The Corps of Discovery reached the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers on October 10, 1805.
In his map of the site, William Clark included a small island he observed "at the point of union" of the channels.
The island appeared from time to time in early panoramic photographs of the valley and its rivers.
David Christian Hirzel claimed squatter's rights to the island on August 27, 1904, and erected a house and outlying buildings to replace a small shack said to have been found there when he arrived.
On June 21, 1911, Hirzel applied to the local General Land Office for a survey of the one-and-a-half acre property to validate a claim under the Homestead Act.
His application was rejected in March 1912 on the grounds that the island was not a permanent feature.
Hirzel appealed.
Edson Briggs, who had worked as a local surveyor since May 1873, testified that "the island has existed until the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."
Again, the claim was rejected, and the Northern Pacific Railway entered the story.
The company sued Hirzel in the district court to obtain a quiet title to the island. The court ruled that "said sandbar is not of the class of land of which the United States takes recognition as agricultural land or an island within the river, for the purpose
of having a survey made thereof."
The case was appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court in 1916, pitting the City of Lewiston, Hirzel and the railroad against one another.
Again, the justices declared that the island "contained no land proper, nor anything other than river bed material."
Although victorious, Northern Pacific decided not to press the matter further, citing that Hirzel was "getting older."
In June 1917, Hirzel was back in court.
Idaho had gone "dry" in 1915.
Nez Perce County officials contended that he was making "cider that contains a percentage of alcohol that makes the sale or possession of the same a violation of the prohibition law."
Hirzel had been brewing the hard cider on the island for four years and had developed quite a market in the city. He often spoke of converting the island into an amusement park.
For many years during the annual spring runoff, hundreds of residents lined the railing of the old interstate bridge, all of them predicting when the house and buildings would be swept away.
In 1910 and 1918 water rose to the second floor of the home, but Hirzel made repairs and stayed until September 1932, when the old house burned.
His health soon began to fail, and he died on January 4, 1933, in the county rest home.
In October 1959, the Bureau of Land Management
ruled that the island was indeed public land, subject to survey and disposal by the federal government.
"The man on the island" had been right all along.
Hirzel Island was permanently inundated in 1975 when the Army Corps of Engineers filled the pool behind Lower Granite Dam.
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