Huckleberries

Tim Kilian remembers the heat.

He and his mother watched with a crowd across the street as the Desert Hotel burned 50 years ago.

“Some people were near tears,” said Tim, who attended Coeur d’Alene schools and now lives in Graham, Wash. “Others acted like it was a street parade. The heat was intense.”

Rosemary Goodlander, of Coeur d’Alene, was disappointed when she and her family followed the thick smoke downtown from their Government Way home. Her father had just bought her a summer pass for the Athletic Round Table pool at the Desert Hotel.

Dan Boss of Athol was working at the North Shore Resort Hotel (now the Coeur d’Alene resort). He and other employees took turns watching the fire and washing dishes.

The three-story, 60-room Desert Hotel was a downtown social center. The chamber of commerce and members-only Athletic Round Table were housed there, as were a handful of businesses. It also served as headquarters for the Hydromaniacs, Gyro Club, and Rotary Club.

At 7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 25, 1972, the fire began in either the kitchen storage area or the furnace room of the historic hotel at First and Sherman. It spread quickly through the 66-year-old structure, owned by Wallace mining magnate Harry Magnuson.

Fire Chief Joe Turk told the Coeur d’Alene Press that the hotel “went fast because it’s so old and because buildings of this type have an ungodly number of void spaces like lowered ceilings and vents.”

Two firemen and a police officer suffered minor injuries. No guest or employee was hurt.

Magnuson, who bought the hotel in August 1967 from a business group, called 109 Corp., estimated the loss between $600,000 and $700,000.

Originally named the Hotel Idaho when it opened on July 3, 1905, the Desert Hotel was modeled after the old California missions and cost about $100,000 to build. In 1906, a Press article reported, "well-informed travelers say it is the best-equipped hotel in northern Idaho, if not in the whole state."

In 1924, Victor Dessert, owner of the Desert Hotel in Spokane, bought Hotel Idaho for a reported $100,000 and renamed it. In 1964, the 109 Corp., in association with the Athletic Round Table, purchased the Desert Hotel, and sold it three years later to Magnuson.

Steve Jackson, a member of the Old School Coeur d’Alene Facebook page, didn’t hear about the fire until the next morning when he and his mother drove downtown. They parked at the North Shore. And then smelled smoke.

Said Steve: “Then we suddenly noticed the still-standing hotel was just an empty shell.”

A star is born

Violinist Hannah-Renee, a 16-year-old Pennsylvania transplant, admits she’s a “fool for Tchaikovsky.” So she mixed in the composer’s music with fiddle and jazz last week while busking for Doug Clark’s 20th annual Street Music Week.

She was playing a Tchaikovsky piece in front of the Angel Art Gallery Wednesday when another classical music fan stopped to listen. Hannah-Renee was impressed that the stranger knew the composer and name of her piece: “Serenade for Strings.”

Then, he should have known.

Raised in Coeur d’Alene, visitor Scott Dixon plays double base for the world renown Cleveland Orchestra and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Later, he told organizer Doug Clark that Hannah-Renee’s music “just made my day.”

Scott searched for an ATM to drop some cash into Hannah-Renee’s bucket, but she was gone when he returned. So he made an online donation.

All the money raised in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane goes to the Second Harvest INW Food Bank. Hannah and other Coeur d’Alene buskers helped raise $2,500 of the $28,000 collected this year.

If you missed Hannah-Renee at Street Music Week, she’ll play at downtown Art Walk on Friday, July 8.

Good deal

Seventy years ago (June 26, 1952), the Press reported the sale of 12 acres, including 1,500 feet of shoreline, at English Point on Hayden Lake. Spokane native Harry L. Crosby paid Eleanor Hovey $11,000 for the property. You know him better as Bing. There were no buildings on the land, which was described as “a somewhat secluded area.” For a few years prior, Crosby’s family had spent summers at their home in the Hayden Lake Golf Course “colony,” where neighbors, like former golf course superintendent Johnny Harrison, were treated to spontaneous serenades by the famous crooner.

Huckleberries

· Poet’s Corner: No archers in sight/no bowmen at hand/yet more arrows here/than Custer’s Last Stand – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“The Road Signs at Seltice & Highway 41”).

· You May Be A CDA Newcomer – if you don’t know the Lake City used to hire lifeguards to protect swimmers at City Beach. Coeur d’Alene quit supplying lifeguards in summer 2016. Why? The city couldn’t find enough qualified ones says former city recreation director Steve Anthony, adding: “We barely made it through 2015.”

· Now 83 and approaching his 54th anniversary (July 1) of cutting hair here, Steve LaTourrette, admits he’s finally slowing down. He’s not quite ready to say goodbye, Steve tells Huckleberries, “but my get-up-and-go has got up and wants to leave.”

· Overheard (at Bardenay’s Tuesday evening, where a thirtysomething couple held the door for two Seasoned Citizens. Male Codger: “Thanks for your kindness to us old-timers.” Younger Woman: “We’ll be there before we know it.” Codger: “Unfortunately, that’s true. We’ve been married 47 years today. And I don’t know where the time has gone.”

· Gardeners will enjoy the clever message on the Dalton Gardens Church of God readerboard most: “Lettuce Praise Him. Squash Gossip. And Turnip at Church Sunday morning.” Too much?

· Bumpersnicker (on a white Ford truck at H95 and Kathleen): “If you plan to burn the flag, wrap yourself in it first.”

· Naomi Boutz of the Vine & Olive gave away $500 in wine and beer last week to those who brought in a food item. And raised more than $2,000 in donations to local food banks. And counting. She launched the food drive to counter the bad taste she had after a cad vandalized friend Jody’s car, leaving a note telling her to “Go Back to Cali Where You Belong.”

Parting Shot

You know her as Kiki Miller, Coeur d’Alene councilwoman. But 35 years ago (June 22, 1987), she was trying on a new hat for Hagadone Newspapers: Kiki Miller, Coeur d’Alene Press circulation manager. Duane Hagadone made the announcement himself. She replaced Tom Fisher, who went on to open a popular micro-brewery and pub across from the Press, T.W. Fisher’s. Kiki had spent 10 years in the circulation department, handling every job except delivering papers on a motor route. She’d worked in phone sales. She’d been the night clerk and assistant circulation manager. But of all her circulation jobs, there was one that prepared her best for elected office in these troubled times: complaint clerk.

You can contact D.F. “Dave” Oliveria at dfo@cdapress.com.