The first permanent settlers of Kaniksu County filtered into the Priest River and Priest Lake area of northern Idaho's panhandle in the late 1880s. Some came to build homes, farms, and businesses in an area where none had existed before. Others were more interested in trapping and prospecting; they sought to lead solitary and eccentric lives away from civilization. Most settlers learned quickly that harvesting the vast timber wealth of the heavily forested mountains was the best way to earn a livelihood. For almost 50 years, millions of logs and cedar poles were sent down the tumultuous Priest River to its confluence with the larger Pend Oreille. This was believed to be the second-to-last log drive to end in the lower 48 states. Construction of the Great Northern Railroad in 1892 spurred both industry and settlement, opening the way for sawmills downstream to service their markets until modern roads and trucking came into existence.

Discusses the history, traditions, way of life, and future of the Nez Percé Indians.

The history of Southwest Idaho's electric railroad also tells the story of valley life at the beginning of the 20th century. Entertainment, business, school, local politics, even how we buried our dead - all revolved around the remarkable trollies and interurban. These quaint machines in old photographs were powerful engines of change. Nick Kasner and Valeri Kiesig have given us a warm and nostalgic reminder of those days long ago when life in Idaho's Treasure Valley focused around the interurban line. Trolley reminds us that our grandparents knew what they were doing when they used a transit system to link our communities. H. Brent Coles.

The Nez Perce and their Sahaptian kin once lived in a vast but loosely described territory stretching from the Bitterroot Mountains in the east to the desert of what is now Washington and Oregon in the west. In 1805 the tribe welcomed the Lewis and Clark expedition, who remarked on their intelligence, hospitality, and the natural abundance of their land. A peaceful coexistence with the few white explorers, trappers, and missionaries abruptly ended in 1860 when the discovery of gold precipitated a rush of thousands to north central Idaho. Somewhat crazed by the dreams of instant wealth, the adventurers took little heed that they were invading the Indians' land and breaking U.S. treaties. Among the accounts is a rare Nez Perce description by Sam Lott (Many Wounds) of the 1862 murder of two Nez Perce by white miners. Dennis Baird and his colleagues scoured the country and collected the existing firsthand accounts of that time of very rapid change. White officials, officers, missionaries, and journalists were lucid, compassionate, and surprisingly in favor of the Nez Perce. However, the prevailing national attitude toward Indians supported the wholesale "taking" of Indian land, which led to the disastrous Nez Perce Treaty of 1863 and greatly downsized their reservation.

History of the supply route from Utah to the Virginia City, Montana, mining area.