Submitted by Carl & Ada

Carl and Ada are the proprietors of the Addy Mercantile Store in historic Addy. In the early 1900's this building was known as the Inland Addy Dairy Creamery and they have offered to share this bit of history about Addy for our viewers to enjoy.

In 1890 George Seal and E.S. Dudrey arrived in Addy, formed a co-partnership, and opened a general mercantile store. In November 1890, a post office was established in the store. Seal submitted two names for the post office, "Silver Creek" and "Addy". The government accepted "Addy". "Addy" was Mrs. Dudrey's given name, and Mr. Dudrey was named as the postmaster of Addy.

Ice sheets (called Cordillera) covered from far north; cutting valleys formed the mountains and low terrain for the creek and rivers to run.

When the ice age surrendered, it left Addy with non-metallic rock material (marble, magnesium and Ferro silicon), that gave Addy an early industry.

Before the white man came, the already fertile valley found Addy inhabited by numerous Native Americans. The confluence of the Colville River and Indian Creek, just north of town, was a camping spot and meeting place used by the Native Americans during their travels up and down the valley.

The first white man to see Addy was an Englishman and one of the great explorers of the northwest, David Thompson. Thompson, a partner in the North West Company (later merged into the Hudson Bay company) explored, surveyed and mapped, with amazing accuracy, the vast territory from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean. He discovered the source of the Columbia River and surveyed its entire course of over 1200 miles.

On June 17, 1811, Thompson left Spokane House for Kettle Falls. It was a three-day journey by horseback along the "Old Indian Trail" that brought him through the Colville Valley and Addy. It was some 20 years after Thompson's trip up the valley that the first settlers came to the valley.

One of these settlers was a Hudson Bay man, Thomas Stensgar (pronounced Stranger). Stensgar came to old Fort Colville on the Columbia in the 1840's and soon afterwards settled at a point two miles north of the present town of Addy on the Old Indian Trail and began to grow hay and stock.

Though there is reported to have been a Hudson Bay outpost at this point, it is surmised that Thomas Stensgar was not only a farmer, but also an agent for the company that brought him from Scotland to this country.

At the present site of Addy there was a family named Chapman operating a small gristmill. They moved out in 1879, when their place was taken over by Gotlieb Fatzer, who operated the mill and also a large farm at the present village of Arden.

The first settler was Magnus Flett, in 1829. The next settler was Thomas Stensgar Sr., a native of Scotland and former employee of the Hudson Bay Company. This constituted all the settlers at this time (1876). But the actual "Father of Addy" was Gotlieb Fatzer, who owned a farm at Arden and gristmill at Addy.

He first lived at Addy with his wife. She was one of only five white women found north of the Spokane River and Arden in 1879. After her death, Fatzer moved permanently to Addy and ran his gristmill, which served both the Native Indians and settlers for miles around.

In February 1889, D.C. Corbin, A.A. Newburg and James Monaghan proposed a railroad through the Colville Valley, the Spokane Falls and Northern running from Spokane to Marcus, started that year. It was completed in 1890 and Addy took its first step towards becoming a community. With Fatzer's gristmill and the railroad, things were ready to happen. The railroad was the greatest boom to the community. During the years 1898, 1899, 1900 the famed Le Roi mine at Rossland, BC, was experiencing great activity and Addy became one of the principal shipping points on the railroad for produce to the mine. On January 23, 1893 he platted the town of Addy. The following year, high waters of the Colville River took his gristmill out.

Some of the business in Addy during the turn-of-the century were: Three general stores, meat market, millinery shop, drug store, blacksmith shop, two saloons, livery barn, two hotels, post office and a railroad depot. Also, three creameries operated in the thirties, Staeheli's, Co-op, and Inland Addy Dairy.

Always poor in fire protection, Addy suffered a series of fires. A couple fires destroyed the entire blocks and most buildings were never rebuilt.

In 1940 the old highway, which was Addy's Main Street, was moved to the East Side of town. Addy quietly let itself down and was content with the bus that had to come through the old part of town. Addy in the fifties and sixties was just Addy, not serving any big cause, just a nice place to live. Addy today is the Addy of yesteryear, bidding its hopes on a bright future, which is brighter than most communities of its stature.

Mrs. Dudrey

Gotleib Fatzer "Father of Addy"