The Boilers Came by Raft
A Spokane mining company sent heavy machinery 70 miles down the Pend Oreille on homemade rafts—and made Cusick by nightfall.
D. B. Birks, president of the Spokane Lead Mines Company, on Monday completed the work of building two rafts and a barge to carry the boilers and machinery for the new concentrator the company is going to erect at Metaline. Tuesday morning the start was made on the 70-mile journey down the river. The rafts are being towed by the Rockwell launch from Dalkena. The first day's journey was made without any difficulty, and the fleet arrived at Cusick that night.
“Tuesday morning the start was made on the 70-mile journey down the river, the rafts are being towed by the Rockwell launch from Dalkena.”
In 1907, moving a concentrator's machinery by raft was a practical gamble on the Pend Oreille River. Today the same corridor is still shaped by resource extraction and transportation decisions—and by the question of who bears the risk when industry moves through.
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