Latah County
IDGenWeb
1889 Moscow
Courtesy of WSU Libraries Digital Collection
1894 Moragne's
Courtesy of WSU Libraries Digital Collection
1895 Rand McNally Atlas
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Today, Latah County has eight incorporated towns and
cities: Bovill, Deary, Genesee, Juliaetta, Kendrick, Moscow, Potlatch, and Troy.
There are several unincorporated communities in Latah County such as Avon,
Harvard, Helmer, Joel, Onaway, Princeton and Viola, to mention a few. These are
not considered to be towns today but have thriving communities. There are also
more communities that were established as towns once upon time and have
disappeared.
Some early communities grew out of being stops on the
railroad lines for company purposes such as refueling (wood and water), and
loading of local produce or products for shipment. Some railroad stops never
made the distinction of being a town, although some did. Eight of the railroad
stations on the Washington Idaho Montana Railroad line were believed to be named
for the eastern colleges by the college men working on the line as surveyors and
engineers: Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, Purdue, Stanford, Vassar, Wellesley, and
Yale.
David & Karen
Purtee,
Previous Latah County Coordinators
PALOUSE RIVER, Latah County. This stream was named by Captains Lewis and Clark on October 13, 1805, for George Drewyer, one of their party. Later the Canadian French called it "Pavion," then "Pavilion," because the Indians camped upon it temporarily only and in tents, the name finally changing to the French "Palouse" meaning "lawn" or "grass spot" as the river flowed thru a rolling, bunch-grass country. Those families of the Nez Perce tribe that eventually settled and made their homes on this river became known as the Palouse Indians. Lewis and Clark called them "Palleotepellows" and in 1860 they were located on the reservation with their kinsmen, the Nez Perces. Idaho Chronology, Nomenclature, Bibliography, published in 1918, page 100.
POTLATCH RIVER, Latah County.—This is a Chinook jargon (q. v.) word derived from a tribal ceremonial and means "giving." In the early days a Nez Perce by the name of Shucklatumna Hi Hi, which means "white owl," had a cayuse pony with which he carried footmen, who were traveling thru the country, to the mines across the river, charging a quarter of a dollar for the service. One day the stream was high and a "big Irishman, weighing about 200 pounds, wanted to be taken across. The Indian first took the blankets across and then came back and got the Irishman behind him on the cayuse. When in midstream the pony stumbled. The Irishman fell off and was being swept into the main stream of the Clearwater. The Indian followed him on his pony, hollering to him, "Potlatch quarter! Potlatch quarter! Then drown if you want to." From this incident it was called 'Potlatch," but before that time the Indians called it "Yaka" meaning "black bear." Idaho Chronology, Nomenclature, Bibliography, published in 1918, page 103.
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This page was last updated 09/23/2023