The Setting

The prairie in southeastern Washington and northern Idaho, defined largely by the drainage of the Palouse River, was named for the area's dominant Indian tribe. The earliest settlers arrived here in the 1860s and utilized the abundant forests of pine, larch, fir, cedar, and spruce for fuel and lumber.

By 1871 the first sawmills in the area were established in Colfax, Moscow, Elberton, and Pullman. Palouse City built its first sawmill in 1877. By 1844 it boasted two mills, and by 1877 three.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1852 at age seventeen. By 1871 he had succeeded in forming the Mississippi River Logging Company, a combination of seventeen lumber firms. Weyerhaeuser realized that constant expansion was the key to survival and with timber supplies dwindling in the east, he became interested in the forests of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. By the turn of the century he was considered America's predominant lumberman.