Lakeside nestles on the west lakeshore, where residents and visitors alike enjoy its spectacular lake and mountain panoramas. A growing village, Lakeside offers most services. But like many Flathead Valley towns Columbia Falls grew up around the Great Northern Railway. Railroad tycoon Jim Hill decided in 1889 to extend the line from the eastern plains of Montana to Puget Sound, Washington, without the benefit of government land grants. His major problem wasn't funding, but finding a feasible route over the Continental Divide through the Rocky Mountains.
History records tales of other white men using the pass decades earlier.
However, John F. Stevens, Great Northern railroad surveyor sent by James Hill to locate a passable route, is generally credited with discovering Marias Pass. In 1891 the railroad line was completed through the pass to Columbia Falls, then on to Kalispell. The townsite of Columbia Falls had already been established several years earlier, as settlers were drawn to the area's good farmland and generous supply of timber. In addition, coal discovered up the North Fork of the Flathead River was mined in limited quantities and barged downstream through Demersville and onto Flathead Lake, then transported by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The group of pioneers who established the village named it Columbia or Columbus.