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'''September 09, 1951 Spokesman-Review Page 95:'''
<blockquote>
[[file:1951-09-09-sr-p95-white-bluff-road.jpg|thumb|right|200px]]---already transcribed---
The White B

ee

RE ae OE eG

By Dr. C. S. Kingston
Professor Emeritus of History, Eastern Washington College.

,

This is the final article in Dr. Kingston’s series on Pioneer
Roads of This Region. Other articles have featured The
Mullan Road, The Colville Military Road, The Old
Territorial Road, The Texas Road, The Kentuck Road.

‘HIS road, so far as pioneer immi-
] gration is concerned, is the least

important of the early highways.

It came into existence because the
Oregon Steam Navigation company,
that remarkable monopoly of river
transportation in the 1860s and 1870s,
was eager to push Portland trade and
its own freight services into western
Montana: The placer gold mines of the
upper Missouri and the Clark Fork
rivers were drawing thousands of min-
ers and traders to the mountains and
they had to be supplied either by way
of the Missouri river or from the Pa-
cific coast.

Excerpts from a letter of Simeon G.
Reed, president of the O. S. N.-Ce.,
dated September 4, 1865, to company
associates will explain the reasons lead-
ing to the decision to expand the field
of the company’s operations: “Even
now the population of that section
(Montana) is not less than from 25,000
to 30,000, which is perhaps equal to the
population of Idaho at this time. The
reports that have been recently received
from that section are truly fabulous
notwithstanding that they are well au-
thenticated. Within the last two weeks
fully 1000 pack animals have left Walla
Walla and Lewiston for that country
by way of the ‘Mullan’ road ... on the
Mullan road through the Coeur d’Alene
mountains one. stream is crossed and
recrossed nearly a hundred times and
the road is much obstructed with fallen
timber.”

Reed went on to say that there was
a good wagon road (open country with
no obstructions) to the southern end
of Lake Pend Oreille and that ‘from
the head of the lake over to Montana is
the old Hudson’s Bay trail-and said to
be a good one, and can be made a
wagon road at no great expense. ...
The lake is 50 miles long and runs on
the direct course, plenty of water, tim-
ber for building and wood for fuel, and
at the upper end of the lake or at the
terminus you are through the Coeur
d’Alene mountains, and from that point
you are accessible to all the mines in
Montana at any season of the year... .
Perhaps you are not aware that out of
20 steamboats which started up the
Missouri river last spring only six of
them reached Fort Benton, and then
not until July. A few of the balance
reached the mouth of Milk river and
the others only succeeded in getting as
.far as Fort Union. . . . I have written
at some length in order to state my
views clearly, and impress upon you
the importance to our company, and
the country generally of endeavoring to
secure the trade of Montana, which
could it be accomplished and my esti-
mates as to resources and population
be correct, you will see that our present
trade would be doubled, a thing cer-
tainly worth striving for .. .”

* * *

According to the company plans, the
Columbia river steamboats would dis-
charge the cargoes intended for the
Montana trade at White Bluffs about
50 miles north of Wallula, and from
that point carried in wagons across the
Big Bend country and the Spokane
river to Lake Pend Oreille, and from
there on a lake steamer to Cabinet
Gorge on the Clark Fork River.” At
the present time Cabinet Gorge, once
an obstruction to navigation, is being

transformed into a great hydroelectric
plant—a source of power that will turn
the wheels of industry. In carrying out
its expansion program, the Oregon
Steam Navigation company organized
a subsidiary known as the Oregon and
Montana ‘Transportation company,
which built the Mary Moody for use on
Lake Pend Oreille and two other steam-
ers, the Cabinet and the Missoula,
which were to ply the Clark Fork river
above Cabinet Gorge. One was to
operate as far as Thompson Falls and
the second on the upper river beyond
the falls. A stage line was also planned
to run between White Biuffs and Pend

Oreille lake.

The company went on with its plans
to exploit the Pend Oreille route and
to capture the Kootenai trade. The
mines of this area were yielding satis-
factory amounts of placer gold and a
famous old trail, the Wild Horse, had
many travelers, This trail crossed
Pend Oreille river at Sineacateen La-
clede and skirted the river and the lake
for many miles that could be traveled
only with great difficulty during the
seasons of high water. A steamer on
the lake could easily carry men and
pack trains to a point on the north
shore of the lake, thus avoiding to a
considerable extent the swamps and
sloughs, and then go on to Cabinet
Gorge with the rest of its cargo and
passengers.

The sale of ‘agricultural products,
cattle and horses and all kinds of mer-
chandise to the mining camps had be-
come of large importance to Walla
Walla farmers and merchants and the
transportation of goods to the mines
furnished a lucrative business to the
packers and freighters who operated
from Walla Walla and Wallula~ to
Kootenai, western Montana, and to
many places in Idaho and northern
Washington. All these interests op-
posed the establishment of a shipping
point on the Columbia river north of
Wallula and the by-passing of the
Walla Walla country. For months the
Walla Walla Statesman carried articles
and news stories denouncing the “White
Bluff’s Humbug.” The country
through which the White Bluffs road
ran was described as desolate, with no
wood, little water and scanty grass.

* + =

But there was really no reason for

the Walla Walla people to worry over
White Bluff competition. It was true
that the steamers reaching Fort Benton
in 1865 only brought 4441 tons and in
1867, 39 steamers carried 5000 tons.
This was the peak year of river trans-
portation to Fort Benton. The building
of the Union Pacific railroad (complet-
ed in 1869) brought freight more
quickly and safely to points in Utah
from which it was hauled by ox teams
north to Montana’s towns and mining
camps. Then, too, the output of the
mines in the Clark Fork country was
diminishing and the mining population
was moving elsewhere. The steamers,
Cabinet and Missoula, were tied to the
river bank and later all their machin-
ery was removed, but the Mary Woody
remained in service longer and was still
operating in 1869.

The main purpose for which the
White Bluffs road had been laid out
was now gone but it was still the short-
est road to the Colville valley and some

ee NN ee St

cargoes for the military force at Fort
Colville and for civilian use were land-
ed here to be hauled over the White
Bluffs road to Colville, crossing the
Spokane river at the LaPray bridge. A
storage warehouse stood on the bank
of the Columbia and a few stockmen
lived along the river but the freighters
could not look forward to the riotous

pleasures afforded at Walla Walla
when they arrived at White Bluffs
landing.

The most colorful individual whose
name is associated with the White

SE EE Bisa

luffs Road and David Coone

wife fed the Indians when they were
hungry, advised them, and helped them
when help was needed. One old Indian
was so grieved by his death that for a
long time he refused to eat.

Coone had a 10-mule team and he
was accompanied on this trip with the
boiler by Mrs. Coone. She tells of how
they camped on the bluff west of Hang-
man creek, where the brick yard road
leads down to the valley. There was
an old Indian trail here which provided
a reasonably good trail down the long
hill but getting up on the east side to

WHITE BLUFFS ROAD

COPIED fram SYMONS’ MaP

Bluffs road is David Coone (also
spelled as Conse and Kunz), who hauled
the machinery for the Mary Moody
from White Bluffs to Lake Pend Oreille.
The engine and boiler were taken from
the Col. George Wright, the first steam-
boat on the upper Columbia. The In-
dians had great respect for Coone; in
their eyes he was a great medicine man,
the master of magical powers. On one
occasion, just before an eclipse, he told
the Indians that he was going to cover
the moen with darkness. He had been
shot through the palm of one of his
hands and then blowing through the
bullet hole he declared that he would
blow away the darkness that now hung
over the world. He concluded his as-
tronomical demonstration by declaring
that if any of them stole his cattle, he
would blow them right off the earth.
While hauling the boiler for the Mary
Moody, the Indians looked into the open
door of the boiler and asked him what
all the pipe flues were. “Those are
guns,” said Coone. “This is a big gun,
it shoots many times.”’ After that the
Indians were very careful when they
were near the boiler.

These pranks that Coone played on
the Indians sprang naturally from the
man’s exuberant nature. As a matter
of fact he liked the Indians and be-
tween him and the Indians the friend-
liest relation existed. Coone and his

the level ground (Browne's addition)
was a difficult matter. It took Coone
and his 10 mules all day to work their
way up the gulch now spanned by the
tracks of the Northern Pacific railroad.

In this connection it may be noted
that the probable origin of the name,
“White Bluff prairie’ for the area be-
tween Hangman creek and Deep creek,
now crossed by the Sunset highway,
came from the fact that the White
Bluffs road ran directly across the
prairie on its way to Spokane bridge
and Lake Pend Oreille.

* * *

David Coone at one time had a large
ranch near Ringold Bar on the Colum-
bia. He lost so many cattle in hard
winters that he gave up cattle business.
He raised horses, took freight contracts
and readily adapted himself to all fron-
tier opportunities. He was a miner,
packer and freighter, a rancher and

farmer. In 1900 he was living with his
family in Spring Valley, six miles
northeast of Rosalia, where he was

killed by a frightened horse which
reared and fell backwards, the pommel
of the saddle crushing the rider’s chest.

The comment of one of the old-tim-
ers is a fitting obituary: “He was a
good man and he died just as he had
lived most of his life—in the saddle
with his boots on.”

= THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 39. 195! 5
�
</blockquote>
[[Category: Newspaper Clipping]]

1951-09-09-sr-p95-white-bluff-road - Revision history

Kirk at 20:22, 27 August 2023

Kirk: Redirected page to White Bluffs Road

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