North Idaho Memories: Recollections of a Fort Grounds kid

I was born and raised on the Fort Grounds in Coeur d'Alene starting in 1934.

I have many memories, the realization of the fantastically immense changes in the past 80 years. My folks got married and rented an apartment in one of the converted Fort Sherman officers' quarters on Military Drive. I was born in that apartment building.

I shall endeavor to highlight some memories for the cause of local history. Any one of these memories would make a good "popcorn" story as suggested by historian Syd Albright.

Some topics: The Hobo Jungle on the railroad by the river. The old brewery building on River Avenue. The woods full of dog-toothed violets and yellow bells in April. The great horse chestnut trees with dropped spiked seeds, the insides of which provided ammunition for the great "chestnut fights" in fall (lucky no one lost an eye over those). The pine nuts we collected from the Ponderosa pinecones in fall, tiny but worth the effort. The homeless shanties across the Spokane River on Blackwell Island. The 1939 flood that covered the grounds, and the rowboats going up and down River Avenue, after which the sea wall was constructed at Coeur d'Alene City Beach along the City Park.

The four-story brewery building at the west end of River Avenue that later became an abandoned relic for kids to run around in all the "spooky" areas. The kids jumping from the old wooden bridge across the river in a favorite swimming area. The hobos at the back of my grandmother's house, on River Avenue, chopping/piling firewood for the sandwiches she gave them. The lonesome wail of the steam engines going back and forth on the railroad tracks from the depot where Independence Point is now. The Playland Pier amusement park next to City Beach. It included a merry-go-round, octopus, swings, Ferris wheel, bumper cars and inside building "penny arcade" with nickel and dime machines.

Lots of memories. My grandmother walking to Post Falls along the railroad tracks in summer to work in the cannery there, processing green beans and whatever from Dalton Gardens farms and Spokane Valley. Her husband, "Shorty," walking to the sawmill at Huetter for his job. The "Pole Yard" sawmill at the end of River Avenue, on the river. All of the western end of the Fort Grounds is now the wonderful campus of North Idaho College, which is adjoined north along the Spokane River to the north by the University of Idaho complex, and the mega-development of Riverstone, with its businesses, condos, apartments and luxury houses that replaced the old Winton Company Sawmill.

First and second grades were together at Sherman School, which is now NIC's president's office area. The picture I have of the class has little Ronnie in the first row and Duane Hagadone ("Lefty" we called him as the second graders played softball at recesses).

The railroad tracks ended at the river, just above the highway south to Worley and beyond. I remember my mom ending the activity of going down and having lunch with the hobos, who had pretty good "coffee-can stew." Across the bridge over to Blackwell Island, opposite the Blackwell Sawmill on the backwater canal, was a contingent of homeless-type camps.

At the end of the block there were a barber, a Red and White market, a small "little store" and a corner beer hall. The amiable drunks walking by my grandma's house were sometimes good for nickel tips to us kids in the yard. The neighbor was a Russian immigrant named Rupp, who spoke very little English but had a large immaculate fenced yard, the "rich house" of the block.

Summertime, we'd hotfoot it down six blocks to the City Beach and stay all day swimming. The beach at that time had a dock with a slide, and a large whirling float that whirled around with its passengers getting dizzy and jumping/diving off. The whistle of the mill would tell all the kids to head home for dinner. Two mills, one at each end of town, had the 4 o'clock whistle ending the shift and marking dinnertime preparation for the whole town.

When we got bikes, we covered the whole town from beach to city limits up on Best Avenue. Beyond Best was mostly rural houses, with the airport where the fairgrounds are now, along with the major part of the city shopping centers.

The population of Coeur d'Alene was about 10,000. Now, including Hayden, Dalton, it seems like 100,000.

— Ron Boothe, Kingston

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Send your North Idaho memories and photos to Devin Weeks, dweeks@cdapress.com. Please provide information with any photos you send: who is in them, when and where were they taken and a brief description of what is happening in the photo. Pieces should be no more than 500 words. Please include names of those submitting the memories and how long North Idaho has been or was your home.

Longtime residents have a treasure trove of stories about the way things used to be. We hope you'll share those gems with us.

    Sherman School, Fort Grounds, Garden Avenue, 1948 (taken by Donna Madson).