(#3308)[2] It is named for founder Charles Plummer Hill, as is Hillcrest Mines, now part of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, Alberta.

"[5] Around 1871, David McLoughlin and family relocated south from the Kootenay Flats to Ockonook, where he built a log house, which also served as a trading post and a hostel for prospectors traveling downstream.

In 1878, prospector George Wallace Hall preempted 320 acres (129 ha) in today's Lister, British Columbia.

In 1883, John C. Rykert established a Canadian customs station immediately north of the boundary to intercept steamboats and other river traffic sailing from Bonners Ferry to Kootenay Lake.

[6][7] Rykert was a customs officer, immigration inspector, gold commissioner's agent, and registrar of shipping.

[9] To Mr. & Mrs. Richard Wood, Ockinook residents, were born children in 1891 and 1892, before the family moved to the Creston Valley in 1898.

[10] Major Joseph I. Barnes was the US inspector of customs until the end of Benjamin Harrison's presidential term in 1893.

[15] William Roger Huscroft and family rafted down the north-flowing Kootenai River to Ockonook, crossing the border in September 1891 to settle just on the other side.

[16] The family built a log cabin across the river,[8] which the 1894 spring flood reached, requiring towing to higher elevations as the waters rose.

[17] Prior to Miss Agnes McKay becoming the inaugural government school teacher at Ockonook in 1895, David McLoughlin taught the settlers' children from both sides of the boundary using a room in Mike Driscoll's rudimentary hotel.

[19] That year, McLoughlin received a land patent for 120 acres (49 ha) on the present site of Porthill.

[24] The Bedlington & Nelson (B&N) stop immediately north of the boundary initially assumed this name[25] but had been renamed Rykerts by 1904.

During the 1890s, provincial Constable Sloan was stationed at Rykerts,[27] and beef drives from Alberta commonly came south into the US and north through Porthill.

[28] In the cemetery on a hill above Porthill, the oldest burial site is for Louisa Sloop (wife of John), dated 1898.

[30] In October 1899, the Bedlington depot was built and the rail head passed northward across the boundary in advancing from Bonners Ferry to Wynndel.

The next year, the company Shay locomotive with three cars ran out of control and derailed on the spur.

[35] In 1911, the three occupants of a horse-drawn sleigh traveling along the track escaped serious injury when struck by a train near the Yale-Columbia crossing.

[36] In December 1914, the final twice weekly mixed train ran north to Creston,[37][38] and the Wynndel–Porthill track was lifted in 1916.

[42] In 1892, Sam Smith extended his stage service beyond Bonners Ferry to Ockonook, important especially during the wintertime, when ice could block river traffic.

His Palace hotel, operating from 1893 to possibly as late as 1897, lacked beds, benches and chairs, and served only beverages, but meals may have been provided initially.

[43][45] After the railroad construction contract was let in mid-1898, Smith foresaw his service as redundant and retired from staging to his ranch on the west side of the Kootenay River above Porthill.

[62] In the April 2020 COVID-19 restrictions, Canada reduced the previous border hours of 8:00am to midnight (winter) and 7:00am to 11:00pm (summer).

In 2014, the old border station was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Boundary County, Idaho.

Huscoft Co. owned the ancient vehicle, which had hauled a load from the Selkirk Mountains via an access road which traversed the boundary.

The ferry pulling away from the shore jolted the empty cab, which jerked the shift into low gear.

Slowly, the truck moved forward, forced down the front apron of the ferry, and plunged into the river, where the logs provided flotation.

After the ferry pushed the load to the eastern shore, a bulldozer towed the vehicle up the ramp out of the river.

[100] In 1893, Albert K. Klockmann and John Manley bought the property, each holding a half interest in what became the Continental mine.

From 1917, eight trucks joined the horse teams in hauling ore.[112] While drawing gasoline from one of the half dozen tanks awaiting to be unloaded from a scow at Porthill, an employee placed a lantern too close, igniting all the fuel.