Hidden Falls
!["I had scarcely infixed my eyes from this pleasing object [Rainbow Falls] before I discovered another fall above at the distance of half a mile; thus invited I did not once think of returning but...](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/BMgmk0jCs70iOJw_rlIVfZCeTB3qhO6QCJpS8lSTNYbOqYU5FxKpFszCclimSGbYny9MFWCGPTocwihz_vZoTj_hnM8)
"I had scarcely infixed my eyes from this pleasing object [Rainbow Falls] before I discovered another fall above at the distance of half a mile; thus invited I did not once think of returning but hurried thither to amuse myself with this newly discovered object. I found this to be a cascade of about 14 feet possessing a perpendicular pitch of about 6 feet. this was tolerably regular strecing across the river from bank to bank where it was about a quarter mile wide." -Captain Meriwether Lewis. June 14, 1805. As the Corps of Discovery passed through here in 1805, they portaged around the five falls of the Missouri River. Today one of those falls lies submerged by the river waters backed up by Rainbow Dam. The falls were named in the early 1890s by Mayer Paris Gibson who dedicated Colter Falls in honor of John Colter, one of the members of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Colter was one of the expedition's best hunters and later returned to Montana as a fur trapper. Colter Falls my be visible in rare times when the river level is extremely low.