From Little Falls to Major Power Producer: A Brief History of the Post Falls Dam The Post Falls Dam has stoically served North Idaho for over 100 years and is arguably one of the greatest social and geographical influences in the region today. To appreciate the history of the dam, it is important to start at the beginning, before the dam was built, even before there was a Spokane River or a Lake Coeur d’Alene. Before Lake Coeur d’Alene existed, the St. Joe River ran through the present lakebed
the Dakota and Idaho territories, and before Lewis and Clark traveled through region on their way to the Pacific, Montana was inhabited by seven Indian tribes. On the Great Plains, there were the Blackfoot Indians, the Crow Indians, the Assiniboine Indians, and the Northern Cheyenne Indians. In the Rocky Mountains, the three main tribes were the Salish Indians, Kootenai Indians, and Pend d’Oreilles (pond-oray) Indians which would later makeup of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead