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Silcott, Washington

The Lewis and Clark Expedition camped around Silcott in 1805 and, thirty-two years later, Nimiipuu chief Red Wolf planted an orchard--the first in the Snake River Valley--in the area. In the 1860s, after a trading post was established, Silcott became an important stage stop and river crossing. The community was named after town sheriff and government contractor John Silcott, who married and ran a ferry with Jane Silcott, pictured here. Jane, the daughter of Alpowa leader Ta-Moots-Tsoo (Chief Timothy), had led prospectors to the first major gold discovery in Idaho a few years before. The town was platted and renamed Alpowa in 1882, during a brief heyday fueled by the establishment of a flour mill and warehouses, but the name reverted to Silcott in 1885. Although many of the town’s structures burned in a fire in the late 1800s, a post office operated at Silcott until 1931.