The railroad takes a nearly direct northerly course, striking the upper valley of the Little Spokane. Within a year considerable improvement has been made within reach of the road as fast as it was opened. Walker's Prairie, named after Elkanah Walker, Presbyterian missionary of 1837, and forty-five miles above Spokane Falls, has now a settlement,—Squire City, or Springdale,—wdth several business houses, and a daily mail, whereas twelve months ago there was no trading-post within thirty-five miles. The railroad and the discovery of mines at Chemokane have made the difference. Walker's Prairie is a good farming country, where grain grows enormously high and vegetables marvellously large. There are few settlements as yet in the southern part of Stevens County (named after General T. I. Stevens), and those few quite insignificant.
Chewelah, a place of importance on account of its mines, spoken of in another place, is at the foot of the Colville Valley. From here to Colville City, twenty-three miles, the road runs through a natural meadow, and, as hay is a profitable crop, there is little inducement to cultivate the soil. The town of Colville, which contains about eight hundred inhabitants, is picturesquely situated at an altitude of about fourteeen hundred feet, with the valley on the west defined by timbered hills beyond, and mountain walls encircling it on the north and east. The air of this region is recommended for throat diseases, and the beautiful drives about Colville are certainly an inducement to test it. The country around is adapted to dairying, hop-growing, and fruit-raising rather than to the production of cereals, which require more room to become profitable. Streams are numerous. Snow falls and remains without drifting during the winter months, melting into the earth in the spring.
But Colville does not depend upon the value of its soil for farming. It is the centre of a rich mining district, and boasts of a smelter which turns out three and a half tons of bullion per day, while already the erection of substantial improvements in building has commenced.
The Spokane Northern Railroad has a branch from Colville to the Columbia River at Marcus, a distance of eighteen miles, and from Marcus north along the Columbia to its terminus at Little Dalles. A number of town-sites have been surveyed
