City Building from Moscow’s Four Corners
- LCHS
- 9 hours ago
- 6 min read
This article first appeared in the March/April 2026 edition of Home & Harvest magazine.
By Elaina Pierson, Office Coordinator
Looking north at Main and 6th Streets in Moscow, 1930s vs 2024. From Moscow Past & Present, available in the LCHS gift shop.
Moscow, Idaho, is located on a picturesque corner of the Palouse, where its rolling hills meet sprawling white pine forests to the east. For thousands of years, the region was a main thoroughfare for Native American tribes, a temperate and fruitful mid-point as they traveled to and from seasonal lands to the north and south, and east and west. Isaac Stevens, then governor of Washington Territory, is credited as making the first written account of the area in 1855. His party, surveying a route for a transcontinental railroad, arrived to the area by following the Greater Nez Perce Trail up from the Clearwater and Snake River canyons.
By the 1870s, white settlers were flowing in from all directions and the first foundations of what would eventually become Moscow were being laid. Several early pioneers claimed homesteads in the immediate area and would eventually make names for themselves in the history books, but four settlers in particular are credited with giving Moscow the boost it needed to thrive. These men, James Deakin, Almon Asbury Lieuallen, Henry McGregor, and John Russell, each contributed 30 acres of their farm land to the creation of the fledgling town’s commercial center and initial residential neighborhoods. The corners of these four plots converged at what is now Main and Sixth Streets, still discernible today by the minor jog in Sixth as it crosses Main.
Holding the southwest section, James Deakin was an Irish immigrant known among his peers as being an honest and hardworking farmer. In addition to his early gift of land to Moscow, he sold twenty more acres to the Idaho Territory to help create the University of Idaho in 1889. This acreage now contains the original core of the campus with the Administration Building, Ridenbaugh and Morrill Halls at its perimeter, and includes its oldest trees found in the Shattuck Arboretum and Presidential Grove. His name today is given to an avenue that runs through the campus from Sixth Street to Taylor Avenue.
The southeast section was owned by Henry McGregor. He and his wife Thyrza were two of the first school teachers in the area and, in 1885, they built their home on Adams Street between Sixth and Seventh Streets. For nineteen years, it was the only home on the block, holding a commanding view westward over the town toward the budding university. Unfortunately, it was removed in 1905 as the neighborhood expanded.
In 1890, Henry and Thyrza built the McGregor House on the corner of Main and Seventh Streets. This stately two-story building was one of the first to be constructed of brick in the downtown area, and was operated as a hotel until Drs. Gritman and Coffey took over and turned it into a hospital, which is now the location of Gritman Medical Center. An 1892 issue of the Moscow Mirror describes McGregor as “the genial proprietor of the McGregor House [who] enjoys an enviable reputation as an energetic and efficient hotel manager,” and notes his status as “one of the most popular gentlemen in the city.”
John Russell owned and farmed the northeast corner for several years. In 1877, during the conflict between the US Army and several bands of the Nez Perce tribe, the temporary Fort Russell was built on his land near present-day Monroe and B Streets. Though residents of early Moscow had friendly relations with the local native population, emotions ran high and several stockades appeared in the area, of which Fort Russell was the largest. Logs for its walls were hauled from the mountains and planted upright in the ground with space between to point a rifle, and guards could stand on a narrow platform around the inside of its walls. Lillie Lieuallen Woodworth, then a young child, recalled in later years that the children had a grand time playing inside the fort, while their parents were in a state of high alert. No hostilities erupted here however, and the fort was primarily used as a precaution and night-time retreat. In following years, it was entirely deconstructed and the building materials repurposed. The name of Fort Russell is now given to the historic residential district surrounding its original site.
In 1884, Russell donated a block of land to the town with the agreement that it would be used for the construction of a school. Prior to this, classes were held in various makeshift locations, including the Baptist and Presbyterian churches, and a log structure known as McDaniel Hall on the corner of Main and Fourth Streets. The first Russell School was built on the lower half of the block between A and First Streets and Jefferson and Adams Streets. Its two rooms were quickly outgrown, requiring an expansion in 1888. In 1901, the Irving School was built behind it on the upper level of the block, then the original Russell burned down in 1912. In 1926, the Irving School was deemed unsafe, and it was replaced with the large brick Russell School that occupies the space today.
While John Russell enjoyed great success throughout his life as a farmer, businessman, and civic leader, the tide of fortune shifted, taking his wealth with it. He spent his later years working as a janitor in the school he had helped create.
Almon Asbury Lieuallen, holder of the northwest section of town, is perhaps the best known of the four, if only because Moscow today has a park and three streets bearing his name, with a fourth named after daughter Lillie/Lilly. Born in Tennessee of Welsh descent, Almon and his brothers moved west to Oregon and Washington before arriving on the Palouse in 1871. They initially homesteaded east of town with the intention of raising cattle in an area known as Haskins Flat, so-named after the family of Almon’s new wife, Sarah Ann Haskins. One harsh winter put an unfortunate end to the livestock endeavor and the family moved into the fledgling city, where they quickly became instrumental in the town’s planning and growth. In 1875, Lieuallen opened the first general store at the corner of Main and First Streets, and much of the 200 block of south Main Street on its west side can be credited to the entrepreneurship of Almon and his family. He was also known to give land to potential business and homeowners to encourage their development, including the first church located at Jackson and First Streets, where the United Church of Moscow stands today.
The large and distinctive Lieuallen home at the western head of First Street where it ends with Almon Street, known colloquially today as the “Dollhouse,” was built in 1884, the only home in the middle of what was then wheat fields. It initially had twelve rooms and three floors, the third being unfinished as one large space. The Lieuallen children, along with their friends and neighbors, used this space as a rolling skating rink. In a 1965 reminiscence of her life, daughter Lillie notes that, though her mother was not excited about caring for such a large home, it was built as a kind of advertisement to encourage others to settle in that part of town. She also recalls that her brothers were notorious among the neighbors for playing on the third-story ledge below the home’s mansard roof when their parents weren’t home to stop them. Lillie and her husband Jay Woodworth became owners of the home following the deaths of her parents, and in 1917, they converted it into state-of-the-art apartments that included electricity, steam heat, and running water, the first of its kind in Moscow.
Almon Asbury Lieuallen is also given partial credit, according to some accounts, for the decision to name the town Moscow. While the earliest settlers called it Hog Heaven, due to the fact that their hogs thrived on its abundance of camas roots, others preferred the more dignified term Paradise Valley. Lillie’s account from 1965 claims that, upon further discussion among the residents, the name “Moscow” was chosen because it was an uncommon one in the United States, and the one in Russia “then seemed a far-away glamorous sort of city.”
This scenic corner of the Palouse has been home to generations of humanity, each prospering thanks to its resources and strategic placement in the region. The Moscow of today stands as a testament to the perseverance and fortitude of its first inhabitants, its footprint a clear, physical demonstration of their progressive, civic-minded nature.
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