William Fisk Sanders was born May 2, 1834 in Leon, New York. In 1863, when President Lincoln appointed his uncle Sidney Edgerton as Chief Justice of the Territory of Idaho, Sanders and his family moved to the new Idaho Territory as well. Edgerton advocated for splitting Idaho into two separate territories, and in 1864, Lincoln named him governor of the new Montana Territory. Edgerton returned to Ohio after a couple of years, but his nephew remained a Montana resident for the rest of his life. He was a lawyer and prosecutor in the early territorial days, and served in the territorial legislature. Sanders was the first President of the Montana Historical Society. When Montana became a state in 1889, Sanders was elected the first Senator from the new state. He died in 1905, in Helena (Lewis & Clark County, #5), and is buried in Forestvale Cemetery there. I can find no record of him ever living in the northwestern corner of the state that now bears his name, but six months prior to his death, a portion of Missoula County (#4) was taken to form the new Sanders County.
The Sanders County Courthouse
Thompson Falls, Montana
David Thompson, explorer and agent for the Hudson Bay Company, did spend a considerable amount of time in what we now call Sanders County. Thompson, who has been called "the greatest land geographer who ever lived," was born in London in 1770. At the age of fourteen, he entered an apprenticeship with the Hudson Bay Company, and left England for British North America. In 1807, in a British response to the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark), Thompson was sent into the Rocky Mountains and beyond to find a new route to the Pacific. Along the way he established the first trading posts west of the Rockies, including Saleesh House near the site of the Sanders County seat, which bears his name, Thompson Falls. In addition, his name can be found in the Thompson River, the Little Thompson River, Thompson Pass, all in Sanders County, and the Thompson Lakes chain in neighboring Lincoln County (#56). The native people of the area called Thompson Star-Looker, or Koo-Koo-Sint, now the name of a popular fishing access site on the Flathead River, approximately fifty miles upstream from Saleesh House and still in Sanders County. The name also has been applied to a Bighorn Sheep viewing site in Sanders County. ParksCanada has published a pamphlet titled The Koo-Koo-Sint Trail on Thompson's importance to the Pacific Northwest which is available as a pdf file.
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis)
Along Montana Highway 200
Koo-Koo-Sint Sheep Viewing Area
Today, some 11,000 people call Sanders County home (according to the 2010 U.S. Census), a population spread mostly through a narrow river valley that stretches some 115 miles along Montana Highway 200 from the Idaho state line just west of the town of Heron, Montana, to a few miles west of the town of Ravalli where 200 joins U.S. 93. Wikipedia's entry on Sanders County lists eleven cities, towns and census-designated places in the county, and eight of those can be found on or adjacent to Highway 200. The Northern Pacific Railroad (now the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe) came through the valley in the 1880s and brought thousands of workers to the area. The discovery of gold in the mountains south of the river (and across the state line in Idaho) brought thousands more, and two boomtown communities, Belknap west of Thompson Falls, and Weeksville, west of Plains, flourished at least temporarily. Today they are known mostly for a community store (Belknap) and a topographical feature (Weeksville Creek). The towns themselves are long gone.
The 1855 Treaty of Hellgate set aside a portion of Missoula County (#4) to form the Flathead Indian Reservation. With the formation of Sanders County, the western end of the reservation became part of the new county. Today the towns of Dixon and Hot Springs, and the communities of Old Agency, Niarada and Lonepine all remain part of both Sanders County and the Reservation. Hot Springs' Homesteaders' Days celebration each June honors the legacy of both the native people and the white homesteaders who came to the area following the opening of the Reservation in 1910.
The Clark Fork River at Thompson Falls
Hot Springs is so named because of the various springs that provide soothing warm (and yes, hot) water to various pools and plunges around the area. One of the best known is at the Symes Hotel, right in the middle of town. The Symes provides more than relaxing baths, however. Each weekend the Hot Springs Artists' Society presents live concerts on stage at the Symes. Quinn's Hot Springs Resort, approximately 30 miles south near the Sanders County town of Paradise, is home to the Montana Baroque Festival, a presentation of the Sanders County Arts Council.
The Flathead River
Near the community of Perma
Flathead Indian Reservation
The county's topography lends itself more to recreation than agriculture. According to city-data.com, the average sized farm in Sanders County is just 745 acres with an annual value of agricultural products sold per farm of $30,342. The mountains that cover most of the county provides miles upon miles of hiking trails, mountains to climb, streams to fish, and rivers to canoe. Montana's largest river (by volume) is the Clark Fork of the Columbia. It enters Sanders County from the south and flows in a generally northwestern direction till it crosses into Idaho five miles west of the town of Heron. Three dams block the flow of the Clark Fork River as it carries its water out of Montana: Cabinet Gorge at the Montana/Idaho state line; Noxon Rapids just upstream from the town of Noxon; and Thompson Falls within walking distance of the county court house. All three dams allow reservoirs to fill behind them, creating lake-like features that are popular for fishing and boating. One of the Clark Forks main tributaries is the Flathead River which enters the county from the north and flows almost due west to its confluence with the Clark Fork near the town of Paradise. Note that if you want to use the Flathead upstream of the Koo-Koo-Sint fishing access, you will need a tribal recreation permit unless you are an enrolled member of the Salish-Kootenai Tribes. It is worth mentioning that the ice dam that held Glacial Lake Missoula in place was near Cabinet Gorge on the state line at the western end of Sanders County.
That is wonderful
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