Spotlight on Cougar Gulch
<p>Photo by KEITH COUSINS</p><p>Local historian Robert Singletary discusses the history of early Coeur d'Alene, with a focus on the outlying areas such as Cougar Gulch, during a lecture at the Meadowbrook Community Hall on Sunday.</p>
COUGAR GULCH — When it comes to history, Robert Singletary said everything is connected.
"As a historian, I love to put a spotlight on our local area," Singletary said. "But that local area is connected. I take that spotlight and it gets wider and wider and wider until it's a floodlight."
Singletary, an expert on local history, was at the Meadowbrook Community Hall in the Cougar Gulch area of Coeur d'Alene on Sunday to discuss local history, with an emphasis on the rural areas surrounding Coeur d'Alene. More than 25 people attended the lecture, which began with the creation of Fort Sherman in 1878 on Lake Coeur d'Alene.
"Now, how does Fort Sherman relate to Cougar Gulch," Singletary asked the audience.
"Farming," someone replied.
Singletary told the attendee he was correct and that the more than 250 soldiers stationed at Fort Sherman needed someplace nearby from which to get food and supplies. The need prompted farms to spring up in the areas surrounding the fort, including Cougar Gulch.
As the city of Coeur d'Alene began growing around Fort Sherman, Singletary said more and more people began settling in the Cougar Gulch area. By the early 1900s, the food grown in Cougar Gulch, along with dairy farms in the same area, were essential to the survival of the town.
"It became the breadbasket that served Coeur d'Alene," Singletary said. "This whole Cougar Gulch area was buzzing by 1915."
Although he told attendees he typically does not like to read directly from materials while he lectures, Singletary used a newspaper article from 1971 to shine light on the history of Cougar Gulch. The article, he said, was compiled by a local resident who was curious about the area and wanted to develop a comprehensive history of Cougar Gulch — beginning with the origin of the area's name.
"We don't really know for sure who named it," Singletary said. "But she was on the right track when she said it was likely soldiers from Fort Sherman who were hunting in the area and said 'There are a lot of wild animals here. And look! Cougars.'"
The gulch, according to Singletary, was infested with cougars before the fire of 1910. School children would often encounter cougars on their way to school, and Singletary said, "it was a wild place in those days."