The plain on which Spokane Falls is built is finely adapted to the purpose. The bluffs recede from the river by several broad terraces to the high mountains of the Spokane and Cceur d'Alene Banges on the north and east, and melt away into tbc rolling plains of the Palouse and Big Bend countries. The long slopes up from the river are beautifully wooded with pines, which stand apart with grassy intervals, giving the country a park-like appearance, and causing me to smile when I remember the repulsion of my Walla Walla informant towards the forest gloom I should encounter in this timber region.
Until within a comparatively recent period the country about Spokane Falls was unoccupied. During the period of mining excitement in the '60's, there was a great deal of passing back and forth to Colville and Northern Idaho, but the prevalent opinion that the country was worthless except for cattle-ranges deterred settlers of a more enterprising class. About 1870 two men, J. J. Downing and S. E. Scranton, built a small saw-mill at the falls of the Spokane, which in 1873 they sold to James N. Glover, who disposed of an interest to C. F. Yeaton. They had also laid out a town-site, which they did not sell. There seems to have been some settlement by this time, for these owners found it advisable to enlarge the capacity of their mill from five hundred feet to two thousand feet per diem. A tradingpost had been connected w T ith the mill from the start, which the new owners enlarged, and a few more people had gathered in the vicinity, waiting for the Northern Pacific Eailroad, when its financial agent, Jay Cooke, failed and railroad construction ceased, and after a tedious waiting of five years, from 1873 to 1878, the mill was again sold, to A. M. Cannon and J. J. Browne, together with a half-interest in the town-site laid out by the original owners. In 1876 a flour-mill was erected (which is evidence that the agricultural capacity of the country had been discovered) by Frederick Post, after whom Post Falls in Idaho is named. The occurrence of Indian wars in 1873 and 1877 drove many of the settlers out of the country, whom the military hastened in their flight.
It is amusingly related, in view of the present status of the country, that General Sherman expressed himself in this wise: " This country is not fit for white men, at any rate. Give it up
