Bonners Ferry, Idaho — Ferry Disappeared; the Crossing Did Not

Bonners Ferry exists because the Kootenai River had to be crossed.

Edwin Bonner established a ferry in the 1860s along a route serving traffic toward mining districts farther north. The toll schedule was wonderfully specific: people, pack animals, sheep and hogs each had their own price.

Traffic attracted trade. Steamboats arrived, then the Great Northern Railway in 1892. The settlement passed through several names before Bonners Ferry stuck.

Bridges eventually made the ferry obsolete, but the river kept controlling local life.

The broad valley north of town is an old floodplain. Dikes and drainage turned much of it into productive farmland, and major floods in 1948 and 1954 demonstrated how conditional that arrangement could be.

The Kootenai is also home to endangered white sturgeon, and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho has become central to conservation and habitat-restoration work.

Roads, rails, fish and water continue across the international border nearby.

Humans replaced the ferry. They never eliminated the crossing problem that created the town.