Wallowa Mountains - History

History

The area was home to the Wallowa band of the Lower Nez Perce. The Nez Perce lived in the canyons and burned trees to create meadows for the horses that they obtained around 1730. In 1834, Captain Bonneville crossed through the mountains and met with the lower Nez Perce on his way to Fort Walla Walla. In the 1840s, people began to move west, bringing settlers through the land. The Nez Perce began to trade with these settlers. A settlement in the mountains was built in 1861. In 1863, a new treaty was signed that relinquished lands that were granted by a treaty signed in 1855, turning them over to the American Government. This same year the settlers in the mountains moved to present day La Grande. These lands included the Wallowa Valley, which was where Chief Joseph lived. The Government first opened the Wallowa Valley to settlement in 1867. Surveyors began to come through and would continue until 1869. The Wallowa valley was split it in 1873, with one half for the Nez Perce, and the lower part for the settlers but removed all availability of land in the valley for the Nez Perce in 1875. The first road into the valley was a toll road constructed 1875. The US Government attempted to force the removal of the Nez Perce in 1877; however, this angered the natives who choose instead to raid the settlers, leading to the Nez Perce War.

Logging came in the late 1880s, using the streams and rivers to move the logs out. A dam was constructed under Wallowa Lake in 1884 to irrigate the valley. In 1908, the first railroad into the valley was completed. Rail lines were built up to the upper valley by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1919, allowing logs to be moved by rail, rather than the more dangerous river. The dam beneath Wallowa Lake was replaced by a concrete dam in 1916 and the modern dam was completed 1929.