Spokane House

Spokane House
Fur Trade Outpost
Log structure at Spokane House
Constructed:	1810
Company built:	North West Company
Location:	Nine Mile Falls, Washington
Continent:	North America
Later Ownership:	1821, Hudson's Bay Company
Abandoned:	1826

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, the North West Company's farthest outpost in the Columbia River region was the first ever non-Indigenous settlement in the Pacific Northwest (South of present-day 49 degree latitude border). Prior to the arrival of the white traders, the site of what would become Spokane House was a gathering place for area tribes who came to catch and dry salmon, which contributed to its development as a trading post.^[1]

An American rival of the NWC, the Pacific Fur Company opened a station adjacent to Spokane House, called Fort Spokane. The War of 1812 and ongoing supply issues caused the collapse of the PFC, with its posts now under the control of the NWC. The original Spokane House was abandoned in favor of Fort Spokane, though the latter location was still called Spokane House. The second Spokane House saw use as a major post in the interior Oregon Country until the NWC was absorbed by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.

During a general tour of the Pacific Northwest, Spokane House was abandoned by George Simpson in 1825, in favor of a new post that became Fort Colvile. The site of Spokane House is in Spokane County in the U.S. state of Washington, just northwest of the city of Spokane in the community of Nine Mile Falls.