Forgotten Trails: Historical Sources of the Columbia's Big Bend Country

By Ron Anglin

Book Overview

Indian inhabitants laid out the basic travel routes in central Washington's Grand Coulee country probably 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. In the early 1800s, horse-oriented Native Americans continued to use these routes; a host of white frontiersmen followed in their footsteps. Though their passage is now largely forgotten, many individuals prominent in Western history traveled this way and kept excellent records.

In Forgotten Trails, the most noteworthy and exciting of these accounts have been edited into a single volume. Included are the adventures of Lewis and Clark and the Canadian explorer David Thompson, early missionaries such as the Reverend Samuel Parker, railroad surveyors and scientists, Paul Kane and other artists, as well as fur traders, miners, stockmen, military roadbuilders, and homesteaders. The book ends with the celebrated "Grand Horse Roundup" of 1906, and an enthralling Native American perspective.

These firsthand accounts, together with a chapter on traditional Plateau Indian culture and an oral history describing 19th century Indian life, render a portrait of the region's trails and travelers during its flamboyant and exciting frontier era. Forgotten Trails is an essential contribution to the literature of the Columbia Basin.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874221161
• ISBN13: 9780874221169
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Washington State University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Bring your roadmap

Thank you Mr. Anglin for a comprehensive review of an area often visited and seldom appreciated. Central Washington is shrub-steppe and lacks the beauty and lustre of the more spectacular pine forests of the Cascades or the Puget Sound with its rugged pioneers. However, major waterways. springs and bunch grass concentrations helped direct traffic in and around the arid wilderness of the Columbia Basin. Anglin has been thorough in his research and methodical in his presentation of the various phases of transit. His level of detail has made me reach for the gazeteer or road map many times to envision a herd of 2000 cattle fording some stream or fighting off some Yakama warrior party. My only complaint was the rather small number of maps compared to the wealth of narrative.