Thompson Pass Road . . .
Historic Shortcut
Text and photos by K. A. Eggensperger
(photos to be added later)
A ROAD which once was the vital link connecting the burgeoning Coeur d'Alene mining region with Western Montana, but which has been neglected for more than half a century, in the not too distant future appears destined once again to become an important avenue of travel and commerce between the two states.
The historic route is the Thompson Pass shortcut which will connect Highway 10A or Interstate 90 at Enaville, Idaho, with U. S. Highway 10A at Thompson Falls and provide the shortest route between Glacier Park and Spokane. When completed, the route will save 40 miles over the shortest present road between the two Inland Empire points.
THE Thompson Pass road was the first route into the famous Coeur d'Alene district following the discovery of gold by A. J. Prichard in 1883 which culminated in the gold rush of 1884. Then Thompson Falls began to share with Spokane Falls the boom of the discovery of gold on Prichard Creek. Thompson Falls had the advantage of having a station on the Northern Pacific railroad, only 30 miles from the gold discoveries at Eagle City and Murray.
Thompson Pass, named after famed cartographer David Thompson, is situated on the Montana-Idaho border. Long before the white man entered the country, Indians used this favored route. Even at the turn of the century Indians used it to reach their annual pow wows in the Flathead country.
Soon after the discovery of gold, a wagon road was built over the pass. A part of the romance of the early days involved freighting of food and supplies to the booming mining camps from Thompson Falls.
After getting off the train at Thompson Falls, travelers and supplies would be brought across the Clark Fork River just above the falls for which Thompson Falls was named. The river was crossed by a ferry. then the wagon road threaded its way up Prospect Creek to Thompson Pass, into Idaho and down Prichard Creek to Murray and eagle City. The trip was a two-day ordeal with an overnight stop at Halfway House or the Mountain House below the pass on the Montana side.
It was over this pass that Adam Aulbach brought the first printing press into Murray and established the first daily newspaper in North Idaho, the Murray Sun.
CONCERTED efforts during the past decade to secure construction of a modern highway over Thompson Pass have not been the only efforts. Mrs. Helen McPhee, retired postmaster of Murray and booster for the road for more than 30 years, recalls the efforts over the years thus:
"After the road over Dobson Pass from Murray to Wallace was built, the wagon road to Thompson Falls became neglected. It was still in use during the years 1912 and 1913 and even a few cars made their way up the steep grade. At that time, Thompson Pass was being considered for the cross country route of the Yellowstone Trail, now known as U. S. 10. Members of the Murray Chamber of Commerce, a then up and coming organization sparked by Dad Ellerson, publisher of the Murray Sun, Adam Aulbach and J. C. Freehan, joined with Thompson Falls in their efforts to use this route instead of the Mullan Trail.
DURING the days preceding prohibition, when Montana was wet and Idaho dry, so to speak, there was quite a bit of traffic between the two states and the road was usable. During the 1920s very little was done to keep an even passing use of the road.
"A desperate effort was made in the 1930s to bring this link of road back and to get the CCC to rebuild it," Mrs. McPhee recalls. "Compton White Sr. tried in vain to get the Department of Agriculture to make an appropriation for this project. It was then that a group of Murray citizens through personal donations and volunteer labor got an opening through and descended in a group on Thompson Falls. That was in 1935. Again in 1937, a picnic was held on the pass at which time a number of the early pioneers who had come over the pass in 1884 were present and honored.
"Picnics and meetings were held from time to time between the communities and in 1955 a petition was circulated from Kingston, Idaho, to Thompson Falls and was well supported. It was then that Don Saint, president of the Thompson Falls-Noxon Chamber of Commerce, picked up the ball and kept it rolling.
"In 1961 another get-together of Montana and Idaho citizens met on Thompson Pass. On the Idaho side a new grade had been built to the pass by Shoshone County. In 1963, road boosters met for a picnic at Butte Gulch above Murray with more than 200 participating. Included in the group were all five members of the Montana Highway Commission, as well as Idaho and Bureau of Public Roads officials.
"Now," Mrs. McPhee notes, "with hope, determination and a better outlook we feel more assured that this much needed link in our highway system will be achieved soon. It has much to recommend it — beautiful scenery, recreation potential, a much needed short route for Idahoans to Glacier National Park and the Flathead Lake and the newer Noxon Rapids Reservoir recreation areas."
MRS. McPhee's optimism is more than mere wistful thinking. During the summer and fall a Montana Highway Department crew under Engineer Dana Irwin began surveying the final section remaining to be built on the Montana side. Currently, that section is scheduled to be let to contract in 1967 and when completed will leave only a short four-mile section on the Montana side that has not been rebuilt to modern standards.
Surveying of the section from Murray up to the Idaho-Montana line was underway last winter until snow depths hampered the surveying party.
In August, Forest Service, Bureau of Public Roads and Montana and Idaho highway departments jointly announced that the entire route from Thompson Falls to Enaville, Idaho, has been placed on the Forest Highway System and thus eligible for federal forest highway construction funds. Considerable funds have been allocated already for blacktopping the modern highway up the North fork from Enaville to Prichard. It is anticipated that future appropriations will be made from Forest highway funds to complete the route on an orderly program.
WITH the decline of placer mining and no new gold discoveries, the once booming community of Murray pegs much if not all of its future on history repeating itself with construction of the short-cut route.
And Murray has ample history to "sell" the hordes of tourists and through travelers which the road could expect to bring. The historic old mining community could well become Idaho's sequel to Montana's revitalized Virginia City.
Murray was the first county seat of Shoshone County and the court house now houses the Court House Bar. Across the street stand the first Masonic Hall erected in North Idaho.
Charley Burnell, county road crew foreman, and long an avid booster for the Thompson Pass short-cut owns and resides in the first frame building erected in Murray. It houses North Idaho's first daily newspaper, the Murray Sun mentioned earlier.
Also still standing is the old hospital and other quaint buildings, representative of architecture in vogue before the turn of the century.
SOME of Murray's forward looking citizens are looking and planning for the day the road is completed and their town starts living again. Walt Almquist, owner of the Sprag Pole, has a private collection of relics and antiques which many museums would like to own. Almquist wants to erect a building adjacent to his tavern in which to display his antiques. On the other side stands Murray's fire fighting equipment — two hand-drawn horse carts.
For 40 years now, Murray has lived with an ugly scar at its back door — the seven-mile long pile of rocks and gravel left over from the gold dredge operated by the Yukon Gold Mining Co. The scar extends along Prichard Creek fro0m the Old King Property to Granite Gulch. It's ugly. But, when the new short-cut road is built through Murray it will be built on top of the natural gravel bed. So Murray residents look upon it as the silver lining in the cloud that has overshadowed their area for all these years.
Murray is not without its colorful characters of the past. Among these are Jack Waite for whom a mine still being worked was named and Molly 'B' Dam, a lady of the town.
Molly arrived in Murray from Thompson Falls in 1884 and soon was the reigning queen of the Murray underworld. With one had she would rob the unwary and with the other give liberally to charity or nurse sick miners. On occasion she quoted with apparent understanding from Shakespeare, Milton and Dante and in the next could make the atmosphere flash with her tongue.
IT WAS in Murray that the disputed ownership of the rich Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines was decided in an emotion-packed court case.
The few remaining residents of this town tucked against a mountain side in a narrow canyon are proud of their heritage and have expended greater efforts than most communities to preserve it.
The Thompson Pass Short-Cut would open this historical region to the Inland Empire and also unlock the scenic beauty of western Sanders County with its primitive high mountain lakes and unspoiled recreation area. Complementing this to the east are the mineral baths at the Hot Springs spa and the National Bison Range of Flathead Lake.
Highway officials in both Montana and Idaho predict the route will comprise a popular circular Sunday drive for many Inland Empire residents in Spokane, Missoula and the Flathead Valley. Short-cut boosters echo their predictions.
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