A short history of Genesee
From Nez Perce homeland to homestead country, and from a railroad boomtown to the farm community it is today.
- Time immemorial
The Palouse hills are homeland of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people, who hunted, gathered camas and traveled through the Cow Creek country long before American settlement.
- 1863
A new treaty sharply reduces the Nez Perce Reservation, opening the land around present-day Genesee to non-Native settlement. Most Nez Perce bands never agreed to it.
- 1870
John P. Vollmer, Alonzo Leland and a railroad agent named Stone ride up Cow Creek from Lewiston. Stone says the valley reminds him of his home in New York’s Genesee Valley, and the name sticks.
- 1870–71
The first land surveys are completed and homesteaders arrive. The Genesee area becomes one of the first places in what is now Latah County to be permanently settled.
- 1879
The original town, now called Old Town, is platted along Cow Creek.
- 1888
Vollmer and his partners bring the Spokane & Palouse Railway (soon part of the Northern Pacific) to Genesee. Because they cannot get right-of-way through Old Town, Vollmer plats a new town site about a mile west. The first train arrives on July 1, 1888, and businesses move to “New Town.”
- 1889
Genesee is incorporated as a city on October 23, 1889, the year before Idaho becomes a state.
- 1890
New Town has more than 1,000 residents. As the end of the line, Genesee is the main shipping point for grain, livestock and fruit from as far south as Grangeville.
- 20th century
As the railroad pushes on and highways replace rail, Genesee settles into life as a farm town and a quiet home for families working in Moscow, Pullman and Lewiston.
- Today
About a thousand people call Genesee home. The town keeps its K–12 school, its churches and civic clubs, and its June Community Days, a tradition more than sixty years old.
Dig deeper
- Latah County Historical Society keeps photographs, oral histories and records from across the county.
- University of Idaho Library Digital Collections hold early photographs of Genesee.
- Latah County IDGenWeb has transcribed county histories from 1914 and 1920.
Have family photos of Genesee? Share them in the gallery under “Historic photos,” or get in touch if you have stories to tell.