Colfax history celebration slated

Editor's NOTE: This is the first in a six-part series on the history of Colfax leading up to a July 23-24 celebration.

Colfax - On July 10, 1870, James Perkins and Thomas Smith claimed land at the junction of the north and south sections of the Palouse River.

The site would later be known as Colfax. (On July 23-24, the city will celebrate a century-and-a-half of history.)

At the time they settled here, the land was inhabited by bands of Palouse and other Sahaptin-speaking people, which included the Nez Perce Tribe.

The Nez Perce Trail was on a small part of southeastern Whitman County, and was used by American Indians on their treks to hunt buffalo on the Great Plains.

Perkins and Smith were representatives of Anderson Cox, a Waitsburg businessman who wanted to build a mill.

Smith ended up leaving, but Perkins would end up building a cabin, calling the settlement "Bellville," later changing the name to honor Schuyler Colfax, Vice President President Ulysses S. Grant from 1869 to 1873.

In September 1871, Perkins and Hezekiah S. Hollingsworth, who arrived in that same year, had hired labor through Cox to start a saw mill with a single slow blade.

In 1877, the mill was mainly owned by Hollingsworth. It was sold to carpenter M.J. Sexton and William Codd. Sexton. Codd built the mill into The Potlach Lumber Co., which was then sold in 1904 to Weyerhaeuser, a timberland company. Potlatch Lumber Co. would close three years later in 1907.

In 1871, a group of farmers began lobbying to bring their wheat to a mill in Colfax. And in 1872, the mill was built on land owned by Perkins.

A flood damaged the mill in 1879, and took the life of an employee. In 1882, there was a fire at the mill, but it was rebuilt, and in 1886 it was expanded to a capacity of 125 barrels per day.

On July 9, 1920, the mill burned. In 1936, a new mill was built.

The Colfax Mill was destroyed for the last time by fire in 1957.

The first Columbia and Palouse Railroad train arrived here Nov. 10, 1883.

There were three rail lines that served Colfax by 1916. The three line were the Northern Pacific, Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Co., and Union Pacific.

The early mills and trains set the stage for the founding of Colfax.

- Look for Part 2 in the June 23 edition of The Gazette.