he town is named for Father Joseph Cataldo, SJ, who served at the Old Mission from 1865 to 1870. Patrick J. Whalen, the first homesteader in this area, platted the town of Cataldo.
The French name Coeur d'Alene can be traced back to the early 1800s when David Thompson, of the North West Trading Company (a fur-trading concern), encountered French speaking Iroquois Indians already living here. Since the Iroquois were familiar with the area, he hired them as guides and scouts.
The City of Dalton Gardens was incorporated in 1960 and includes the area from Prairie Avenue south to Dalton Avenue and from Government Way to 17th Street.
The Crane family first settled here in 1890. Incorporated in 1899, Harrison is located on a one-mile strip carved out of the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation by a bill signed by President Harrison on the night of March 4, 1891.
Once the site of the Coeur d'Alene Indian village Q emiln ("throat of the river"), the town of Post Falls grew from the early commercial lumbering efforts of German immigrant, Frederick Post.