Kullyspell House (also spelled Kullyspel House) was a fur trading post established in 1809 on

Lake Pend Oreille Lake Pend Oreille ( ) in the northern Idaho Panhandle is the largest lake in the U.S. state of Idaho and the 38th-largest lake by area in the United States, with a surface area of . It is long, and deep in some regions, making it the fifth-dee ...

in what is now

North Idaho The Idaho Panhandle—locally known as North Idaho—is a salient region of the U.S. state of Idaho encompassing the state's 10 northernmost counties: Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and S ...

. It was built by Finan McDonald under the direction of David Thompson of the

North West Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...

. The post was located on the northeast shore of the lake on the Hope Peninsula, near the mouth of the Clark Fork river, just southeast of present-day

Hope, Idaho Hope is a city in Bonner County, Idaho, United States. The population was 86 at the 2010 census.Sp ...

.A Brief History of Bonner County
, Bonner County Historical Society

On the 11th of September 1809 we made a scaffold to secure the provisions and goods, helved our Tools Ready to commence building; our first care was a strong Log building for the Goods and Furrs, and fur trading with the Natives. ... On the 23rd we had finished the Store House. To make the roof as tight as possible, which was covered with small Logs, we cut long grass and work (ed) it up with mud, and filled up the intervals of the small logs which answered tolerable well for Rain, but the Snow in melting found many a passage; in this manner we also builded our dwelling House; and roofed it, the floors were of split Logs, with the round side downwards ... our Chimneys were made of stone and mud rudely worked for about six feet in height and eighteen inches thick ... the fireplace is raised a little, and three to four feet in width.

Soon after establishing Kullyspell House Thompson set up two other trading posts in the region,

Saleesh House Saleesh House, also known as Flathead Post, was a North West Company fur trading post built near present-day Thompson Falls, Montana in 1809 by David Thompson and James McMillan of the North West Company. It became a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) pos ...

and

Spokane House Spokane House was a fur-trading post founded in 1810 by the British-Canadian North West Company, located on a peninsula where the Spokane River and Little Spokane River meet. When established, it was the North West Company's farthest outpost in th ...

. Being off the main line of travel between these posts, Kullyspell House was abandoned in 1811. One source states that the two stone chimneys "remained standing for 87 years until they were toppled by a windstorm." The city of Kalispell, in nearby Montana, now bears a respelling of the name. Kullyspel was David Thompson's spelling of the name the local indigenous people called themselves. Today they are known as the

Pend d'Oreilles The Pend d'Oreille ( ), also known as the Kalispel (), are Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. Today many of them live in Montana and eastern Washington of the United States. The Kalispel peoples referred to their primary tribal range a ...

tribe.

References

Histor

Fur trader David Thompson explores the Pend Oreille River in September and October 1809.David Thompson's narrative, 1784-1812 (Kootenay River, McGillivray River, 1808, p.280)(Kullyspell House 1809, p.296).
{{coord, 48.22037, -116.26687, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-ID, display=title Buildings and structures in Bonner County, Idaho Commercial buildings in Idaho Fur trade Trading posts in the United States Pre-statehood history of Idaho Pre-statehood history of Montana History of the Pacific Northwest North West Company Oregon Country Commercial buildings completed in 1809 1809 establishments in the United States 1811 disestablishments in the United States

References

Further reading