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The Lewiston-Clarkston Improvement Company (LCIC), the third and best-known corporate name of one of the more prominent business organizations active in southeastern Washington and northern Idaho in the early 20th Century, also operated as the Lewiston Water and Power Company (1896-1905), as the Lewiston-Clarkston Company (1905-1910) and as the Clarkston Community Corporation (1940-1971). The earliest direct predecessor of the LCIC, the Lewiston Water and Power Co., was organized in 1896 by the first President and General Manager of the company, Edgar H. Libby, a local resident. However, control of the firm lay in the hands of a group of Boston investors headed by Charles Francis Adams, who had considerable previous experience in western real estate, and by William and Elbert Wheeler, who were experienced in hydrological and irrigation projects.

The founders of the company proposed to build a headworks dam on Asotin Creek, a mountain stream emptying into the Snake River in Southeastern Washington, divert its waters through a canal for about fifteen miles and deliver it to five-to-ten acre fruitland plots that the company proposed to sell. The company designated the irrigation project "Vineland" and located it at the base of a 2000 foot canyon, on a "bench" inside a bend of the Snake River opposite Lewiston, Idaho. Near the center of the project, laid out on land acquired by Adams in 1895, the company located a new town, at first known as Lewiston, then as Concord after Concord, Massachusetts, and finally and permanently as Clarkston in 1900. Additionally, the promoters intended to use the waters of Asotin Creek to generate electricity to sell in the new project and in the older city of Lewiston.

In the summer of 1896, the company began work on the project. The "bench" was surveyed and divided into the Vineland irrigation tracts, with one section platted as a town. In this same summer, the company built the headworks, or diversion dam, on Asotin Creek and the "low-line" canal to Vineland. The company's canal followed a path down Asotin Canyon to the Snake, then turned north along the river for about a mile, then inland across the lower edge of a second "bench" which marked the far or upperside of the irrigation project. The path of this canal crossed gulches and ravines, bored through rock, or hung on the side of Asotin Creek canyon; in yet other places it was built as an "inverted siphon" and mounted on trestles, and only in its lower reaches was it actually an open-ditch canal. In building such a facility, the company's engineers overcame formidable topographical limitations, but did so at the cost of efficiency. Consequently, once operative, it was found that there was almost no means of regulating the flow of water to the irrigation project. Yet the company did manage to deliver not only the irrigation water, but also water for domestic use in the new town.

In opting for the "low-line" design of the first canal, the company also sacrificed the water power possibilities of Asotin Creek and the related electric generating station, as nowhere along the line was there enough head to develop much power. In any case, electricity was forgone for a few years and the company surrendered most of its electric power ambitions to a group of Lewiston business men who had organized a competitive firm, the Lewiston Light Company, Limited, in 1896.

In 1897, Edgar H. Libby, manager of Lewiston Water and Power Company, and George Bailey, a lawyer from Asotin, Washington, formed the Lewiston-Concord Bridge Company for the purpose of building a toll bridge that would connect the Vineland area with Lewiston, Idaho. The bridge company, though legally separate from the Lewiston Water and Power Company, was fully interlocked with the overall project. Charles Francis Adams and the trustees for the power company, in fact, shortly became the principal stockholders of the bridge company through a financial arrangement whereby the stock was transferred for the funds to construct the bridge. In 1899, the bridge company contracted a Pennsylvania bridge-building firm to construct a steel bridge designed to carry foot and wagon traffic, gas, electricity, and water transmission lines, and a street railroad. Although the bridge sometimes carried considerable traffic, the company apparently rarely made enough money to pay even the debt service expenses, and losses were absorbed by the Boston investors as necessary for the development of the Clarkston/Vineland project.

The bridge company remained a separate corporation through the various reorganizations of the parent company until the sale of the bridge to the states of Washington and Idaho in 1913, after which the bridge company was liquidated. The steel bridge was maintained by the two states as an automobile bridge until the mid-1930's, when it was replaced by the four-lane structure that presently connects the two states.

The Boston-based management often found success or failure, or even the general direction of operations in the West, difficult matters to appraise. Distrusting Libby, but unable to do without him, the Boston group placed in his office a series of agents known as the assistant treasurer or auditor who had to countersign many of Libby's documents, report to the east and act as a spy on Libby. Adams dispatched a succession of people westward for these purposes, but ultimately most of this responsibility fell to his son, Henry Adams 2nd. Even so, Libby persisted in his projects for street railroads, other electric railroad connections to Clarkston and the development of navigation of the Snake, none of which particularly interested the Adams group.

While keeping some control over Libby's ambitious visions, by 1900 the Eastern management did come to support one ambitious project by attempting to consolidate the various businesses using the water of Asotin Creek. Though there were a number of disputants for the stream, the power company's principal competitors were the Asotin Land and Water Company and the Lewiston Light Company, Ltd. The first had a small irrigation project on a "bench" several miles above Clarkston, but its principal business was delivering water for use in the town of Asotin. The second was a more serious competitor, possessing a diversion dam, water power flume, generating station, and a transmission line to Lewiston. Competition for the stream was partly resolved around 1902 when the power company arranged to acquire control of the other two companies.

Having assumed a much broader role because of the absorption of these other companies and recognizing that its facilities were still not very efficiently organized, the management decided to reorganize the whole firm, raise additional capital and rebuild much of the water and electric systems. As a result a new corporation, the Lewiston-Clarkston Company was formed in 1905. It absorbed the Lewiston Water and Power Company and the Lewiston Light Company, Ltd., served as a holding company for the Asotin Land and Water Company and the newly-formed Clarkston Water Works Company, and continued to manage the separate, but interlocked, bridge company. Additionally a large bond issue was authorized, partially marketed and the construction of new facilities along Asotin Creek were begun.

Construction of a new "high-line" canal in 1906 marked the beginning of a new phase in the history of the company. In contrast to earlier arrangements, the company now possessed facilities of a sophisticated design. The new "flume" consisted of a closed wooden pipe for its upper reaches and, although it followed the same path down Asotin Creek canyon as the original "canal," it was located much higher on the canyon wall; both features which greatly increased the flow and regulatory capacity of the system. As the new "canal" came near the mouth of Asotin Creek canyon, it was tapped and a penstock from it dropped water several hundred feet to a new electric generating station at the foot of the canyon. Another discharge port took off the water needed by the city of Asotin. Then as the pipe headed north, it was tapped again for irrigation water to be used at "Clemen's Addition," a small irrigation project between Asotin and Clarkston. At the far end of the pipe, water discharged into another electric generating plant, the "Pomeroy Station," and was then impounded behind a dam built in a gulch on the edge of the second "bench." From there irrigation water was distributed to the Vineland project located below the reservoir.

The new flume delivered water under sufficient pressure and in such places that it was possible to distribute irrigation water above Vineland and on the second "bench." Consequently the irrigation project was extended there and an additional area of fruitland plots, called Clarkston Heights, was laid out and offered for sale. The new area doubled the size of the original irrigation project. However, Clarkston Heights did not develop into a fruit raising region as quickly as the original Vineland project. Moreover, the company found itself more and more involved in its electricity business, somewhat at the expense of attention to the irrigation project.

After 1906, the electrical department of the Lewiston-Clarkston Company dominated the company as it entered into the competition for the electrification of the eastern Washington-northern Idaho area. Along with two Spokane corporations, the Washington Water Power Company, in which Adams was also an influential stockholder, and the Inland Light and Power Company, the Lewiston-Clarkston Company began to expand outward, taking up the operations of small electric firms and developing water power sites. By 1907, the company owned two hydro-electric stations, a steam plant at Clarkston, the distribution systems in Lewiston and Clarkston, transmission lines to the north and east, and distribution facilities in Lapwai, Idaho and in several small cities of the Palouse country, a northward farming area located above the Snake River canyon. The company also acquired power sites on the Grande Ronde River, located about forty miles to the south of Clarkston; on the Clearwater River, located to the east and even considered damming the Snake River.

The company never built the projected hydro-electric power stations, even though the demand for electricity increased tremendously each year. Instead, it met its customers' needs by buying power from the Washington Water Power Company, while trying to strengthen itself financially. This proved to be an almost insurmountable obstacle. The 1905 bonds had sold at so great a discount that a portion of the authorized bonds were withheld from sale. As a substitute, a patchwork of finances was established by using the unsold bonds to secure commercial paper that was sold to a number of eastern banks. The financial situation finally became so serious that by 1910 another reorganization became necessary.

In some ways the 1910 reorganization was more drastic than the previous one. This time the company could not be re-financed through Adams and his Boston associates, but had to go through Spencer Trask and Co., a New York investment bank. Cecil Barrett, a representative of Spencer Trask, became titular head of the new corporation, the Lewiston-Clarkston Improvement Company, as part of the price of re-financing. E. H. Libby severed his connections with the firm and management was placed into the hands of persons more familiar with electricity than with irrigated land projects.

Differences between the Adams group and the New York group seem to have existed from the start of their relationship. Moreover, the increasing age of many of the Boston investors caused them to think of withdrawing from the enterprise. As a result, just as the company reached its height in the 1910 reorganization, it also began to be taken apart. In a few years, the northern transmission lines and electric franchises were turned over to the Washington Water Power Company. Then the bridge was sold to the public. A half-hearted financing scheme for the Grande Ronde project was begun, then halted. Finally, in 1916, a year after the death of Charles Francis Adams, the electric and water facilities were sold to New York investors who formed a new corporation named the Washington-Idaho Water, Light and Power Company. The Lewiston-Clarkston Improvement Company retained the land holdings in the two irrigation projects, in the city of Clarkston and some unsubdivided land. The Spencer Trask interests then withdrew from the company and Henry Adams 2nd became the most important eastern figure.

The Washington-Idaho Company operated the water and electric system on Asotin Creek only a few years. In 1921, after becoming financially intertwined with two electric companies in southwestern Washington, it became insolvent and was put into receivership. The system was then operated jointly by the Inland Power and Light Company and the Pacific Power and Light Company until 1930 when the Washington Water Power Company acquired the facilities and franchises. The Washington Water Power Company continued to operate the water and irrigation works for a number of years, but finally abandoned them when Clarkston adopted a municipal water system and the demand for irrigation water fell off due to the decline in fruit culture in the valley.

After 1916, the LCIC became a more vigorous real estate sales organization than it had previously been. From about 1918 to the late 1920's it entered into land contract agreements with greater numbers of buyers than at any time since the "boom" at the turn of the century. In this later period its land sales consisted more of residential property than of irrigated land, a result of the appearance of the "automobile suburb" in the Snake River valley. This change in land use was reflected by the company's policy of selling land from the irrigation project area to subdividers and of platting and selling lots in new subdivisions organized by the company. Real estate sales, however, dropped off abruptly in the late 1920's. During the depression years of the 1930's almost no lots were sold and the company's operations became restricted almost totally to commercial farming on unsold land.

By 1940, the company was insolvent and its eastern ownership sold their control to a group of Clarkston people headed by E. A. White, the head of a local fruit warehouse and commission firm. Western interests had increasingly dominated the company since the early 1920s and the reorganization of the company into the Clarkston Community Corporation in 1940 meant no particularly abrupt changes. The Clarkston Community Corporation, in fact, continued the earlier policy of commercial farming and holding land in anticipation of a rise in its value. By the 1950s the demand for land had strengthened and White began to sell the company's holdings. After White's death in 1961, his widow assumed management of the firm, continuing to sell property, usually in large tracts, until 1971 when the remaining land holdings were sold to real estate developers and the firm that had founded the city of Clarkston 75 years earlier wound up its affairs. Subsequently, Mrs. White made arrangements, through the Asotin County Historical Society, to turn over the archives of the company to the Washington State University Library as a permanent record of the company's activities and influence on the history of the two cities at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers.