The next few years saw the opening of the First National Bank of Harrison, the Opera House, various drug, grocery, hardware, furniture, clothing & jewelry stores along with tailoring, blacksmithing and shoemaker shops, and restaurants, hotels and a hospital. For a time around the turn of the century, Harrison was the largest town in Kootenai County; the city directory in 1911 reported a population of 1,250. Harrison's growth was a result of the development of eight or more sawmills & box factories. With the mills and woods jobs, approx. 280 men were employed with a combined monthly payroll around $25,000. Millions of board feet of timber were stored in the lake at Harrison. Lake Coeur d’Alene and the St.Joe and Coeur d’Alene rivers were the major transportation routes for timber coming out of the areas forests.