The first white men to travel through Latah County were trappers of the North West Company, which had a trading post on the Spokane River, beginning in 1810. Traders and missionaries followed. In the 1830’s, the Reverend Henry Spaulding and Father Cat aldo came to the area to preach the gospel to the Nez Perce. In 1855, Isaac I. Stevens and his surveying party camped overnight at a spring south of Moscow and Paradise Ridge, recording his impressions of the country.

In the 1860’s, gold was discovered near Orofino and later in Crumarine Creek on Moscow Mountain. Other strikes followed in the Hoodoo Mountains northeast of Potlatch. The miners created a need for supplies, and stage stops at places like Woodfell and gardening communities like Viola supplied their needs. When the prospecting boom ended, many prospectors turned to ranching and farming.

Viola was the first agricultural settlement followed by Genesee in the late 1860’s and Moscow in the early 1870’s. The need for sawmills and new rail lines created new towns or prompted the rapid growth of small settlements like Huff’s Gulch, later named Troy.

photo credit: Jim Trivelpiece; ©2003 All Rights Reserved.