Deary, Idaho is the product of the Potlatch Lumber Company, just like Elk River, Bovill and Potlatch.  But unlike other company towns along the Washington, Idaho and Montana Railway Company, Deary was carved out of the timber by homesteaders and farmers.  The town lies at the head of the Big Bear and Texas Ridges at the edge of the great white pine forest.  It was to these areas that homesteaders came in the 1880's and '90's.  They were mostly Scandinavians who had tried the upper Midwest first.  To these people a good farm had timber on it, and by the late nineteenth century in the Midwest, land parcels were small and the forests were dwindling.

Web site: www.Palouse.net/Deary