What do you do with a drunken soldier? Park historians are unsure what this metal-lidded hole in the ground was used for, but some say “the box” was a punishment for soldiers who broke the rules.

Fort Spokane, like any other military fort at the time, was a structured place where officers and enlisted men practiced drills and kept the peace. During their time off, the soldiers were free to get in trouble, and with a brewery just up the hill, drunkenness was the most common offense. Discipline was an important aspect of life at the fort. Punishments were often both physically painful and humiliating for the soldiers.

Once a soldier was accused he could expect to face a court martial, which was the most common punishment given at Fort Spokane. If further punishment was needed the soldier would then be sentenced to his fate. One punishment was called bucking and gagging: a soldier would be forced to sit with his hands tied under his legs and his feet bound, and a stick would be placed in his mouth. Other methods of punishment included forcing soldiers to stand on barrels, sit on a wooden mule or horse, or even be branded with a hot iron. Another severe punishment that may have occurred at Fort Spokane was known as “the box.”

The box was a device that was commonly used in areas of high humidity or extreme heat. Soldiers were confined in a tight, poorly ventilated space. Pits in the ground that are extremely similar to this one have been identified as punishment boxes at other Army forts from this era.

Effects that the box would have on its victims include; heat exhaustion, dehydration, difficulty breathing which could lead to suffocation, and if left in the box long enough, even death. The box was also known as the “punishment box” or the “dog house.” The general idea of the “box” was to deprive its victims of the ability to move and isolate them in darkness in order to force them to conform to regulations.

Is this hole in the ground in front of a you a 100-year-old punishment pit? The size and shape of the pit suggest that it is. On the other hand, the location of the pit close to the officer's quarters would argue against it, and the relatively few surviving documents from the fort do not mention it. The vault may instead be the remains of a drainage or sewer system. Which do you think it was?

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How Meyers Falls became Kettle Falls.

In 1862 Louther Meyers arrived in Colville Valley from his home in New York state, determined to make his fortune in the west. He worked as a carpenter for homesteaders and at a flour mill on the Little Pend Oreille River near the village of Hart. By 1869, he was able to send his wife $700 dollars that he had earned so that she and their two sons could join him in the Washington territory. They settled down near what became known as Meyers Falls. Meyers owned and operated a sawmill and gristmill and operated a trading post in the fledgling community.

In 1890, the town of Meyers Falls benefited from a new railroad that ran through the town. Meyers built a bridge over the Colville River in the same place where the newer one stands today. Businesses such as stores, barber shops, pool halls, hotels, and others started to fill the town. Promotional fliers circulated to encourage people to move to Meyer Falls; describing the Meyers Falls Valley as an area of peace and beauty.

In 1942, near the end of the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, the town of Kettle Falls was forced to relocate due to the rising waters in the reservoir. The residents of Kettle Falls, the largest city in the county, took over parts of Meyers Falls and began to move their homes and businesses to the new location, safely above the rising waters. Both of the small towns grew to become what is today Kettle Falls.

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From Boarding School to a University Scholarship

Bertha Finley Brisbois was born in 1890, on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Her father, John Finley, was a Flathead from Montana and her mother, Annie Lafleur, was Spokane. Bertha was one of the children taken to the Fort Spokane Indian Boarding School, where she would have learned the usual curriculum of the English language, Christianity, and domestic skills such as cooking and sewing.

In 1914 Bertha married Nazaire Richard "Dick" Brisbois, and together they started a family. Perhaps it was her time at the boarding school that encouraged Bertha to develop schooling opportunities closer to home for her own children and those of the reservation. She was responsible for the founding of the first two public schools on the Spokane reservation in the 1930s. A key reason being that before the schools were open on the reservation children had to travel to Oregon to receive an education. Bertha wanted to keep them close to home.

Bertha died in 1944, but the Brisbois children went on the accomplish great things. Joseph Oliver Brisbois joined the Army and flew 85 missions as a turret gunner on a B-25 bomber during World War II. This was an impressive feat since 25 missions granted you a ticket home and 50 missions was considered a miracle.

In 1987, Bertha’s children and grandchildren set up a memorial Scholarship at Eastern Washington University, which is meant for students from the Spokane tribe that would attend EWU’s college of Science and Technology.

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