Though Ione has not the prettiest town hall we've encountered, it nonetheless serves its purpose, we're guessing. We're also guessing that economy had a hand in the final design of the building. Ione is, after all, not a very big town and has not a lot of money for frivolities such as civic buildings. Their money is better spent on fixing the potholes.
Founded by homesteader Elmer Hall in 1896, when he established its first post office, Ione was for almost a century a timber town. The site of a couple of the major sawmills in Pend Oreille County, the Panhandle Lumber Company was the most notable as it was the "
first all-electric sawmill in the Inland Northwest". Vaagen Brothers of Ione, the last major sawmill in the county, closed in 1995. It should be noted that Frederick Blackwell, owner of the Panhandle Lumber Company, also built a 500 passenger sternwheeler which plied the waters of the Pend Oreille in the early 1900s. He was also the owner of the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad, originally built in order to transport his logs to the railhead.
The most successful local company was that of Frederick A. Blackwell (1852-1922), who by 1909 owned 65,000 acres in the northern part of the county and built sawmills at Spirit Lake, Idaho, and Ione, Washington, in Pend Oreille County, both under the company name Panhandle Lumber Company. The Panhandle mill in Ione was the first all-electric sawmill in the Inland Northwest.
From History Link
The town has on overriding tourist attraction which draws crowds to the town from late July through late October.
On a crisp fall morning a train whistle can be heard in the distance. Visitors from all over the world await the conductor's voice announcing "All Aboard!". The North Pend Oreille Valley Lion's excursion train is about to begin its trip from the Ione Depot to Metaline Falls and return. This two-hour ride gives tourists a chance to experience traveling on a train of yesteryear through some of most scenic country and often times sight wildlife as the train winds its way through the country-side. A stop on the trestle spanning the Pend Oreille River gives passengers a birds-eye view of Box Canyon Dam, Pend Oreille Utility District's hydro plant.
The entry from the American Series book
Washington: A guide to the Evergreen State follows.
IONE, 51.5 m. (2,095 alt., 594 pop.), the second largest town in the county, is largely dependent on the sawmill of the Panhandle Lumber Company, which employs about 150 workers. About a mile northeast of town is some good skiing terrain, and the winter festival of the Ione Ski Club is a popular local event.
In 1906 an English engineer built a Portland cement plant about one and one-half miles north of Ione. This venture, one of the first attempts to make cement in this State, failed, and in 1934 the abandoned plant was destroyed by fire.
From Washington: A guide to the Evergreen State