The History of the Kamiah Hotel Bar & Steakhouse…

Origins of the building we know today.

The original Kamiah Hotel named “Hotel Kamiah” was built by the Pomeroy family in 1899. One year later in 1900 the Hotel Kamiah was moved by four teams of horses from the mouth of Lawyers creek to a new location at “Old Town”. This area is where the current Kamiah Feed Store is located on the banks of the Clearwater River. After burning down sometime between 1900 & 1910, the current brick rendition of the Hotel Kamiah was built in 1910 by F.F Pomeroy at its current site. The Kamiah Hotel Bar and Steakhouse has been standing prominently in the middle of Kamiah for over one hundred years.

Who was the Pomeroy family that built Hotel Kamiah?

Francis Franklin Pomeroy, known as “F.F.” was born on April 24th, 1849 in Forest Grove, Oregon. His parents, Franklin and Mary Pomeroy were Oregon pioneers that arrived in Forest Grove in 1845. Franklin and Mary left St. Joseph, MO as part of the “Oregon Emigrating Company” with their daughter Lydia (born in 1844 in St. Joseph).

While still in Forest Grove, the next child named Wealthy Ann was born into the family on January 5th, 1847. Shortly after, gold was discovered in California and Franklin Pomeroy was off to make a fortune for his family. According to stories told to reporters by his son, Franklin was walking out of the gold fields of the Feather River with bags of gold tied to his donkeys when he was robbed and killed in 1848. When vigilantes caught up with the thieves, they were immediately hung in “Hangtown” which we now know as Placerville, California. Unfortunately none of the gold was recovered from the robbery and Francis Franklin “FF” Pomeroy was born posthumous in April 24th. By the 1860 census, his mother had also died and the three Pomeroy children were staying with neighbors and relatives.

Although Francis Franklin lived in Southern Oregon for a while he returned to Forest Grove, OR where on December 1, 1870 he married Rebecca Jane Jobe at the home of her parents, Noah Jobe (Job) and Lydia Garwood. Noah Jobe came to OR from MO in 1845 as well; he fought in the Cayuse war in Oregon in 1847/48 and was a farmer near Hillsboro, Oregon. He and Lydia lived on their Donation Land Claim No. 876 all of their married lives. Lydia Garwood Jobe came to OR with her family in 1850 and Rebecca, the oldest of 7 children, was born on the Donation Land Claim on March 15, 1852. In his later years, Noah spent much of his time in Kamiah with Rebecca and her family. He responded to an inquiry about his Cayuse war years from there, using the Kamiah Hotel stationary. It was there also, that he died in August of 1905. He was buried in the Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery in Oregon next to Rebecca's mother, Lydia.

F. F. and Rebecca's second son, John, had gone to the Idaho Territory that was in the Clearwater branch of the N.P. Railroad. Shortly after that, the families land in Washington County, Oregon, was sold and the remaining Pomeroy family moved to Lewiston, Idaho October of 1898. In 1899, they moved to Kamiah in the Idaho territory and it was here that F.F. and Rebecca opened the first Kamiah Hotel.

F. F. ' s obituary (The Kamiah Progress, 10 Jun 1937) states that the first hotel was located "near the present site of the home of the late Harry Hayes in the Indian village." The obituary goes on to say that the Hotel was moved to the new village near the depot until the Kamiah town site was opened where F.F. built the new hotel at it’s current site. The Pomeroy's daughter, Lulu, owned the Hotel at the time of F.F.'s death in 1937.

F.F. and Rebecca's son, John Pomeroy, opened the Kamiah Hardware Store and he became a prominent Kamiah businessman in his own right. Another son, Charles, worked for the stagecoach and railroad lines and married Inez Shawley whose father, William F. Shawley, was a well-known doctor of the Nezperce area. Charles was killed in an accident in 1924 and the third son, Edgar Pomeroy, left the Kamiah area. Ida, the oldest daughter, moved to Portland, Oregon where her husband, James Ryan, ran a grocery store. Nellie, the youngest daughter of the family, went to Moscow, ID to attend classes at the University of Idaho, after which she taught school in Kidder, ID for a year. She then spent a year in the Philippines as a governess for the children of an army family. Returning to the states, she lived in Portland, working for her brother-in-law, James Ryan, until her marriage to Eugene Sanders in 1912. The middle daughter, Lulu's, first marriage was to another Kamiah businessman, Godfrey Jarbo, and she remained in Kamiah until her death.

F.F. remained in Kamiah until his death in 1937 and is buried in the Oddfellows cemetery there. He was a member of the Oddfellow Lodge and Rebecca was a member of the Rebecca Lodge of Kamiah. Nellie and Ida talked about "Dad" as being a cigar smoker who spent a lot of time at a mine he owned somewhere in the Kamiah area, and that he was a man who loved to talk and tell stories. Rebecca, they said, was a quiet woman who worked hard and was greatly loved by all who knew her up until the day she passed way.

-Dan and Judy Wait, who have been together since their high school years, purchased the Kamiah Hotel Bar & Steakhouse in 2011. Dan is an avid outdoorsman and has been hunting and fishing in the area for many years. The Waits have taken on dozens of renovation projects to create the environment and service that the Kamiah Hotel provides today.