"The mission is located upon a hill overlooking extensive prairies stretching to the east and west toward the Coeur D'Alene Mountains and the Columbia River. About a hundred acres of the eastern prairie adjoining the Mission are enclosed and...
Chemakane Mission named for a nearby spring, was "occupied by Messrs. Walker and Eel; but, in 1849, in consequence of the Cayuse difficulties, it was abandoned." "The site of the mission is five miles from the Spokane River, in an...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Columbia River; Cascade Falls
The Cascade rapids, sometimes referred to as the Cascade Falls. This is an area of rapids in the Columbia River where travelers by boat along the river were forced to either portage boats and supplies or pull boats up with ropes. Plate XLV.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Military life; Valleys
Looking westward from Cantonment Stevens in the Bitter Root valley. Lieutenant Mullan and his party "established this camp ten miles above Fort Owen." The cantonment sat a little removed from the Indian camp and consisted of "four...
The train of the Red River hunters consisting "of 824 carts, about 1,200 animals, and 1,300 persons, men, women, and children." The encampment is formed by making "a circular or square yard of the carts, placed side by side with the...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Puget Sound; Mount Rainier; Whidbey Island (Wash.)
"Puget Sound forms a most variegated compound of narrow inlets and sounds, interlinked among each other by passages and channels, and connected with Admiralty Inlet" only by the Narrows, a contracted passage near Point Defiance which...
Lieutenant Grover's camp on the shores of Pike Lake. Governor Stevens considered this to be "the real starting point of the expedition and named the camp, "Camp Marcy", in honor of the Secretary of State." Plate VI.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Fort Walla Walla (Wash.)
Fort Walla Walla was first built along the Columbia River by the Northwest Company to act as a trading center. A second fort was built by the Hudson Bay Company prior to 1831 and served as a frontier post protecting their interests. This was...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Marias River (Mont.)
Marias River "flows in a channel two or three hundred feet below the prairie level, and is tolerable well wooded. The water was at that time one hundred and fifty feet wide and two to four feet deep, slightly milky, with a swift current and...
"The Columbia River at Fort Colville is about three hundred and fifty yards wide just above the Sometknu, or Kettle Falls. These consist of two pitches, one of fifteen feet and another below it of ten, and the river is narrowed to two hundred...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Springs; Bitterroot Range
Near the summit of the Bitter Root Mountains, "a hot spring with a temperature of 132 degrees, around which was a fine prairie camping ground." Plate LVII.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Assiniboine Indians; Gifts; Fort Union (Mont.)
"Fort Union is situated on the eastern bank of the Missouri River, about 2 ¾ miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone. It was built by the American Fur Company in 1830, and has from that time been the principal supply store or depot of that...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Bison; Cheyenne River; Lake Jessie
Ascending a high hill after crossing the Sheyenne (Cheyenne) River, the expedition looked out upon an estimated 200,000 buffalo inhabiting the plains separating them from Lake Jessie. Plate X.
"Fort Owen is situated on the Scattering creek of the Lewis and Clark Trail." Drawing depicts Lieutenant Mullan arriving at Fort Owen with a delegation of chiefs from the Flathead nation. Plate XXX.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Fort Okanogan (Wash.)
"Fort Okinakane (Okanogan) is an old and ruinous establishment of the Hudson Bay Company." "The character of the Columbia along the western border of the Spokane Plain and as far as Fort Okinakane (Okanogan) is described as follows:...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Fort Benton (Mont.); Missouri River
"Fort Benton stands on the eastern bank of the Missouri, near the Great Bend." "The river is here perfectly transparent at most seasons of the year. The Teton River empties into the Missouri six miles below Fort Benton; the Marias...
"Just below the outlet of Flathead Lake there is a series of rapids and falls, one of which, at the time, was fifteen feet high. The country to the west of the lake is a high rolling prairie. Salmon trout, three feet long, are caught in it,...