Designed to connect the Missouri and the Columbia, this military wagon road was constructed past here in 1859. Swamps in the St. Joe valley had to be corduroyed with logs, and 70 men spent a week digging out sidehills south of here and chopping through 3 miles of forest. But after all that work, spring floods made the route impossible. Two years later, Mullan had to survey and build a new section of his road around the north of Coeur d'Alene lake.