Clark Fork, ID

Clark Fork grew in the 1880s as the Northern Pacific Railroad pushed through the Bitterroot and Cabinet Mountains, and the town still sits along the Clark Fork River a few miles from Lake Pend Oreille. Rail work, mining, logging, sawmills, farming, and Forest Service activity all shaped the community before it incorporated in 1911. The river crossing mattered too: steamboats carried miners toward the Kootenai gold rush, and the railroad kept a station and section crew here for years. These days Clark Fork is best read through the water and the old transportation routes, with the lake, river, and northern Idaho mountain country doing most of the work.