When the Old Ways Became the Only Way

 

How Gary McAllister saved Pack Saddle by returning to his father’s “obsolete” pack trains There’s an irony at the heart of 1920s Idaho: the world kept telling people the pack train was dead while the mountains kept needing one. Trucks, rail, and roadbuilding pushed progress into valley towns, but steep passes, dense timber, and snow-choked trails didn’t read the newspapers. Where roads failed, pack strings still worked. Idaho State Historical Society+1 The practical truth By the mid-1920s, the headlines hailed motor freight and paved highways. In practice, however, steep canyons, high ridges, and foot trails left whole pockets of North Idaho beyond the reach of wheels. Mines, logging camps, isolated lodges, and Forest Service lookouts still relied on packers to move everything from flour and nails to stoves and radios. The pack train wasn’t nostalgia — it was logistics. NPS History+1 Why pack trains still mattered • Terrain: Some trails climbed where trucks couldn’t go and where even modest roads turned to mud in spring. The mule or horse simply kept going. NPS History • Customers: Mining and logging camps, remote lodges, and ranger stations needed regular supplies—often the only way to get them was by pack string. Idaho State Historical Society+1 • Government work: The U.S. Forest Service contracted private pack outfits for firefighting, construction of backcountry ranger stations, and resupply of lookouts. Those contracts kept many packers in business. NPS History Where this shows up on the map If you want concrete examples from North Idaho, the Priest Lake / Coolin area and the Selway country are full of photographs and records of pack trains operating in the 1910s–1930s and beyond—pack strings watering at Beaver Creek and leaving Coolin, Forest Service remount and packing operations, and supply runs to remote ranger stations appear repeatedly in local archives. These are the kinds of places Gary’s father, Jeremiah, served — and the same geography is what made pack hauling a lifeline for the region. University of Idaho Library+2University of Idaho Library+2 Gary’s choice: practical, not romantic

Jeremiah McAllister once ran pack trains profitably and then traded the string of mules for cattle and a dream: build Pack Saddle into a working ranch. He poured the profits into that dream. When debt and drought nearly swallowed the ranch, Gary faces a choice that isn’t dramatic so much as necessary: double down on a dream that’s running out of time, or revive the work that once fed the family.

Gary chooses survival through a kind of stubborn practicality. He returns to hauling supplies for logging camps, mining outfits, and remote Forest Service stations—the very customers who still needed packers. It’s not a sentimental revival; it’s an economy. It’s how he keeps the mortgage from taking the house Jeremiah built. The work, in short Packing in 1927 was hard, unglamorous labor: pre-dawn loads, balancing 150–200 pound packs in a diamond hitch, walking long trails, watching animals and weather, and unloading where conditions were often worse than the trail. When work was steady, the pay could be decent; when it wasn’t, a lame mule or a week of weather could stop everything. Those practical limits mattered more than any talk of “progress.” NPS History+1 The bittersweet irony There’s a painful poetry in the fact that an “obsolete” trade becomes the ranch’s lifeline. The same mountains that made pack trains seem old-fashioned are what kept them indispensable. Gary’s return to the string doesn’t erase his father’s dream; it preserves the ranch long enough for other choices to be made. The old skill set lives on, not as a museum piece but as a tool for survival. Why this matters to the reader When you follow Gary on his first supply runs, you’re not reading a romantic adventure—you’re feeling the real weight of work that keeps families fed and remote communities alive. The pack train in this story is both a lament for a fading way of life and a testament to practical ingenuity: the willingness to do the work that actually meets a need, rather than the work you wish the world required. If you want to know more about pack trains: • Pack Trains — Idaho State Historical Society. A concise overview of pack-train roles and where they remained important. Idaho State Historical Society • History of Packing in Idaho’s Selway Country — Nez Perce/ Clearwater USFS (Cindy Schacher). Detailed Forest Service history of remount and packing operations, contracts, and longevity into the 20th century. NPS History • University of Idaho Special Collections — Priest Lake photographic collections showing pack trains around Coolin, Beaver Creek, and Priest Lake (1910s–1930s). Good local visual evidence for the region you’re using. University of Idaho Library+1

The Woolsey Saga  And more I've been sharing my newest trilogy, The Pack Saddle Ranch, but if you've already read Until We Meet Again and The Rancher's Healing, check out the Woolsey Saga and other books on my authors page while you patiently wait for me to finish book two in the Pack Saddle trilogy. Button

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