Plummer, Idaho — Railroad Junction Became a Trail Junction

Plummer developed as a railroad junction inside the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.

That happened during a period when federal allotment policy was breaking reservation land into individual parcels and opening large amounts of so-called surplus land to non-Native settlement.

Rail lines connected Spokane, Coeur d'Alene and the timber country toward St. Maries. Stores, lumber businesses and agriculture gathered around the junction.

The trains eventually declined, but one rail corridor acquired an unexpected second life.

The Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes now passes through Plummer on a former railroad right-of-way. Its pavement is recreation infrastructure and environmental engineering at the same time: portions of the corridor cap material contaminated by mining waste transported from the Silver Valley.

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe also maintains major government, health and economic institutions nearby.

Plummer is still a meeting point—reservation and municipality, prairie and forest, railroad history and modern trail.