Bonners Ferry: The Crossing That Stuck

Long before this was Idaho, the fur trader David Thompson came through here in eighteen oh eight, trading with the Lower Kootenai people and opening up what he called the Kootenai country to the British fur trade.

The town's actual name comes from a later chapter. When gold was discovered in the East Kootenays of British Columbia in eighteen sixty-three, thousands of prospectors flooded north on what became known as the Wildhorse Trail. The trail crossed the wide Kootenai River right here. An enterprising merchant named Edwin Bonner arrived from Walla Walla in eighteen sixty-four and set up a ferry at the crossing. He charged what the traffic would bear, the ferry prospered, and the crossing became Bonner's Ferry.

Bonner himself leased out the ferry about a decade later and moved on. But his name stayed. The Great Northern Railway arrived in eighteen ninety-two, a bridge replaced the ferry, and what had been a rough gold-rush crossing became a permanent town in the Idaho panhandle.