Fort Walla Walla–Fort Colville Military Road

The Fort Walla Walla–Fort Colville Military Road was built in June 1859 to connect the Walla Walla area with its fairly easy access to the Columbia River to the mountainous area of the Huckleberry and Selkirk Mountains of current Northeast Washington and the Inland Northwest. Brigadier General William S. Harney, commander of the Department of Oregon, opened up the district north of the Snake River to settlers in 1858 and ordered Brevet Major Pinkney Lugenbeel, 9th Infantry Regiment (United States) to establish a U.S. Army post to restrain the Indians lately hostile to the U.S. Army's Northwest Division and to protect miners who flooded into the area after first reports of gold in the area appeared in Western Washington newspapers in July 1855. It was common practice to use existing Indian trails to develop military roads, and only make necessary improvements for the movement of artillery or supply trains. Brevet Major Lugenbeel followed the long established Indian trail, then Hudson Bay Company brigade trail from the U.S. Fort Walla Walla area to Hudson Bay Company Fort Colvile, but had to leave the trail at current Orin-Rice Road, two miles south of Colville, where the southernmost land claims of the Hudson Bay Company fort began. Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens and the U.S. Army were ordered by the United States Department of State to honor land ownership claims by the Hudson Bay Company. Lugenbeel's command arrived from Fort Walla Walla on June 20, 1859; Pinkney Lugenbeel was later credited with improving and building up the Military Road.

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