In the late 1800s, Everett L. Sliter, a Michigan-born man, was living in Helena, MT. He was working for the railroad when he decided to take a trip north. When Sliter arrived, he found that the lakes and rivers were full of healthy trout and the mountains with endless amounts of game for hunting. Everett Sliter had just discovered the Flathead Valley and his new home. He purchased 140 acres on the north end of Flathead Lake for just shy of $1,400 and married a woman named Lizzy Osborn. Together they planted an orchard of 500 various kinds of fruit trees, later growing to 4000. The pair then built a 15-room hotel, a general store, and a post office where Sliter served as the first postmaster. He filed a plat with the Flathead County Courthouse in Kalispell in 1902 for 11 blocks and 94 lots, creating the charming town we live in today. 

Around the time that Sliter was establishing Bigfork, another man named Lafayette Tinkel had dreams of creating a hydroelectric power plant. He planned on using the Swan River to power two 180-watt turbines to produce electricity. This was virtually unheard of at the time and many thought his ideas were out there. He built the initial power plant even before the downtown bridge was built.  It wasn’t until 10 years later, in 1911, that it was constructed, another huge feat accomplished as it still stands today. The energy generated from the turbines ran into makeshift power lines along what is now appropriately named Electric Avenue. Nowadays the energy created by the river flows right into the grid.