Who first discovered gold here is not known. But the vicinity of Fort Colville, Washington, saw the occurrence of a movement in 1855 which ushered in the golden age of the Inland Empire. The miners labored under measureless disadvantages. Supplies were scant. From Puget Sound there were no suitable roads. Steamboating on the Columbia had only begun. The Indians frequently proved a baffling obstacle at first. But the friendship of the Nez Perces for the whites and the policy of peace pursued by this tribe became a determining factor in the wars with the natives and the development of this new country. In justice to the Indians it is due to admit that conditions for which they were not responsible made the situation ripe for desperate measures on their part.
On November 23rd, 1857, the miners in the neighborhood of Colville effected a rude governmental organization. In 1858 the stern measures of Colonel George Wright brought just and lasting peace to the Indian country and cleared the way for pushing forward the frontier of civilization. In 1861 the final fixation of the boundary between British Columbia and Washington drew clearly the artificial line of different governments where, as Professor Trimble exhaustively and conclusively demonstrates, nature had made one country. Consequently, the political differentiation contributed to making the construction of the famous old Mullan Road in every way an important matter. This noble highway of empire, not unworthy of comparison with Rome's Appian Way, was completed in 1862 at a cost of $230,000 for its 624 miles of length.
In a few years the carriers on the Columbia enjoyed an immense and profitable traffic in the transportation of miners and their supplies. Professor Trimble's description of steamboating on the rivers of the Inland Empire is intensely vivid and interesting. In 1861 came the great movement of miners into these new fields. Among the most important of the localities they entered were the Nez-Perce and Salmon-River districts in northern Idaho.
A swiftly accelerating stream of travel started in 1861 for the new mines. A new era of development began. The Portland Oregonian then predicted that there would follow "tremendous stampedes from California, a flood of overland immigration and vastly increased business on the Columbia." The shrewd forecast of the sagacious editor was fulfilled to the foot of the letter.
Of the total yield from the mining districts in northern Idaho it is impossible to secure exact figures. A conservative estimate would put the production from the time of discovery until 1900 at about $50,000,000, of which probably $35,000,000 were obtained before 1870. In this connection Dr. Trimble rightly directs attention to the fact that the mines of eastern Oregon have not yet received the study that their importance as builders of that part of the state would warrant.
The mines of the Boise basin in Idaho not only were rich and easily worked, but were so situated as to encourage homemaking and the up-building of a permanent community. Soon towns with stable interests and staple industries arose. The mining founders of Boise showed themselves to be exceptionally enterprising and farsighted men.
As the Caribou, British Columbia, mines had shown that in placer fields the individual, once a camp was established, could do little except labor for some one else or in lieu of this prospect for new fields, some form of organized or cooperative effort being essential to the development of mining, even in its simpler stages; so now the War-Eagle quartz-mines of Idaho, remote and newly born, called for outside capital and for science.
The mining advance gave occasion for the creation of British Columbia, Idaho and Montana as political units. In considering the societies that owe their origin to mining it is essential to remember that almost from the moment of discovery cooperation is indispensable in the development of gold-fields and also that the individualism of placer-mining frequently is greatly exaggerated. In the period now under review "the lone prospector" was much of a myth. This and similar seemingly small matters are among the many observed by Dr. Trimble's microscopic eye, which also is not wanting in telescopic range, that show how thoroughly he has surveyed his field and with what scrupulous science he has interpreted all his facts.
Prospecting generally was done by organized parties numbering anywhere from five to fifty men. These companies consisted of experienced miners, who usually had already mined in California. Careful preparation in advance was made. An expedition might travel for weeks or even for many months, studying the geology of the land as carefully as professors from great universities and prospecting wherever promising indications presented themselves. When diggings that seemed to afford reasonable likelihood of profit were found, claims were staked out. The plan of the miners' camp corresponded more closely to that of a town than to that of a country district. This feature is another of several which prove that combination, cooperation and organization formed basic features in the work of the miner. It is not the least of the merits of Dr. Trimble's monograph that it enables and in fact compels the lay reader unacquainted with the ways of miners to see that their social and governmental activities were a seed of the political commonwealth and rendered its existence and growth inevitable.
The discoverers of pay-dirt as a rule had to return for supplies to some commercial center. Here the news of a find invariably leaked out and generated a stampede to the new field. Merchants and packers pushed freight-caravans ahead with strenuous but reasoned energy. The man who rushed a well supplied set of teams into a new community was certain to reap great profits. Before much work was performed by the miners at their Eldorado they held a mass-meeting and organized the community. A judge, recorder and sheriff were elected, and laws for the camp enacted. The political instinct of the English and the Americans for government and ordered society was prompt to manifest itself.