Pierce-Weippe Chamber of Commerce

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Categories: NCITA Member, Clearwater Region, Communities

In earlier days the Weippe area was frequented by the Nez Perce Indians, who enjoyed the summer climate and profitable hunting grounds. They erected lodges, fished, hunted and dug the camas root in the surrounding area. In 1805, Lewis and Clark had their first encounter with the Nez Perce Indians on the Weippe Prairie, not far from the present townsite.

The Homestead Act brought many families to the region and the area grew and thrived. Weippe was incorporated in December of 1964 and is located on the Gold Rush Historic Byway, Idaho Highway 11. The Weippe Prairie is one of eight registered national landmarks in the State of Idaho and is part of the National Lewis & Clark Historic Trail. It is a level meadow fringed by forest, and through it runs Jim Ford’s Creek, named after a pioneer wood dealer from Lewiston.

Pierce

Soon after the Corps of Discovery’s expedition through the region, the fur trading industry came to Idaho. Then, in 1860, a party of gold seekers, led by Captain E. D. Pierce and a halfdozen others, was led by Jane, the daughter of Chief Timothy, through nearby mountains to Canal creek. One of the party, Wilbur Barrett is credited with discovering the golden grains in the creek bed. The resulting rush, estimated at as many as 6,000 men, among them many Chinese, was reduced years later by another strike elsewhere.  In 1861, Pierce became the first established town in Idaho, and the county seat of Shoshone County. In 1862, the county built a courthouse which was Idaho's first government building. The courthouse still stands today, behind the J. Howard Bradbury Logging Museum.

In the 1890's, a father and son, C.D. and Nat Brown, came West seeking new areas of timber and found the "green gold" they sought in the largest stand of white pine and other coniferous types in north Idaho's Clearwater and Benewah counties and nearby hills. In 1925 a railroad was built to facilitate hauling the harvest to mills, large and small, nearby. The logging industry is still a large part of the local economy.

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