Just at sunset 102 years ago yesterday, Wilbur Bassett, a carpenter by trade, dipped a gold pan into a prospect hole he had sunk in the waters of Orofino Creek at Canal Gulch near the present town of Pierce. When he brought the pan back out he saw gold shimmering in the dirt and sand — about 3 cents worth.

That was the start of the north central Idaho gold rush which led to the founding of Lewiston the next year.

Bassett was a member of a party led by Capt. E. D. Pierce, a wandering Irish horse trader and prospector. After a few days of prospecting, members of the Pierce party pulled stakes and returned to their base at Walla Walla for supplies. That winter some of them but not Pierce, returned to wait for spring and the promise of a fortune in gold.

The spring of 1861 saw the founding of Lewiston when the steamer Colonel Wright arrived at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers May 13 with a load of miners. Most of them hurried toward the “diggins.” Those who remained started a town.

This story was published in the Oct. 1, 1962, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.