Treaty Rock

Just a few feet behind a ramshackle apartment building in Post Falls, Idaho is the transcript of one of the first agreements between the powerful Coeur d’Alene tribe and early settlers in northern Idaho.

In June of 1871 chief Seltice of the Coeur d’Alene and settler Frederick Post concluded an agreement: Post would be granted 200 acres of Coeur d’Alene land to build a sawmill, in exchange for which he would provide processed lumber to the tribe. The agreement between Seltice and Post was painted on what has since become known as “treaty rock” (historians are unclear if it was done as a record of the contract or in a later commemoration). According to one source, Post Falls’ treaty rock may be the only place in the United States where a compact with a Native tribe was signed on rock. 

The inscription on Treaty Rock is protected from vandals by a sheet of plexiglass. In 2012 three interpretive signs were placed at the site of the rock to tell the story of the Seltice-Post agreement.