ide-awake, bustling young city,
situated in a fine agricultural district. Walla Walla, Athena, Weston,
Waitsburg, Dayton, Pullman, Garfield, Latah, Tekoa, Colfax, Moscow,
Farmington, and Rockford are all thriving towns, and are already good
distributing centers. The last-named town enjoys the advantage of being
in the center of a fine lumber district, and within a circuit of five
miles from Rockford there are ten saw-mills, besides an inexhaustible
supply of mica. Crossing the border into Idaho, rich silver and lead
mines are found along the Coeur d'Alene River.

Rockford is twenty-four miles from Spokane Falls, and has about 1,000
population; its elevation is 2,440 feet. Four miles distant is the
boundary of the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, a lovely tract, thirty by
seventy miles in extent, embracing beautiful Coeur d'Alene Lake and the
three rivers, St. Joseph, St. Marys, and Coeur d'Alene, which empty
into it. There about 250 Indians on this reservation, and they enjoy
the proud distinction of being the only tribe who refuse Government
aid. They have been offered the usual rations, but preferred to remain
independent. They live in houses, farm quite extensively, and use all
kinds of improved farm machinery; many of them are quite wealthy. The
lake is one of the prettiest sheets of water on the continent; its
waters are full of salmon, and in the heavy pine woods are many
varieties of game, from quail to grizzly bear and elk. The town of
Rockford will in the near future assume importance as a tourist point,
both from its own healthy and picturesque location, and its nearness to
Coeur d'Alene Lake. A Government Commission is now at work on a
settlement with the Indians, whereby the whole or a part of this noble
domain will be thrown open to the public. The peculiar attractions of
Coeur d'Alene must in a short time render it a much sought for resort.

SPOKANE FALLS

Is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West.
When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single
civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a
white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty
falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and
Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of
immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he
would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow ar