blackfoot-valley

Fortunately the Nevada Valley settlers never had any trouble with the Indians. This area is considered to be Flathead territory and was a kind of nuetral ground during the time of contact with the whites. Flatheads, who came through on hunting trips and frequently stoped in the Helmville area, were friendly. The warlike Blackfeet, who came into the area from across the divide, stayed away from the settlements. Tom Geary recalls that the Black- feet would come to Browns Lake to fish with up to 150 horses at their camp. A phase of the valley’s history prominently mentioned separately by Tom and Pat Geary, was a land boom starting late in the first decade of the twenti- eth century, in which many farmers from eastern Washington migrated to the valley, both homesteading and buying land. The farmers tried to grow the crops they knew, chiefly wheat, but in due time learned the hard way that this semiarid valley is not good grain country. During the first decade or so, rain was quite often adequate, tempting more farmers to come in. But in the end, it turned out insufficient and undependable. Often much of the rain came in the spring. During the drier years, hordes of locusts ravaged the crops. “Survivors of the Bannock Wars” 1878 Wikimedia Commons 145