Bonners Ferry Wedding

Bonners Ferry is a city in Boundary County, Idaho, United States. The population was 2,515 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Boundary CountyGR6.

When gold was discovered in the East Kootenays of British Columbia in 1863, thousands of prospectors from all over the West surged northward over a route that became known as the Wildhorse Trail. Edwin Bonner, an enterprising merchant from Walla Walla, Washington, established a ferry in 1864 where the trail crossed the broad Kootenai River. In 1875 Richard Fry leased the business, but the location retained the name of the original founder and later became the town of Bonners Ferry.

Before the gold rush, only a few visitors had come to the region. One of the first was explorer David Thompson, a cartographer for the Northwest Trading Company. Thompson and four fellow fur traders arrived in 1808 to trade with the Lower Kootenais. He was followed in 1846 by Jesuit Priest Father DeSmet, a missionary to the Kootenai Tribe. Government surveyors of the Boundary Commission came in 1858 to establish the border between the United States and Canada.