If you give directions in downtown Post Falls, you probably use his family without thinking about it. Turn on Frederick Street. Meet at Fourth Avenue and William Street. Head over toward Henry Street. In its Winter 2021 newsletter, the Post Falls Historical Society pointed out that Frederick Street, Post Street, William Street and Henry Street all have connections to city founder Frederick Post and his family, and those connections reach back to the falls where the town began.
Frederick Post came to the Spokane River in 1871 and recognized the water power at the falls, then known as the Little Falls or the Upper Falls. His sawmill was finished in 1880, and the settlement that grew beside it took his name. During the 1880s, according to Robert Singletary's history of Kootenai County for the Museum of North Idaho, Post laid out some four miles of city lots on the north bank of the Spokane River. A town was taking shape on paper as well as on the ground, and Post Falls was incorporated on May 28, 1891.
When he named the new streets, Post kept them in the family. Singletary records that he included a Frederick Street named for himself and William and Henry Streets named for his brothers. The Historical Society put it the same way: Post left his name directly on Post Street and Frederick Street, and the names of his brothers on William and Henry Streets have been verified by family members. The Society also noted that his sister Catherine's name may be part of the street names as well.
The family behind those signs had come a long way together. The Posts immigrated to the United States in the late 1840s and early 1850s, settling in Kendall and DeKalb counties in Illinois. William Post, who lived from 1816 to 1889, was the father of Frederick Post's nephew Adolph W. Post, who lived in Rathdrum and served as a justice of the peace and a United States land commissioner. William Post and his wife are buried in Kendall County, Illinois, where they farmed. Family research published by the Society gives Henry's full name as Johannes Heinrich Post, born about 1815 in Schoenback, near Herborn in Germany.
Those street names still do daily work. The Samuel and Ann Young House, built about 1900, stands at the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Frederick Street and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The joined church buildings that became the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center stand at Fourth Avenue and William Street. In the summer of 2021, Frederick Post's great-great-great grandniece Alice Post Amspoker visited from Santa Barbara, California, and wrote to the Historical Society that she was sure Frederick would be utterly surprised and delighted by what the town has done to preserve his legacy. She did not have to look far for proof. His name, and his brothers' names, are still on the map he drew beside the falls.
- Log in to post comments