was a short line railroad in northern
Idaho owned and operated by
Northern Pacific Railway and
Union Pacific Railroad . The Camas Prairie Railroad was known as the "railroad on stilts" due to the many trestles. In one five mile stretch, there are more than a dozen trestles. The CPR was a remnant of the great railroad wars in the 19th and 20th century, when the Harriman and the Hill were fighting over this whole inland area to see who could get the most rails into the Pacific Northwest. They called it “the war” and the Camas Prairie Railroad was the result of that war and in many ways the end of the war. In the end, the railroads cooperated to build the Camas Prairie Railroad. The Camas Prairie railroad was built to tap the rolling, fertile hills of the
Palouse prairie, as well as the more southerly
Camas Prairie and the forested hills and canyonlands of the area's rivers.
