Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

James Monaghan turned 75, and the paper celebrated that fact by telling the life story of the man it called the region’s “oldest living white settler.”

Monaghan first came to the region in 1860, working on the Col. Wright, one of the earliest steamboats on the upper Columbia River. He then settled on the Spokane River, planted an orchard and worked on a ferry 21 miles downstream of the Spokane Falls.

In 1865 or 1866, Monaghan bought out his employer and built a toll bridge across the Spokane River.

Monaghan later went to Walla Walla, then Chewelah, then Colville and then Chelan.

He finally returned to Fort Spokane, at the mouth of the Spokane River, and served as postmaster and post trader from 1882 to 1885. He and Clem King were later credited with “building the first privately owned boat on Lake Coeur d’Alene, running from Coeur d’Alene City to old Mission during the gold excitement on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene.”

He finally came to the city of Spokane in 1887 and had lived there ever since. Of all the city’s living residents – at least its living white residents – there was “not one eye that looked upon the flowing water of the Spokane” earlier than Monaghan did.