Nez Perce Trail

The trail is remembered for a murder. In October 1863 Lloyd Magruder, an Elk City merchant, was coming home this way from selling goods in the Montana camps when men who had joined his party killed him and four companions with axes and guns as they camped near the Selway. His friend Hill Beachy, a Lewiston innkeeper, tracked the killers to San Francisco and brought them back; their hanging at Lewiston in March 1864 was the first legal execution in Idaho Territory. The 1934 road became the Magruder Corridor, set between two wildernesses in 1980.

What the plaque says

Nez Perce Trail An old Indian trail connected Elk City with mines in Montana when Idaho's gold rush spread there in 1862. Following a route developed by Nez Perce buffalo hunters, a host of miners and packers ascended a series of ridges overlooking deep Salmon and Clearwater river canyons on their way to new gold fields. Long after local Indians and miners ceased to travel there, a single lane forest road was constructed near that traditional Nez Perce thoroughfare in 1934. 369 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Elk City — steps away
• Buffalo Pit — 2.0 mi