy.

Situated on lakes that allowed easy timber transport, Coeur d'Alene City and Sandpoint grew rapidly. It is estimated that by 1907, when Kootenai and Bonner were separated, Coeur d'Alene City had grown from about 500 to over 4,000 people and Sandpoint from perhaps 250 to nearly 1,500. Rathdrum lagged behind at less than a thousand.

Thus, a 1908 vote in the truncated Kootenai County moved the county seat to Coeur d'Alene City, where it still is.
                                                                                
Reference: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-North]