Long before the first Europeans came to Whitefish, native American tribes inhabited the area, most notably the Kootenai, the Pend d’Oreille, and the Bitterroot Salish. The Kootenai lived in the area for more than 14,000 years, inhabiting the mountainous terrain west of the Continental Divide, and traveled east of the divide for occasional buffalo hunts. Though trappers, traders, and waves of westward immigrants passed through the area during the second half of the century, it wasn’t until 1883 that the first permanent settler, John Morton built a cabin on the shore of Whitefish Lake, just west of the mouth of the Whitefish River. Morton was joined by the local logging industry forefathers—including the Baker and Hutchinson brothers—in the early 1890s. Logging crews “boomed-up” their logs behind a dam built at the river mouth by the Boston & Montana Commercial Company, which, when opened, created a rush of water that helped float the logs down the river to Kalispell.