Bonners Ferry Herald Archive

The town of Bonners Ferry grew from the site of a ferry crossing on the Kootenay River in northern Idaho. Edwin Bonner established the ferry to transport people taking the Wildhorse Trail northwest to the mines of British Columbia after gold was discovered there in the early 1860s. A small community grew up around the ferry and prospered as a supply center for the mines to the north. Construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad, a transcontinental line that eventually ran from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest, began in 1870. The line reached what is now Bonner County in 1881. In 1893, the transcontinental line from Seattle to Minneapolis-St. Paul was completed, including a station in Bonners Ferry. A subsidiary of Great Northern built a rail line from Bonners Ferry to the Canadian border in 1898. As Bonners Ferry developed in the 20^th century, the impact of farming and logging on the local economy grew.

The Kootenai Herald was founded in 1891. Edited and Published by Stephen D. Taylor, the Herald was headquartered in the town of Kootenai on the north shore of Lake Pend Oreille for its first six months of publication. In 1892, The Herald moved north to the town of Bonners Ferry along the banks of the Kootenay River. The weekly eight-page, five-column paper published on Saturdays and covered news from the communities of Sand Point, Eaton, Eatonville, Fry, Bonners Ferry, and Hope. The Herald covered the development and construction of the Great Northern Railway through Idaho’s panhandle, as well as the Coeur d'Alene mining wars. The paper also chronicled anti-Chinese sentiment in Idaho and the U.S., including the Chinese Exclusion Act and the forced expulsion of Chinese workers from Bonners Ferry in 1892.

In the 20^th century, the farming and lumber industries sustained the community. The Kootenai Herald published in Bonners Ferry until 1904, when the editor changed the newspaper's name to the Bonners Ferry Herald. The paper’s original editor, Stephen D. Taylor, edited the Herald until 1911, when Bert Hall took over as editor for a short time. In 1912 Charles W. King became the Herald's editor. King sold the Herald in the 1950s. The Bonners Ferry Herald continues to publish to this day.