Spokane River

“ SPOKANE FALLS
is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West. When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow around him. ”

“ Heavy rain part of the day. Proceeded on our journey a little past sunrise, and reached Spokane River in the afternoon. It was near sunset by the time the horses and baggage were got across the river, though the Indians lent us a canoe to cross with. We put up here for the night. The road today was in several places deep and miry, but much better than yesterday, nevertheless, the horses were a good deal jaded. The Indians came and smoked with us in the evening. The people are always glad to see whites coming among them. ”

“ Among the city's charitable institutions are a home for the friendless (1890) , the St Joseph orphanage (1890) , St Luke's (1900) and the Marie Beard Deaconess (1896) hospitals, each having a training school for nurses, a Florence Crittenden home, and a House of the Good Shepherd. The Spokane river is a rapidly flowing stream with two falls (the upper of 60 and the lower of 70 ft.) , within the city limits, providing an estimated energy of about 35,000 horsepower at low water. ”

“ Newspoke—originally New Spokane—was the largest city of Dekanore III. It lay in the broad valley of the Spokane River, just above the mouth of Clear Creek, which latter stream meandered along a fertile valley between mountains lofty and steep. Clear Creek Valley—all of it—and all its neighboring mountains belonged to Tellurian Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
The valley floor was a riot of color, devoted as it was to the intensive cultivation of medicinal plants which could not as yet be grown economically in tanks. Along both edges of the valley extended rows of huge hydroponics sheds. ”

“ The Spokane River divides the great treeless plain on the south from the timbered mountainous country to the north.
During this journey, we came upon various little bands of Indians, of different tribes. We noticed the superiority of the "stick" Indians (those who live in the woods) over those who live by the sea. The former have herds of horses, and hunt for their living. The Indians who live by fishing are of tamer natures, poor and degraded, compared to those of the interior. ”

“ It is bounded in all its course by a range of high mountains, well wooded, and in places expands into a line of lakes before it reaches Colville, where it is 2,200 feet above the level of the sea, having a fall of a little over 100 feet in 220 miles. To the south of this it trends to the west, receiving the Spokane River from the east, which is not navigable, and takes its rise in the Lake of Coeur d'Alene. ”

“ Of all the men ever on the River probably no one ever had more experience with canoe travel than David Thompson and his description of these Dalles is therefore interesting: "I have already mentioned the Dalles of the Saleesh and Spokane Rivers; these Dalles (of the Co- lumbia) were of the same formation, steep high walls of Basalt Rock, with sudden sharp breaks in them, which were at right angles to the direction of the wall of the River, these breaks formed rude bays, under each point was a violent eddy, and each bay a powerful, dangerous whirlpool ”

“ They came representing steamboats plying placidly in a river whose falls are as deadly as Niagara's. Spokane is twenty-four hours' ride from the cities of Puget Sound. It is three days' journey from San Francisco, and to go from Spokane to Helena or Butte is like travelling from Chicago to Denver. Its future must be great. It has no rival. Eight railroads, three of them transcontinental, assert its supremacy. Southward stretches the most prolific grain empire in the world. ”

“ One of several creeks entering Spokane river from the south. The road from Spokane House to the Forks evidently followed the south side of Spokane River very closely.
[284] The boats that had been built at Spokane House during the winter; the Little Dalles are the gorge at Miles. Lincoln County, Wash.
[285] John McLeod. Chief Trader, on his way to cross the Rocky Mts., Francis Ermatinger, a clerk, and David Douglas, the botanist from England. For contemporaneous mention of this meeting consult pp. 334-5 of Vol. 5 of Oregon Hist. Quarterly, being Journal of David Douglas. ”

“ In all directions around Colville and Kettle Falls, up the Sans Poil and Kettle rivers, are opening mines and farms, one of the most promising sections of all the promising State of Washington. Time forbids us to visit all the lakes in this wonderful lake section. But we must see the most important. While at Spokane, we should not fail to go, by trolley or train or auto or horseback, to the greatest of all Spokane resorts, Cœur d'Alene Lake. ”

“ On whatever side viewed, either past or present, or in the forecast of the future, Spokane is worthy of careful study. Its extensive railroad system and its network of electric lines reaching the many lakes, garden and fruit tracts, and rapidly developing suburbs, are concentrating the interests of a vast and wealthy region. ”

“ From the city of Spokane all corners of the Inland Empire are easily reached. Five transcontinental lines enter the city and two others operate trains; while a network of electric lines serves the immediate vicinity, penetrating the territory as far south as Colfax, Palouse, and Moscow; southwest to Medical Lake and Cheney; and eastward to Hayden Lake and Coeur d'Alene. Highways have been built through the most scenic sections along the river valleys and up into the mountains. Each mode of transportation unfolds a different panorama. ”

“ On May 16, 1858, the force reached a point near four lakes, probably the group of which Silver Lake and Medical Lake are the chief ones, a few miles west of Spokane. Here was gathered a formidable array, Spokanes, Pend Oreilles, Cœur d'Alenes, Okanogans, and Colvilles, the hosts of the upper country. Steptoe was soldier enough to perceive that it was time for caution, and he halted for a parley. Saltese, a brawny chief of the Cœur d'Alenes, declared to him that the Indians were ready to dispute his farther progress, but that if the white men would retire the Indians would not molest them. ”

“ The Indians say that these columns are the petrified forms of amazons who, issuing from the woods, were about to plunge into the river for a bath, ignorant of the water demon, when Speelyai to save them turned them into stone.
It is significant of the lure of Spokane that men who have accumulated millions and sold their mines still make it their place of permanent residence. Though the city as it is to-day has been built in the dozen years that have elapsed since its great fire, there is no hint of hasty development within its boundaries. ”

“ Seven men of the party were so weak, sick and worn out that they were unable to proceed across the mountains, so they were given the best of the canoes and provisions, and were to attempt to return down river to Spokane House, a Hudson Bay post near the mouth of the river of that name. They reached the place which has since borne the name of Dalles des Morts without trouble. There, in passing their canoe down over the rapids with a light cod line, it was caught in a whirlpool. The line snapped, and the canoe, with all the provisions and blankets, was lost. ”

“ November 24.—Ascended the Columbia River by steamer, with six miles of portage, to the Dalles, where I took the Northern Pacific train for Spokane Falls, having daylight from Pasco Junction.
November 25.—Nothing could be more unjust to the country than the location of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which runs most of the way to Spokane Falls in a coulée (or dry river bed) , which completely hides most of the farming land from the traveler. ”

“ After the confluence of the Snake with the Columbia the greater river turns west toward the Pacific. Throughout its course to this point it may be said that the Columbia has no flood plain; everywhere it is cutting its bed; almost everywhere it is characterized by canyons, although above the Spokane the valley is much broken down and there is considerable timbered and fertile bench land. Below the Spokane the canyon becomes more steep and rugged. From the mouth of the Okanogan to Priests Rapids extends a superb canyon, with precipitous walls of black columnar basalt 1000 to 3000 ft. ”

“ Set out at 11 oclock on our return to Spokane & encamped at 7 at the Big Camass plain. [167]
Left directions with Mr Dears to keep the men at work a few [Pg 167] days longer to have the timber for the store all in readiness to be put up in the spring if another situation does not be fixed upon. There is no other convenient spot near the fishing at the falls on which to build a fort. It will be necessary to call home the men to put the houses, etc., at Spokane in order to pass the winter.—Mr Dears is to be in readiness to proceed up the Pendent Oreville River when the men are called home. ”

“ The Indians about Puget Sound, more than any others, seem to have taken to the cultivation of the potato for food,
Encamping for the night, sixty miles from Colville, he found many Spokanes and Nez Percés gathered, who had heard from others that a teacher of religion was passing through the country, and they were anxious to see and listen to so great a personage. They brought with them, with wise forethought, an interpreter of their own, a young Spokane who had attended school at the Red River settlement, and who understood English fairly. ”

“ The lower Willamette Valley, centring at Portland, has become fairly swarming with electric roads. Spokane has become almost an equal centre of electric lines, while Walla Walla is following close behind her larger sisters in the procession. When lines already constructed from Spokane southward are joined to a system projected from Walla Walla northward and westward, there will be a complete system of independent electric lines from all parts of Eastern Washington and North-eastern Oregon to steamboat connections on the River, and thence to tide-water. ”

“ McKenzie's visit to Spokane and his furnishing Clarke with horses indicates there was a comparatively short and easy route between the two posts.
The only approach to Fort Boise by boat is up the canyon of the Snake River. The list of activities given above would have required McKenzie to make his trip through the canyon at least four times—once to reach the post in August, once to reach Astoria in January, once to return in February (using but twenty-two days for the trip) and the last time when he left in the spring. ”

“ From the mouth of the Spokane the Columbia, now out of the woods, flows to the westward with a broad, stately current for a hundred and twenty miles to receive the Okinagan, a large, generous tributary a hundred and sixty miles long, coming from the north and drawing some of its waters from the Cascade Range. More than half its course is through a chain of lakes, the largest of which at the head of the river is over sixty miles in length. ”

“ Clarke's Fork, or Pend d'Oreille River, runs out of the lake, which is a large one, and, as I have before said, falls into the Columbia, and consequently cannot be used for booming logs to Spokane Falls. But Priest River, which flows out of Kanisku Lake into Pend d'Oreille River, near the lake, has upon its borders one hundred thousand acres of pine, cedar, and tamarack, some df the pines having a diameter of six feet, and trunks that are clear of limbs one hundred feet from the ground. ”

“ This place was the joint result of mining and military matters, a post having been established here during the Indian disturbances of 1859, which followed upon the rush to the British Columbia mines. Some French and half-breed settlers, with a few Americans, remained in the valley upon farms, where civilization is at length in danger of overtaking them. A railroad—the Spokane and Northern—passes up the Valley to Colville, and terminates beyond at Little Dalles of the Columbia, where the great river offers one of its several obstacles to navigation. ”

“ Mr. J. W. Dease, who had been in charge of Fort Walla Walla, but was being transferred to Spokane House, but is delayed waiting for Peter Skene Ogden's arrival from the Snake Country of Southern Idaho.
[187] Mr. Work is assigned to spend the winter at the trading post among the Flathead Indians in Montana. The "portage" refers to the 76 miles over which they must carry the trading goods on pack animals between Spokane House and the Pend d'Oreille river. ”

“ We saw a lake trout at Nelson of a weight of twenty-two pounds. Ducks and geese and swan are common on the water, limitless grouse and pheasants are found in the woods, while deer, elk, and bear are common in the wild maze of mountains and cañons;—a sportsman's paradise.
Tourists taking the route eastward go from Nelson on the elegant steamer Kuskanook to Kootenai Landing and there take up again the railway route by the Crow's Nest. Such as desire to go to Spokane can leave the line at Curzon and go southward to a connection with the Spokane International. ”