Can you imagine mammoths walking the streets of Grangeville? Before Sept. 2, 1994, no one else could either. But on that date, a heavy equipment operator for Prairie Land and Timber, found a "big bone" when he was digging in Tolo Lake. That . . . — — Map (db m141309) HM
Named for the blue flowering camas -- an important root food for all interior Northwestern Indians -- Camas Prairie is a traditional Nez Perce cultural center. Tolo Lake -- visible below -- provided a campground for Joseph’s Wallowa band and . . . — — Map (db m121138) HM
(Three panels outline the history of Tolo Lake)
The Nez Perce name for this lake is Tipahxlee’whum (Tepahlewam or Split Rocks). In early June 1877, five bands of Nimiipuu gathered here for their last taste of freedom before . . . — — Map (db m121267) HM
During the decade following the discovery of gold in the California mill race in 1848, restless bands of prospectors, lured by the hope of sudden wealth, arrived in what is now north-central Idaho. In 1860, gold was discovered on Canal Gulch of Oro . . . — — Map (db m141251) HM
Grangeville owes its origin to members of the Charity Grange #15, Patrons of Husbandry, organized in Mount Idaho in 1874. John M. Crooks, owner of a 600-acre ranch on Three Mile Creek, gave the Grangers land for a hall, an additional five acres, and . . . — — Map (db m141247) HM
Near the base of this hill, over 100 cavalrymen and volunteers met disaster in the opening battle of The Nez Perce War.
Rushing from Grangeville on the evening of June 16, 1877, Captain David Perry planned to stop the Indians from . . . — — Map (db m4643) HM
For thousands of years, Nimiipuu, or Nez Perce ancestors migrated between forest, river, and prairie environments, harvesting the resources as they came available with the passing seasons.
Seasonal Round
The Nimiipuu daily rhythms and . . . — — Map (db m121270) HM
The steam engine before you saw many years of service to agriculture and lumbering here on the Camas Prairie at the turn of the 20th century.
In the 1920s the City of Grangeville used a steam engine like this with a roller in front instead of . . . — — Map (db m121269) HM
Before the continent was called America, before settlers came looking for land, the Nez Perce people lived and traveled throughout a vast area we now know as Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. They lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, following the growing . . . — — Map (db m141249) HM
Look Up!
You're looking up at a full-size replica of the skeleton of a male Columbian mammoth. Mammoths are related to modern Asian elephants. Males stood up to 14 feet tall at the shoulders and may have weighed 10 tons. Females were . . . — — Map (db m141310) HM
Homesteaders flocked to the Camas Prairie in the early 1900s. Lured by the rolling, fertile land, John, Jake, and Gib Eimers, brought their hopes and dreams to Grangeville from Albion, Illinois. Soon after, sisters Elsie Eimers Bunting, Helen . . . — — Map (db m141254) HM
War has a way of making heroes and heroines of ordinary mortals. To some, Tolo, a Nez Perce Indian woman, was never ordinary. Her given name was Alab-lemot but because she loved to gamble, she was called Tolo which means "win" in the Chinook tongue. . . . — — Map (db m141246) HM
