Fort Colvile

It replaced Spokane House as a regional trading center, due to the latter being deemed to be too far from the Columbia River. Governor George Simpson considered the disuse of Spokane House to likely offend Spokane elders, and ordered for a dispersement of gifts among them. ==Operations==

During the 1820s, yearly purchases of furs rarely exceeded 20 blankets being sold. Increased amounts of animal hides were gathered by Fort Colvile started with the "Flat Head brigade," which joined the Bitterroot Salish on their annual migrations past the Rocky Mountains. The staff number for Fort Colvile fluctuated with the seasons. Operations commencing in the Spring required upwards of 30 employees during the 1830s. Usually only five men were stationed there throughout Winter, and if the number was above that, McLoughlin would reassign the extra staff. Spokane Garry was considered a prospective employee at the Fort until McLoughlin rejected the proposition. Alex McLeod, born at the fort in 1854 recalled that "The trading post proper was a square enclosure. The store and warehouses were on the north side, and Chief Trader McDonald's house was on the east side. The married employees, like my father, lived outside the enclosed post yard on the south and west sides." The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Missionaries established Tshimakain Mission in 1838. The missionary families of Elkanah Walker and Cushing Eells developed ties with Fort Colvile officers and wives, then the closest white settlement in the area. After the Whitman Massacre, the missionaries fled their station for the protection of the HBC trading post. Agricultural operations at Fort Colvile were prominent, eventually supplying other interior posts with wheat, peas, flint corn, and potatoes. The prairie that the station was on was deemed an "island of fertility" by visiting artist Paul Kane. At its foundation, 24 bushels of potatoes were sown, but over half was eaten by rodents. 20 Native and White men labored on the farms in 1838, about two-thirds of the total number of men kept at trade post. The potato harvests had increased greatly in size compared to the initial sowing, in 1838, it was over 7,000 bushels. Charles Wilkes of the United States Exploring Expedition found that farming was the primary focus of the establishment "for the whole of the northern posts depend upon Colville for supplies of provisions." Salmon was easily procured when the seasonal runs commenced. One pioneer recalled that Kettle Falls men would "put large wicker baskets below the falls and raised them up three times a day, always filled with fish." ==Later years==

After the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, Fort Colvile was south of the 49th parallel and therefore within American claimed land. The Hudson's Bay Company founded Fort Shepherd, British Columbia, just north of the new boundary, as a surrogate location secure on British territory. They continued some operations at Fort Colvile for a few years longer. While traveling through in 1853, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens described Fort Colvile as: The buildings consist of a dwelling house, three or four store-houses, and some smaller buildings, used as blacksmith shops, etc., all of one story and constructed of squared logs. The whole was once surrounded by a stockade, forming a square of about 70 yards on each side. This has been removed, except on the north side, where it encloses a narrow yard containing offices. One bastion remains. About 30 yards in the rear of this square are the cattle yards, hay sheds, etc., enclosing a space of 40 by 60 yards, roughly fenced in, and the sheds covered with bark. On the left of the front are seven huts, occupied by the lower of the company. They are of rude construction, and much decayed. On the right of the square, in the rear, at a distance of a few hundred yards, are three more buildings, used for storing produce. In 1859 the Palliser Expedition reunited in Fort Colvile and proceeded down the Columbia River, after having explored much of what is now western Canada, from the Great Lakes to Lake Okanagan. The mill maintained at the fort was sold in 1865. Early settlers surrounding Colvile were often French-Canadians formerly in the employ of the HBC. At social occasions held at their former station, "would drink whisky [sic] and brandy and sing old songs or tell tales of hunting experiences." Such outings were found to be composed of "the lighthearted trapper with his gaudy moccasins and leggings, through all shades of colour to the dusky hue of the Indians". ==Managers==