More North Fork history

If there were white men on the North Fork before 1891, they did not stay long. More important, they did not leave much behind in the form of written records. However, it is likely that a few mountain men did visit the North Fork in the years after the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition.

After 1891, change came pretty quickly to the North Fork due to the arrival in the Flathead of the Great Northern Railway. With the establishment of Columbia Falls in 1891, it became natural for residents to explore the wilderness north of the new town.

The Columbian, Columbia Falls’ first newspaper, touted the North Fork as a rich country with valuable minerals, especially oil and coal. From that time, North Fork history was recorded by area newspapers and more recently by radio and TV.

Mineral exploration brought folks to the North Fork and a coal mine was developed just south of Coal Creek, which was worked until the mid 1940s. Oil drilling also occurred on a hit-and-miss basis due to visible oil seeps in many places. Early drilling took place at the head of Kintla Lake and near the North Fork before 1910. Most recent exploration was near Trail Creek and Coal Creek, but neither resulted in a producing well.

Public land did provide intensive logging, which was driven by two major beetle outbreaks. The biggest was the spruce beetle outbreak in the 1950s, which resulted in major road construction that greatly improved the North Fork Road and created “system roads” that created or extended roads up Big Creek, Coal Creek and all of the major creek drainages.

In the end, the real story of the North Fork revolves around the homesteaders who came here with very little, cleared the land, raised families and created the social fabric that dominates the North Fork even today.

Since the last homesteaders filed on their land in the 1920s, few remained by the 1970s, and, of course none remain today. As a last big gift to the North Fork, the now elderly homesteaders were instrumental in organizing the North Fork Improvement Association in 1948, and by 1954 had built the Community Hall which still serves the community.

In recent years, the community has included photo displays honoring a variety of homestead families and a committee is collecting oral histories of old timers to add to saving our memories.

Most recently, long time landowner and recently retired historian Lois Walker is collecting and digitizing newspaper columns about the North Fork. She has completed all of my columns, all of John Frederick’s, who wrote before me, and is currently working on the columns written before John took over. She also has some of the columns written by Toots Stevens in the 1950s. Maybe I’ll get a book of North Fork history written before I croak. If so, it will be thanks to Lois.