80 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 12, 1944

THE DAYS OF GOLD

Golden Days Recounted

There was a large attendance of the regular meeting of the Lions Club held at the Bentley ranch dining room last Thursday (Birdland Bay).

The entertainment for the evening was sponsored by Jim Adams. Mr. Adams invited Fred Haines, one of our oldest known residents in this area to give a discussion on old time days in Thompson Falls. Mr. Haines’ talk was most interesting. Although Jim Adams himself came to Thompson Falls in 1891, still Fred Haines arrived here in 1882, when the whole area around here was just a primitive wilderness along the Walla Walla mail trail. These are some of the highlights of Mr. Haines' recollections of the early days. It would take a book to write it all.

In 1882 the Northern Pacific was blasting its way through the Clarks Fork Valley seeking to push through to the coast. In this vicinity there were big camps of construction workers, but no established towns. There were lots of Chinese and they were expert powdermen and blasters. Whole mountain sides had to be blasted away and the excavation dumped into the river.

There wasn’t any more reason for a town to be located at the spot where Thompson Falls now stands than a score of other places along the line. In fact then no one ever dreamed there would be a town located here. But GOLD, and GOLD only, was responsible for the original creation of Thompson Falls. In the summer of 1893 gold was discovered in the Coeur d’Alene district of the Idaho territory at Eagle Creek, a now abandoned mining camp near Murray. There was no railroad running into the CDA district and all supplies had to be brought in over the N.P., after which they were loaded on mules or horse and wagons and freighted over the high passes to the roaring gold camp of Eagle City. A number of trails were at first used. The most direct trail was the Trout Creek Evolution trail, the Belknap trail and finally the Prospect-Murray trail and later the Prospect-Glidden pass. The Prospect-Murray trail out of Thompson Falls eventually proved to be the most easily accessible pass and so in January 1884 the town of Thompson Falls was started. The first buildings were shacks and hotels for the freighters and gold seekers enroute to Eagle City. The town grew and grew and became the chief supply point for the fabulous CDA mining district until later on the CDA district was directly tapped with a railroad. As the town grew saloons, saloons and saloons sprang up, shacks and shacks, hotels, hotels and honky-tonks. The streets of the raw rough town were packed with men enroute to the Idaho gold fields, crazed with the lust for gold and avarice. No one can accurately say how large the town was, but it is safe to surmise that it was around 1,800 or 2,000 people. Pete Mclinchy (or McClinchy) operated a ferry here and the charge was $3.00 for a single team wagon load and $4.00 for a double team load to cross over the river.

In the winter of 1884 Fred Haines and his partner crossed over the Murray pass on foot pulling sleds loaded with 150 pounds of potatoes each. The pass was inaccessible by any other form of travel because the snow was 20 or 25 feet deep. When they reached the gold camp of Eagle City they sold their spuds for 50 cents a pound, a tremendous price in those days when general wages were only a fraction of what they are today. Eagle City was roaring high, wide and handsome. Twenty dollar gold pieces were used as chips at the gambling tables.

With the coming of the railroad the town of Thompson Falls was even rougher. When the passenger trains stopped here the conductors would warn the passengers not to get off and circulate around or they were likely to be victimized by the hangers-on.

The Vigilantes later became organized and they hung quite a few desperados. Fred Haines knew Colonel Sanders, after whom the county was named when in later years (after statehood in 1889) this county was created by partitioning Missoula County in 1905. During the boom days there was even a paper established here. This paper later went out of existence, but during its short and hectic career it raised a lot of hell. Its advertisers were mostly saloons. We once saw a copy of this old paper. There is a rumor the publisher left town on the run after he had defamed one of the leading saloon keepers.

Thompson Falls is an old town in comparison with other towns in Montana. It was created before statehood. There aren’t many towns in the state that are much older.

Note: The Plains area was settled earlier. It was originally incorporated as Horse Plains, but the name was later shortened. The Post Office opened in 1883. Thompson Falls had a post office October 1882-May 1883 originally named Thompson by the Post Office because it did not like two word town names. Then the Post Office ordered the mail to be delivered to Horse Plains. It was reestablished in 1885 and in 1912 the name was changed to Thompson Falls to conform with the railway station. Thompson River had a post office April 1870-July 1871 while it was still a part of Missoula County. These are the earliest settlements in what is now Sanders County.

To be continued…