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Published: August 22nd 2017
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MULLAN ROAD
There are few of these monuments scattered around the Palouse marking the course of the Mullan Road. This one is in the Turnbull Refuge south of Cheney. THE MULLAN ROAD One of the long held American dreams was finding The Northwest Passage. Lewis and Clark went to look for it in 1804 and discovered that no such water route existed. However, a land connection between the head of navigation on the Missouri River and the Columbia River was possible and that would complete the Northwest Passage. That route was surveyed by Isaac Stevens in 1854 as a potential route for a transcontinental railroad. Stevens knew that a wagon road would be needed to build the railroad and put his buddy, Lt John Mullan, in charge of building it. Mullan had just graduated from West Point in 1852. West Point was the top notch engineering college in the whole country back then. The best engineers all came from there. By 1856 Congress had passed an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to construct the road, but Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War, refused to authorize construction because he knew that the road would cost much more than that. The always forward thinking Isaac Stevens in addition to being Governor of the new Territory of Washington was also its delegate to Congress and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the territory. He had included a provision for construction of the road in the 1855 Fort Walla Walla Treaty that he rammed down the throats of all Inland Northwest Tribes attending that council. None of the Indians wanted that road built because they knew it would bring even more white men in to their country. Mullan’s Road, as it was already being called, was the bone of contention that finally caused the whole Palouse War in 1858. The attack on Col Steptoe started the war, but fear of a new road is what caused the attack. By 1858 Congress had appropriated another one hundred thousand dollars for road construction and by then Jefferson Davis was no longer Secretary of War. John Floyd was his successor and Floyd authorized construction to begin. Mullan was at Fort Dalles gearing up the men and supplies needed to begin the work when the Palouse War broke out. He volunteered to serve as Chief of the Nez Perce Scouts during the campaign. It would give him good opportunity to more thoroughly study the lay of the land through areas he had not yet surveyed. Mullan had limited experience with the Flatheads from exposure to them during previous road surveys. It was a good fit for him. The Nez Perce were experienced fighters and did not need a shavetail to direct them in combat. In 1859 the Palouse War was over, the last chief had gone up the flume, and construction of Mullan’s Road began from Fort Walla Walla. It built across the Palouse and around the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene to a point suitably east of the Cataldo Mission. The fathers there did not want the road coming through the mission any more than the Indians did. The road went eastward across the mountains from there as quickly as it could before winter set in and closed it down somewhere in the area of St Regis. It was a miserable winter for the road crew and Mullan was already way over budget. He sent one of his minions back to Washington City to get more funding, but the army already wanted to shut the project down. Somehow Mullan managed to stay one jump ahead of the army though, and the road was completed to Fort Benton on August 1, 1860. Mullan knew that his road was in terrible condition because of the heavy winter and spring floods. He took his crew and scampered back down the road to make quick repairs where he could before the army could throw him in the stockade or send troops down the road to test it. Along the way Mullan discovered that the route south of Lake Coeur d’Alene was a mistake because it was still impassable through the swampy lowlands along the St Joe River. He re-routed the road around the north end of the lake and down the Spokane River instead. Mullan’s Road now exists through the mountains as Interstate 90. It was the first road to use mileage markers. The army never did make much use of the road because the Civil War broke out and after the war it did not take long for the railroads to be built. It was, however, as the Indians always knew it would be, a conduit for more ruinous white settlement.
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