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TOWARDS BRIDGES AND ROADS

From "Behind These Mountains"

by Mona Leeson Vanek

For many years John Fulks had operated the ferry at Noxon until one spring when high water tore it loose and it was gone, probably to be smashed to bits going through the Cabinet Gorge.

Then a boat that had broken loose from the Green ferry upstream a year earlier was purchased from Riley Eldridge and others to be installed at Noxon for a ferry. The forest service at Noxon purchased the big cable and other paraphernalia on the Thompson Falls ferry from E. Preston and moved it to Noxon where it will be used by the government for ferry service across the Clark Fork. Ed Hamton was to take charge of the ferry business. A bridge had been built at Thompson Falls so the ferry was no longer needed there.

With a ferry in operation again at Noxon, O.E. Peppard began in 1912 with a bridge building project across the slough behind the railroad depot at Noxon on the road from town to the new ferry.

Miles up the Clark’s Fork River, Sanders County commissioners put convict labor to work building a road (1912) which they hoped to extend to Idaho, eventually. Utilizing a crew of fifty-five state prisoners “one of the most difficult pieces of road building in the county at a cost for less than would have been possible otherwise” was built. If the services of said state prisoners could be retained the “main thoroughfare” might be completed to the Montana-Idaho State Line. A year later “convicts building the wagon road to Idaho have reached Copper Point. The road will be of inestimable advantage to people on the north side of the Clark Fork, giving access to the Trout Creek bridge…Superintendent Kendrick is in charge with three guards, one experienced miner and fifty-two convict laborers.” Three miles of road were completed. “The convicts are well contented and consider it like a holiday to get outside the walls of the penitentiary where they get fresh air, better food and more freedom.”

“They live in tents fitted with two tiers of bunks and plenty of good bedding. A heating stove was in each tent. A bathhouse is furnished. Each man is required to bathe at least once a week. Each is supplied with a suit of gray woolen goods, extra heavy fleece lined underwear and a pair of moosehide mittens. Dinner consisted of roast beef, mutton stew, boiled potatoes, macaroni with cheese, bread, butter, tea, coffee and apple pie. Supper was mutton stew, fried potatoes, bread, butter, tea, coffee, cake and applesauce with currants. Lots of food.

“They have newspapers, magazines and books to read in the evening or can play cards. Each gets a weekly supply of tobacco.”

This cost the state 50 cents per man per day; county 5 cents plus the cost of tools and working materials; powder, fuse, and caps.

However, the road did not progress beyond Noxon on the north side of the Clark’s Fork for many years. Narrow dirt roads, hardly more than trails were all they had.

A few settlers had bought automobiles, especially upstream at Thompson Falls, and wanted to be able to drive to visit friends and relatives in the west end of the county. J.H. Bauer, surveyor, assisted by Mr. Vaughn, was busy surveying a road to be built over Tuscor Hill that would do away with the worst hill between Thompson Falls and Sandpoint on the south side of the river.

At the present time, the Tuscor hill road is so steep that all automobiles have to either use block and tackle or hire a team to take them over.

Across the river the road into Rock Creek was also being improved by a crew. By the end of each day the men dynamiting stumps, driving the team-pulled grader, or pick and shoveling the rocky outcropping were bone weary, raunchy with dirt caked sweat, and almost too tired to walk back home.

Origin of Geographic Names - Cabinet National Forest

Cabinet Gorge in Clark’s Fork River and Cabinet Mountains in Western Montana

Given the box canyon of the river by early fur traders, Father DeSmet in 1844 writes of this gorge:

“The most remarkable spot on this river is called the Cabinets. It consists of four compartments, which you have hardly time to examine as you are hardly half a minute passing through them.”

Father DeSmet’s Journals