Fort Colvile

The trade center Fort Colvile (also Fort Colville) was built by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River in 1825 and operated in the Columbia fur district of the company. Named for Andrew Colvile,Lewis, S. William. ''Information concerning the Establishment of Fort Colvile.'' The Washington Historical Quarterly 16, No. 2 (1925), pp. 102-107 a London governor of the HBC, the fort was a few miles west of the present site of Colville, Washington. It was an important stop on the York Factory Express trade route to London via the Hudson Bay. The HBC for some time considered Fort Colvile second in importance only to Fort Vancouver, near the mouth of the Columbia, until the foundation of Fort Victoria.

Under the Treaty of 1818, the Great Britain and the United States of America both claimed rights to the Oregon Country. This contentious dispute for ownership of the land was ended by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The boundary between British North America and the United States was extended to the Pacific Ocean on the 49th Parallel, with all of Vancouver Island considered British. During the gold rushes of the 1850s and 1860s, Fort Colvile in 1860 especially became an important centre for mining activity and supplies. Abandoned in June 1871,Barman, Jean and Bruce M. Watson. ''Fort Colvile's Fur Trade Families and the Dynamics of Race in the Pacific Northwest.'' The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 90, No. 3 (1999), 140-153. some buildings stood until they burned July 6, 1910.

The construction of Grand Coulee Dam resulted in the site being flooded in 1940, as was Kettle Falls. When Lake Roosevelt was drawn down for construction of Grand Coulee Dam's Powerhouse #3 in the late 1960s and early 1970, Fort Colvile and Kettle Falls were revealed. After archaeological work was performed by Washington State University and the University of Idaho, the Fort Colvile site was again inundated by Lake Roosevelt. In 1974, Fort Colvile was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its historic significance.''Currents and Undercurrents:, An Administrative History of Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area''
National Park Service

Establishment

It replaced Spokane House as a regional trading center, due to the latter being deemed to be too far from the Columbia River. Governor George Simpson considered the disuse of Spokane House to likely offend Spokane elders, and ordered for a dispersement of gifts among them. The removal of the company property at Spokane House was moved to Fort Colvile in March 1826. Simpson also gave instructions to Chief Factor John McLoughlin for "every possible exertion be used to be lay up an abundant stock of Fish and other provisions" due to limited capacity to send freight from Fort Vancouver. Additionally Simpson stated that a station on Kettle Falls would be "a more desirable situation in regard to Farming, fish, provisions generally as also in respect to Trade..." than the Spokane House.

Operations

During the 1820s, yearly purchases of furs rarely exceeded 20 blankets being sold. McLoughlin, John and Burt Brown Barker. ''Letters of Dr. John McLoughlin, written at Fort Vancouver 1829-1832.'' Portland: Binfords & Mort. 1948, p. 68 Increased amounts of animal hides were gathered by Fort Colvile started with the "Flat Head brigade," which joined the Bitterroot Salish on their annual migrations past the Rocky Mountains. A skirmish in 1829 between the Bitterroot Salish and inhabitants of Columbia Lake caused fears among HBC employees about the defenseless state of Fort Colvile Additional employees were sent to erect a palisade and establish the mill during the Winter.

The staff number for Fort Colvile fluctuated with the seasons. Operations commencing in the Spring required upwards of 30 employees during the 1830s.McLoughlin and Barker (1948), p. 95 Usually only five men were stationed there throughout Winter, and if the number was above that, McLoughlin would reassign the extra staff. Spokane Garry was considered a prospective employee at the Fort until McLoughlin rejected the proposition. Alex McLeod, born at the fort in 1854 recalled that "The trading post proper was a square enclosure. The store and warehouses were on the north side, and Chief Trader McDonald's house was on the east side. The married employees, like my father, lived outside the enclosed post yard on the south and west sides."Work Projects Administration
''Told by the Pioneers, Volume 1.''
Olympia: Washington Pioneer Project, 1937.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Missionaries established Tshimakain Mission in 1838. The missionary families of Elkanah Walker and Cushing Eells developed ties with Fort Colvile officers and wives, then the closest white settlement in the area. After the Whitman Massacre, the missionaries fled their station for the protection of the HBC trading post.

Agricultural operations at Fort Colvile were prominent, eventually supplying other interior posts with wheat, peas, flint corn, and potatoes. The prairie, the station was located on, was deemed an "island of fertility" by visiting artist Paul Kane. At its foundation, 24 bushels of potatoes were sown, but over half was eaten by rodents