HUCKLEBERRIES: Cd'A, going up

Coeur d’Alene residents are accustomed now to towering cranes downtown, lifting high-rises into existence.

But that wasn't the case 40 years ago.

So Press news editor Clyde Bentley climbed to the top of a crane and examined the view 160 feet above Sherman Avenue.

It was easy to get permission from the contractor to join operator Tom Cramer, then 37, of Rathdrum, at the controls of a crane constructing the Park View Condominiums at Northwest Boulevard and First Street.

The climb up a narrow ladder to the top, however, was alarming.

The height didn’t bother Clyde, as he was climbing parallel to the rising girders and concrete forms of the condo project. But then he said:

“A hundred more steps and your heart is pounding in your ears. Only passing seagulls are on your level now. Your gloved hands grip the steel ladder like they are hanging on to life itself.

“Now you are 160 feet above the city. Without looking, you know the workmen below look like ants as they scurry about the project. But instead of looking, you muster your fast-dissipating courage to free a hand long enough to open the trap door.”

Crane operator Cramer told the newsman that heights don’t bother him. He had worked in a booth 700 feet above Indianapolis. However, the operator said, his depth perception was thrown off when he worked on cranes of vastly different heights on consecutive days.

Then, Bentley asked a question he soon regretted: Had Cramer ever seen anyone fall from a crane?

The reporter admitted his blood pressure went up again when the tower operator replied: “Well, I’ve seen a couple of these things go down. But it’s always been somebody who made a mistake.”

A good crane operator, such as Cramer, made the job look easy, like he was playing a video game. The reporter said: “At either side of his chair are sets of buttons or levers, which he pushes and pulls to gently lower a steel beam a few inches or quickly snatch a bucket of concrete high into the air.”

In the beginning of Coeur d’Alene’s flirtation with downtown high-rises, crane operators remained at the top all day. They took their lunches with them and relieved themselves into empty coffee cans.

Now, fast forward to today.

Work will resume soon on the 18-story Thomas George high-rise at Third Street and Front Avenue. And the Hagadone Corp. has announced plans to build another multi-story building at Second Street and Sherman Avenue.

So our fascination with cranes isn’t going away soon.

A blaze of glory

The Roxy Theater, built by venerable businessman Oscar Paisley in the early 1940s, made a curtain call on this day 65 years ago — and helped save four lives in doing so.

On Jan. 14, 1959, building owner R.J. (Richard) Montandon was in the final stages of refurbishing Oscar’s shuttered theater at 115 S. Fourth St. when fire broke out. The first floor housed Coeur d’Alene Hardware and Bob’s Barber Shop; the second floor contained two occupied apartments.

Alerted at 6:50 a.m. that Wednesday by something that “sounded just like a hurricane,” renters Mr. and Mrs. Don Bachman discovered that the hallway was filled with smoke. So they exited the window onto the old Roxy marquee. Then, they tapped on the adjoining window to alert two Latter-day Saints missionaries who were rooming together.

Three of the four escaped by dropping 12 feet to the sidewalk. Mrs. Bachman was helped down.

Montandon, who also ran the nearby Coast to Coast hardware store, learned of the fire as he arrived downtown for breakfast. He rushed into his building to warn his renters. And was lucky to get back out.

Afterward, he estimated his loss at $100,000 and lamented that insurance covered only 75%: “We don’t know yet what we are going to do now,” he said. “Everything is in such a mess.”

Montandon rebuilt and moved his Coast to Coast store into the former theater building, according to local historian Stephen Shepperd. Later, he operated Ace Hardware at 1010 Sherman Ave. And still later sold that business to son John. The store closed in 2018. And now is home to The Cause Church.

Local connection

You may know that Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked Jan. 6, 1994, by a gang of rogues, headed by rival Tonya Harding’s ex. But did you know that her actual assailant, Shane Stant, then 22, had a connection to Coeur d’Alene?

Stant, who struck Kerrigan's right knee with a telescopic baton in an attempt to hobble her, lived here in summer 1991. And, according to newspaper reports, he spent 15 days in jail after joining friends for joyrides in four stolen Toyota 4Runners from the Parker Toyota lot.

Also, according to newspaper reports, he smeared himself with suntan lotion at the Midtown Safeway without paying for it and was hard-pressed by a landlord for back rent and payment for a broken screen door.

During his time here, Stant worked briefly as a busboy in a downtown restaurant. Stant served 18 months in prison for the Kerrigan attack, found Jesus, apologized, and now runs a legal marijuana shop in California.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Behold in Boise, the Legislature/an odd creation of Mother Nature/waving its arms and flapping its jaws,/it mumbles and rants and passes strange laws — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Peculiar Life Form”).

• Final Call: The fabled Gibbs Tavern on Northwest Boulevard left us in style Jan. 16, 1999, when the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department razed it during a practice burn. A few days before, the sheriff’s SWAT team drilled at the place, pretending to catch bad guys. And before that? The legendary bar from a bygone mill community served the coldest beer in town.

• Out with the Old: On Jan. 14, 1964, President Bob Templin of Western Frontiers announced the purchase of the old switchyard of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, 4.3 acres of city shore. Templin planned to transform the site, south of Sherman, between First and Third streets, into a tourist magnet. And that’s how the North Shore Motor Hotel and later The Coeur d’Alene Resort came to be.

• Factoid: O.W. “Foxy” Edmonds, who served four, two-year terms as Coeur d’Alene mayor, was paid $1 per year when first elected in 1923. He was Duane Hagadone’s maternal grandfather.

• Icy Landings: Seaplane operators of old, like Tom Emerson and Bill Brooks, didn’t mind when local waterways, like Lake Coeur d’Alene, froze over. In January 1949, the two preferred landing and servicing their planes on Fernan Lake. Meanwhile, nine planes kept at Weeks Field (now the county fairgrounds) were fitted with skis to enable landings on snowy runways.

• Many Hats: Earl Hunter, who died at age 99 in April 2015, was many things: Pastor. Missionary. WWII combat chaplain in Italy. DAV Veteran of the Year. My longtime McFarland Avenue neighbor. In January 2004, Earl added the Spirit Freedom Award, presented by Idaho U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, to his sterling resume. Earl and his wife, Mabel, embodied godliness, neighborliness, and patriotism.

Parting shot

‘Tis the season to warn you of over-indulgence. But don’t take my word for it; take Super 1 Foods owner Ron McIntire’s. When we last visited Ron in this column, he was fresh from clobbering Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler in the November 2003 Hayden mayor’s race. But a not-so-funny thing happened to Ron a month later. He had open-heart surgery to fix two clogged arteries. And, at age 67, was forced to take time off from his work-heavy schedule. On this day in 2004, he promised his family and friends that he would work less, change his diet, and reduce fatty foods. “I am going to slow down and spend more time with my family,” Ron promised. "I won’t be working six days a week anymore.” That was 20 years ago. And Ron’s still ticking.

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D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.

    Crane operator Tom Cramer descends a 160-foot ladder.
  

    The marquee of the old Roxy theater helped save four lives.
  

    Firefighter Kenny Gabriel douses a practice burn at old Gibbs Tavern.
  

    In 1964, Western Frontiers purchased the old railroad switch yards on the downtown shore.
  

    North Idaho College sophomore Cindy Barnes studied in the October 1978 sunshine on Tubbs Hill with the old North Shore Resort Hotel in the background.
  

    Seaplane pilots Tom Emerson, left, and Bill Brooks hobnob after landing on Fernan Lake.
  

    Earl and Mabel Hunter.