Meyers Falls Market

  Meyers Falls Market until 2002 was an apple warehouse.  It was constructed in two parts and is used by a natural foods grocery on the east side and an antique store on the west.  The east part had sawdust-stuffed walls and a system of air circulation through massive stone bunkers  that kept it cool enough to store fruit in the summer and warm enough not to freeze in the winter.  You can still see the thick doors on the front of the store.
   There is a history panel on the wall of the arcade at the front of the store.  It was used to load fruit onto railroad trains that still pass in back of the store. 
 William H. Oakes, whose extensive orchard was in the hills above Hwy 395 off highland Loop road between Colville and Kettle Falls, sent a boxcar load of fruit back East for free distribution to entice settlers to move out to the region.  The railroad returned the favor by giving him free rail passage for him and his family for life.
  The warehouse once had a special dugout passage for horse-drawn wagons so that they could offload at the floor level.   The passenger train station originally lay across the tracks from this warehouse.  A replica of that station is now the Kettle Falls Visitor Information Center, subject of the next tour page.