The historical corona of the "Spokane Country," rife with romance and intrigue, truly shines brightly. It outshines most areas of the world because the Inland Empire was the last section of the North American continent to come under the control and development of a single modern imperialistic nation. This tardy development came about because the Inland Empire was ringed by formidable mountain ranges, difficult to penetrate-The Rocky Mountains to the eat, to the north the Selkirks, the Cascades on the west the the Blue Mountains on the southern rim.Geographical remoteness set the stage for the most interesting historical dramas possible. The isolation retarded the rapid influx of agricultural settlers, elsewhere often a rather prosaic over-night affair, and instead, forced an unusually long and exciting period of human-interest events involving fiercely resisting Indians, rugged explorers, freedom loving fur traders, missionaries, prospectors, miners, soldiers, cattle and sheep raisers, adventurers, surveyors and railroad builders, all of whom, for six or seven decades, were permitted to operate in a wild romantic land, uncluttered with white populations