Pend Oreille River - History

History

Native people who lived along the river included the Pend d'Oreilles and Kalispel (considered as a single tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). Archaeological evidence suggests that people lived in the region as early as the end of the last Ice Age, about 11,000-12,000 years ago. The name Pend d'Oreille or Pend Oreille is variously stated to mean "earring", "hang from ears", or "shape of an ear". Kalispel is thought to mean "camas people", referring to the roots that provided their primary food. Both tribes lived around the area of Lake Pend Oreille occasionally ranging lower onto the Pend Oreille River (or maybe they did have settlements along the river?) but the lower (north) basin was generally less populated than the upper (south) portion. The Flathead tribe inhabited the upper (Clark Fork) part of the basin, especially the Bitterroot Valley. The Ktunaxa lived just to the east of the Pend Oreille river.

The first non-indigenous people to see the Pend Oreille were French-Canadian fur trappers working for various fur trading companies to provide beaver pelts to trade overseas. Some of these people were the ones to coin the term "Pend d'Oreille". Canadian explorer David Thompson saw the river in 1807, after a long and arduous journey from Saskatchewan. His primary mission was to find the source of the Columbia River (Columbia Lake), which he did. Afterwards he proceeded to establish trading posts throughout the region, including Kullyspell House on the north shore of Lake Pend Oreille. In 1808, Thompson again traveled into the Pend Oreille region. The following spring, he tried to reach the Columbia River by way of the Pend Oreille, but rapids and waterfalls hampered his attempt. He ended up retreating to another trading post in British Columbia a few months later. After these early explorations, however, there still were no permanent white settlements along the Pend Oreille River.

By the 1840s, Europeans and Americans were pouring into the region in increasing numbers, although growth was slow. These newcomers did not strike good relations with the Native Americans of the area, and diseases such as smallpox wiped out many indigenous (this happened with many other tribes across North and Middle America as they were not used to such a sickness). After numerous wars and treaties, much of the land in the Pend Oreille basin especially the upper Clark Fork area had been ceded to the settlers. The last land in the Bitterroot area was given up in 1889, and many tribes of the Pend Oreille basin were moved to reservations in northwestern Montana. In the late 1850s, a major influx of non-indigenous peoples occurred when gold was discovered near Metaline Falls on the Pend Oreille River. The first major white settlements in that area, however, were not created until 1884. Mining for gold soon ceased but lead and zinc mining continued, reaching a peak in World War II when the metals were desperately needed for the productions of weapons, ships, planes.

In the 19th century, logging was the other major industry of the Pend Oreille River area, and attracted hundreds to thousands of men to the region, many of them Scandinavian. Logging was profitable because almost the entire Pend Oreille watershed was forested with various types of trees. However, shipping logs to ports lower on the Columbia River (to the southwest of the Pend Oreille River) was a problem. Not only was the river riddled with frightening waterfalls and rapids, but it flows north, in the opposite direction that the logging companies wanted to move their logs. At about this time, steamboats were introduced to the Pend Oreille River. The first steamboat on the river was The Bertha, built in 1887 at Albeni Falls. Other well-known craft included Ione, Spokane, and Metaline (Pend Oreille). These boats carried passengers and ore and also towed log rafts up the river. (Since it flows north, they had to tow the logs south, against the current, to ship it a shorter distance to the lumber mills and factories lower in the Columbia Basin.) Navigation on the Pend Oreille presented few problems upstream of the Box Canyon rapids about three-fourths of the way down the Pend Oreille River (today close to the site of Box Canyon Dam). Many boats were wrecked in the stretch between Box Canyon and the river's mouth (including Metaline, which was the only large steamer to operate on the lower river on a regular basis). After the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad was built in the area, steamboat commerce faded and the logs were transported by rail. The Idaho & Washington Northern was eventually succeeded by the Milwaukee Road.

The Pend Oreille River valley was never easy for early or later emigrants to settle in. The little arable land that did exist was mostly within the river's floodplain, and in many places there was only a narrow strip of flat ground that would soon run against vertical cliffs or dense forests with rocky soil. Nevertheless, some permanent settlements persisted, at Newport, Albeni Falls, Ione, Dalkena, Metaline Falls, Cusick, Usk, and many at the sites of the sawmills that cut the lumber extracted from the region. Some emigrants also settled along the Clark Fork, but there were similar problems because for most of its course, the Clark Fork, like the Pend Oreille, flows in a steep and narrow gorge. Larger amounts of people settled in the Flathead River valley, around Flathead Lake and Lake Pend Oreille, in the Priest River valley, and in the Bitterroot Valley of south-western Montana. Sandpoint (population 7,000), near where the river flows out of Lake Pend Oreille, remains the largest city in close proximity to the river.