Colonial Despatches

Now flooded, Fort Colvile was a key depot and trade hub for the HBC's Columbia Department.1 Simpson chose the site for the fort, at Kettle Falls, to buttress company interests in the Columbia District, and hoped of its rise as a profitable alternative to Spokane House,2 which was established by the Northwest company in 1810, at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers.3

In August of 1825, John Work oversaw construction of the fort, but due to a lackadaisical construction team, the fort was not, as planned, completed for winter storage, and the HBC was forced to rely upon Spokane House.4

Fort Colvile's fate was dictated in part by the Oregon Territory boundary dispute and, following the 1846 treaty, the United States, perhaps uncharacteristically, continued to recognize British possessory rights over Fort Colvile.5 However, the fort dwindled in trade as conflicts with indigenous groups in the area rose, and, by 1859, the US Army established nearby, in the Colville Valley, their own Fort Colville—with two l's. The HBC officially abandoned Fort Colvile in 1871.6 Today, the site of the fort, and Kettle Falls, rests beneath the waters of Lake Roosevelt, as a result of the 1940 Grand Coulee Dam project.7

• 1. E. E. Rich, Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1870, vol. 3, 1821-1870 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961), 718.
• 2. Ibid., 448.
• 3. Stephen B. Emerson, Hudson's Bay Company begins constructing Fort Colvile near Kettle Falls in early August 1825, The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Ibid.
• 7. Ibid.