Prominent contractor Charles Doenges built this delightful Bungalow style dwelling in 1922 during a housing shortage related to the building of Thompson Falls’ hydroelectric dam. The home was one of several rental properties built and maintained by Doenges at that time. The first occupant was Irving E. Keith, bookkeeper for the Thompson Falls Mercantile. In 1913, Keith purchased the home from Doenges and remained here until 1922. In Thompson Falls the popularity of the Bungalow style, a descendant of the Queen Anne cottage with Craftsman elements, was largely promoted by Doenges, who added at least seventeen homes to the town’s streetscapes between 1905 and 1913. Five of these are nearly identical pattern book Bungalows, but each has its own personality. Bungalow characteristics include a full-width porch with battered (sloping) columns and solid railing, narrow lap siding, and a hipped roof with exposed rafter ends. Typical of Doenges’ fine craftsmanship and eye for elegance, this small but lovely home features multi-paned windows and an east side window seat, whose four windows have thirteen panes each. An interesting highlight is a stained glass window with the inverted image of two candles, three bells, and a ribbon. The exact window appears on this home’s near twin, but the motif is not inverted.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

In 1910, the newly incorporated town of Thompson Falls was shedding its frontier image. That year saw the organization of local power and water companies, the opening of a public library, and the construction of the town’s first Bungalow style residences. These fine new homes, proclaimed a “credit to Missoula or Spokane,” added a new dimension to the architectural landscape. One outstanding example is this 1910 carpenter-built Bungalow style home constructed from a pattern book for prominent attorney Auburn S. Ainsworth. Square columns, a full-width front porch, over-scaled wooden brackets, wide overhanging eaves, and a slight flair at the foundation reflect elements of the style. A white quartz mantle flanked by glassed-in cabinets, stained and leaded glass cabinets built into columns separating the music and living rooms, and built-in window seats reveal exquisite interior finishing. This stylish dwelling, which once boasted a fountain on the broad front lawn, well reflects the wealth of its first owner. A very shrewd and clever lawyer, Ainsworth long served as town attorney and argued some notorious cases. He once persuaded a client accused of murder to be a horse and cavort on the lawn of the old County Building. The ruse worked and the client was declared insane.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

The nearby Bad Rock Trail was an important route for the aboriginal people who inhabited northwest Montana. The first documented account of the trail was by North West Company trader David Thompson in 1809. Located within sight of the company's trading post, Saleesh House, he reported that it was the scene of many battles between the Kootenai, Salish and the Blackfeet people. Over the ensuing years, the trail became a much cured obstacle on the rod that led up the Clark Fork. It was used by a parade of western notables, including explorers Issac Stevens and John Mullan and by copper-king William A. Clark. Shortly after crossing over Bad Rock in 1841 Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet wrote "I had before seen landscapes of awful grandeur, but this one supposed all others in horror. My courage failed at the first sight."

In 1883, the Northern Pacific Railway blasted away portions of the trail to complete its transcontinental line. The process was repeated in 1936 when the Montana Department of Transportation constructed this segment of the highway. Bad Rock Trail continues to be a commanding presence on Highway 200 in northwest Montana.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

The beginning of the twentieth century brought a new and conscious emphasis on natural surroundings, which found architectural expression through the Bungalow style. The Bedard House, built by Charles Wicksell and Ecton Browne from a pattern book design in 1912, is an excellent example of that form. The broad hipped roof combined with narrow lap siding creates the Bungalow’s characteristic low, horizontal lines. The horizontal emphasis and full-width open-air porch, originally of wood, communicate simplicity and harmony with the environment. Indeed, the home beautifully fulfills the general stylistic requirement that the Bungalow “sing into and blend with” the landscape. A bay window, corbelled chimney, three hip-roofed dormers with leaded glass windows, and window boxes illustrate the builders’ excellent craftsmanship and freedom to individualize the pattern design. First owner Thomas Bedard, vice president of both the Thompson Falls Mercantile and the Thompson State Bank, resided here until 1926. Henry Larson, new part-owner of the Thompson Falls Mercantile (later Larson and Green), purchased the home in 1935 and remained here until the long-established store burned in 1968. Except for the brick replacements to the porch, this lovely home appears today much as it did in 1912, a charming and significant part of the neighborhood.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

“Koo-Koo-Sint” – The man who looked at the stars

Built Salish house near the mouth of Thompson River 1809

Named in honor of surveyor and fur trader David Thompson (1770-1857), the first known explorer to reach Sanders County. Born in England, young David enrolled in a London charity school for orphan boys at age 7. Upon his 14th birthday he was sent across the Atlantic Ocean to the icy shores of Hudson Bay, Canada to begin 7 years indentured servitude as clerk for the Hudson's Bay Company. He soon learned to communicate in French & native languages, explore, navigate, make maps, build trading posts, and survive in the wilds of the New World. On many occasions he received critical assistance & cooperation from North American natives.

Between 1807-1812, Thompson successfully established trade among the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains. He and his men built the region's first 4 trading posts, including one near Thompson Falls he called Saleesh House. In 1811 he located and mapped the entire course of the Columbia River. By finding the source of this legendary River of the West and following it to the Pacific Ocean, Thompson solved the mystery of the Northwest Passage - an elusive coast to coast route explorers had sought for centuries.

He & his companions made this historic voyage of discovery in a large cedar plank canoe of his own invention.

By the time his career was over, the ambitious Thompson had mapped nearly 1.5 million square miles of uncharted territory of approximately 1/5th of North America. He was instrumental in establishing the first cross continental network of remote wilderness forts & trading posts and is credited with traveling over 65,000 miles by foot, horse & canoe. To this day, David Thompson is regarded as the greatest land geographer of all times.

Erected by Numerous donors listed on the marker.

"... saw about a dozen of Sheep, sorely wounded one of them with Shot but the Rocks were too steep and the cold & the Snow too bad..."

Fur trader, explorer and geographer David Thompson was the first European visitor to the middle Clark Fork in 1810. He found mountain sheep a welcome sight on cold winter days when other game was scarce. A Christmas visitor to Thompson's Saleesh Trading Post near Thompson Falls feasted on "mountain sheep, rice, tea, coffee, arrowroot, and 15 gallons of prime rum."

Bighorns were also an important source of food for the Salish, Pend Orielle, and Kootenai Tribes. They left reminders in their drawings on stone, such as those shown here .

In frontier days bighorns were common from Alberta to Baja, Mexico. They found their way to the new world from eastern Siberia during the Ice Age, crossing the Bering Land Bridge about 500,000 years ago.

Glaciers separated the sheep into 2 species distinguished mostly by the size of their horns. Bighorns inhabit southern Canada and the United States, while the thin-horned Dall's and Stone's sheep live in northern Canada and Alaska. The scientific name of the bighorn sheep, Ovis, canadensis, means Canadian sheep.

Bighorn sheep are separated into three varieties, the California bighorn of the Sierra Nevada, the desert bighorn of the southwest, and the Rocky Mountain bighorn of the northwest, which has the largest horns of the three.

Once plentiful, bighorn populations declined quickly with the settling of the west. Starting in the late 1880s, competition with man and livestock for range, uncontrolled hunting, and introduced diseases and parasites decimated the population. Many herds were wiped out by the early 1900s. By the 1940s, bighorns were considered an endangered species in most western states.

The Thompson Herd

The same pressures wiped out the Thompson Falls herd. Disease caused a massive die-off in the early 1900s. The population declined steadily to about 50 sheep in 1942 and to about 10 sheep in 1947. By 1948 none remained.

In 1959, 19 bighorns were transplanted from two remaining herds at the Sun River Game Range in west-central Montana and Wildhorse Island on Flathead Lake. From this small beginning the population prospered until it reached about 600 sheep in the early 1980s. This large number of sheep overpopulated the range and led to an increased rate of parasite infection. Hunting began in 1968 and continues today to prevent overgrazing the range and protect local landowner's crops. The herd now numbers 300-359 at its low point each year (before the spring crop of lambs.). The sheep range throughout over 90 square miles of rugged National Forest and state lands. Because the sheep spend the winter in the valley bottom, each year many are killed in collisions with vehicles and trains.

For many thousands of years, this area has been a favorite hunting, fishing and food-gathering area for the Olispé (Pend d'Oreille) people, many of whom live today on the Flathead Reservation. The Salish-language name for the Thompson Falls area is Seqeylqm, which refers to the sound made by water go the Clark's Fork falling over the drop.

Oral history tells of a time long ago when the Salish-speaking people lived in one great tribe. When the people became too numerous for the available food supply, they split into many smaller bands and spread out across western Montana and then west into what is now Idaho and Washington. Since that time, the Seqeylqm or Thompson Falls area has been near the near of the Clark Fork Valley travel corridor for tribal people visiting relatives and friends from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia Plateau in the west. People traveled by foot and birch-bark cancers, and in later yeas by horse, train and today by automobile.

Because of the tribal importance of this travel route, David Thompson and the Hudson's Bay Company decided to locate Saleesh House near here in 1809. The trading post operated until the 1820s when the Hudson's Bay Company closed it.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

On Christmas Day of 1914 the Sanders County Ledger reported that “…no town in western Montana … has advanced with the same rapid strides as Thompson Falls.” Indeed, the town possessed all the modern trappings: new streetlights illuminated the courthouse, the Mountain State Telephone Company provided phone service, and a skating rink and two motion picture theaters had recently opened. That same year successful businessman Randolph Hoyt, co-proprietor of the Thompson and Ward Hotels, had this spacious Bungalow style home built. The residence was likely designed by prolific builder Charles Doenges, although he left the community after 1913. Doenges’ pattern book Bungalows distinctly mark the town’s residential neighborhoods; Hoyt’s residence was the last of a series of such dwellings built within the city limits. The lovely wood-frame home features a full-width porch supported by square columns, narrow clapboard siding, and a hipped roof with exposed rafter ends typical of the style. The bay window is an adaptation of a Victorian period motif and clearly demonstrates Doenges' influence. Beautiful leaded glass windows complete this charming portrait of early-twentieth-century elegance in a progressive western town.

Seeing the country being denuded of beaver, Thompson wrote: "Every intelligent man saw the poverty that would follow the destruction of the beaver, but there were no chiefs to control it; all was perfect liberty and equality." David Thompson's Narrative [1797]

"... at the Forks finding ourselves short of Provisions for the Voyage killed a Mare belonging to the Ind-for which we have to pay..." David Thompson - Journal, Feb 16 Sunday [1812]

American Beaver

Hats! Beaver hats that is. Had it not been for beaver, David Thompson and thousands of others would not have left Europe for the vast and largely unmapped expanses of Canada and the United States.

That was where the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company sent brigades of men to establish trading posts and to find and map canoe supply routes covering thousands of miles of rivers and streams.

The vast system of western waterways provided the brigades with access to hunt and trade for beaver pelts and other furs. The peltry was then hauled back to civilization for shipment to Europe.

It was the expansion of this fur trade that brought North West explorer and trader David Thompson to the west side of the Rocky Mountains and south of the 49th parallel where he established three trading posts: Kullyspel House, Saleesh House and Spokane House.

In 1809, David Thompson, an agent and explorer for the North West Company (NWCo), opened the first permanent trading post in western Montana and named it Saleesh House. He also claimed the region for the British Crown by proclamation. The area that became the Oregon Territory was the only region in the United States subject to such ownership.

Saleesh House was a busy, economically successful business. In 1821, the fur trade business in the region took a major turn. The NWCo and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) merged their businesses and continued to operate under the HBC flag even thought (sic) most of the posts in the region had belonged to the NWCo.

The HBC changed the name of Saleesh House to Flathead House. In the mid-1820s, the operation was relocated to a site about 10 miles upstream.

In 1846, to be closer to Indian travel routes and winter camping grounds, the post was again relocated. This time to a spot on Post Creek near today's St. Ignatius. In 1847, post Factor Angus McDonald changed the name of the 3rd Flathead House to Fort Connah.

The fur trade operation started by David Thompson at Saleesh House in 1809 continued for another 50 years under the HBC flag. Fort Connah was permanently closed in 1871 by order of the US Government.

Erected by Hecla Charitable Foundation, Noxon Senior Citizens.

In November 1809, famed British North West Company agent and explorer David Thompson built a trading post about five miles east of here near the mouth of the Thompson River. Strategically located on a well-worn aboriginal trail, Saleesh House was the second trading post to be constructed in what is now Montana. In the early nineteenth century, the fur trade was literally a cut-throat business with competing companies vying to establish trade relations with the Indian tribes. In this case, the Nor’Westers successfully beat the rival Hudson's Bay Company by being the first to build a trading post in Salish territory. Saleesh House consisted of three simple log buildings with mud and grass roofs that leaked in rainy weather. The Salish were the post's primary customers, bartering beaver and muskrat pelts for weapons and other trade goods. The Salish trusted Thompson and called him Koo-Koo-Sint, Star Looker, because of his interest in astronomy. Saleesh House remained open until the 1820s after the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies merged. Blackfeet hostility forced the company to abandon the post. Saleesh House melted back into the forest and was lost to history until rediscovered several years ago by University of Montana archaeologists.

Prominent landowner and state senator Edward Donlan won a political victory in the 1906 legislature with the designation of Thompson Falls as county seat for Sanders County over the rival town of Plains. By compromise, most county posts were filled by Plains appointees, but Donlan donated his own land for the new county courthouse and jail. The two-story Italianate style jail was built in 1907 by contractors Christian and Gobelet at a cost of $5,000. It is Thompson Falls’ oldest surviving county building. The structure was originally divided into incarceration cells on the second level and living quarters for the sheriff and his family on the first, with separate entrances for each level. The Paully Jail Company of St. Louis installed the four cells, each designed to hold four individuals. One cell, separated from the others, was for women and children detainees. Steel bars fastened by beams to a concrete floor and cement ceiling assured strict security within the cell room, while an eighteen-inch solid brick wall with steel door and locks isolated it from the stairway entrance. Though steel bars have been recently added to the downstairs windows, the building retains its 1907 appearance and is a fine example of a combination jail/sheriff’s residence of the period.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Missoula senator Edward Donlan, Dr. Everett Peek, and Arthur Preston organized the Thompson Falls Light and Power Company in 1910 to develop electricity for the community and promote the concept of a hydroelectric power station. The monumental project promised progress and opportunity for the little frontier town along the riverbank. In anticipation, Dr. Peek built a hospital near the proposed power plant site. In 1911, the county erected two steel bridges across the Clark Fork River retiring the old cable-drawn ferry. The Thompson Falls Power Company constructed a small plant to service the community and the project itself. The town bustled, construction boomed, and a glorious future seemed inevitable. The Ledger confidently predicted lucrative future projects. By 1916, the main and dry channel dams, power house, and superintendent’s house were among some thirty project structures sprawled along the riverbank. By 1917, the plant supplied 30,000 kilowatts of electricity to the region, crossing into Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Technology loomed downriver in the huge dam. But after World War I no more major projects boosted the local economy, and men like Donlan and Peek “…who had championed those ideas had already left town to find that dream some other place.” The power company dismantled all but a few of the project buildings, leaving Thompson Falls to survive on its own. Today the remaining structures represent the community’s early development,

St. Luke's Hospital

Thompson Falls Hydroelectric Dam Historic District

Thompson Falls was on the brink of intense development when local druggist and physician Dr. Everett Peek built the region’s first substantial medical facility. Its original twenty rooms accommodated Peek’s hospital and briefly served as a residence. After completion of the hydroelectric dam project, Peek moved to Missoula and the Montana Power Company eventually acquired the building. After 1927, a three-story back wing and second-story wraparound porch were removed, leaving seven of the original rooms. Now a private residence, the front façade appears much as it did in 1910. Tuscan columns and turned wooden posts grace the porch while lovely stained and diamond-patterned leaded glass windows add elegance to this significant architectural landmark.

Edward Donlan, who built this building as the Ward Hotel in 1907-1908, was significant in Thompson Falls history. At age twelve, the Canadian boy of Irish descent left home and went to work. Laying track south of Neihart brought him to Montana, where by 1895 he owned a saw mill in the timber camps. In the early 1900s, he extended his holdings here, with vast tracts to the west and east of town, and many town lots. He also started the Thompson Falls Mercantile Company. Politics was a second love for Donlan, elected state senator in 1902, 1906, 1910, and 1918. In his 1908 bid for governor, he lost by only 2,000 votes. He heartily joined the battle to make Thompson Falls the county seat of Sanders County, and saw a boom period ushered in with that victory. He interested investors in the Thompson Falls Power Company — owning, himself, several small dams on the Clark’s Fork River. In 1913-1914, he moved on to Milltown and sold much of his property here. His fortune dissipated, Donlan died in 1952.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Thompson Falls enjoyed a growth spurt and a new sense of stability at the dawn of the twentieth century, underscored by the construction of several substantial brick buildings. Charles Weber’s general mercantile store was the town’s second building constructed of locally manufactured masonry. Built between 1900 and 1903, its dual residential/commercial function and simple design typify the utilitarian architecture of small western towns of the period. A continuous band of inlaid fleur-de-lis below the roofline supplies the only adornment. In 1906, Weber built the cold air well and storehouse at the rear of the building. It is the town’s last remaining commercial evidence of a unique natural phenomenon tapped by early settlers. In digging wells for water, currents of icy air ranging from 55 to 33 degrees Fahrenheit were discovered issuing from a porous layer of gravel at a depth of thirty to forty feet. Eventually nearly every business owner made use of this resource, building an insulated shed over a cold air shaft for the storage of perishable goods. The system worked until modern technology stepped in: backwater from the hydroelectric dam, built less than a decade later, blocked the cold air currents. From the early 1900s to 1917, Weber’s service as postmaster made the store a place visited daily. The store continued to play a key role in the economic life of the community until Weber’s death in 1940.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.