Correspondent Rover: Business Lull in Lewiston, but Future Prospects Great

On May 24, 1863, correspondent “Rover” sat down in Lewiston, Idaho Territory, and penned another long letter to the Evening Bulletin in San Francisco, California. He wrote, “Business continues dull in this city. A stranger would suppose, from the large amount of freight landed here by the steamers each week, that an immense business was done; but such is not the case.”

“Freights are now very cheap,” he said, because of the steamboat competition he had noted in his letter of April 12. Thus, mer...