HUCKLEBERRIES: McEuen Park was an instant kid magnet

Squeals and laughter from hundreds of children test-driving multi-colored playground equipment heralded the soft opening of McEuen Park 10 years ago.

Visionaries who backed the $20 million project despite fierce opposition relished the joyful sounds.

“Before this started, I would drive by McEuen Field for years and years and never saw this many people ever,” said Doug Eastwood, then director of the city’s Parks and Cemetery Department. “This spells success. This is spectacular with all these young mothers and preschool children.”

The partial opening introduced Coeur d’Alene to the eastern end of McEuen Park after almost two years of construction: An expanded playground, basketball and tennis courts and a dog park.

The grand opening three weeks later would unveil the rest. Today, the western end contains a large green space for free play, a splendid Veterans Memorial, the K27 Forever Memorial to police Sgt. Greg Moore, who was killed on duty nine years ago today, and an expanding collection of public art.

On May 2, 2014, however, the children, including 250 from Sorensen Magnet School, were content to whoop and holler as they climbed, swung, slid, dashed and tunneled in their new playground.

The town’s naysayers, who’d lost their all-out battle to stop the park overhaul, complained about the playground, too. Its oranges, blues, greens, and hot pinks were too bright. The grumblers preferred colors that matched the earth tones of nearby Tubbs Hill — never mind that the Fort Sherman Playground at City Park did that already.

Sandy Emerson, who sat on the McEuen Park steering committee, said at the time that designers originally planned to erect replicas of tugboats and steamboats to reflect the area’s heritage: “But then we realized that we weren’t designing this for us, we were designing this for kids.”

On May 24, former mayor Sandi Bloem and her successor, Mayor Steve Widmyer, would cut the ribbon at the official opening of McEuen Park.

Bloem had cast the tiebreaker during a series of 4-3 votes that moved the McEuen Park project forward to groundbreaking. As the mayor who landed the Kroc Center, she was then in the middle of her third term. But her accomplishments didn’t protect her from harsh criticism and a recall effort.

Also targeted by the unsuccessful recall attempts were the three council members who voted with Sandi: Deanna Goodlander, Woody McEvers and Mike Kennedy. The three councilmen who repeatedly opposed council action on the McEuen project were Ron Edinger, Dan Gookin and Steve Adams. The three dissenters wanted a public vote on the controversial project.

But the community turmoil was a distant memory during McEuen Park’s first day.

The soft opening of McEuen lacked but one thing — a functioning splash pad. Bill Greenwood, the new parks and recreation director, had a good reason for not opening the tap on that warm spring day.

Said he: “I (didn’t) want to have a bunch of parents mad at me because their kids came home from school all wet.”

Urinetown?

A day after Coeur d’Alene partly opened McEuen Park, four busloads of frat boys and sorority sisters invaded the Coeur d’Alene waterfront to party and pee.

The Greeks were well-lubricated when they reached City Park.

Some of them, of both sexes, made it as far as the men’s bathroom behind the Rotary bandshell.

Another dirty dozen, male and female, stumbled to the back wall of the Museum of North Idaho before emptying their bladders — in full view of an extended family holding a teen’s memorial at the nearby basketball courts.

One of the mourners snapped photos of five or six besotted women, pants down, with backs to the MONI back wall. And sent it to the local media. That touched off a minor furor — a tempest in a pee-pot, so to speak.

WSU officials got involved.

As penance, 170 members of Kappa Kappa Gamma, the sorority that sponsored the trip here, returned later in spring 2014 to clean Tubbs Hill. And to repeat the exercise that fall. All was forgiven.

Lost and found

It’s frustrating but not rare to lose wallets, glasses, cellphones, and keys. But a gravestone?

Renter Vickey James was inspecting the backyard of her new place on East Sherman Avenue 30 years ago when she noticed a square rock next to a tree. On closer inspection, she realized it was a gravestone.

“I’m just glad nobody’s name was on it,” she told The Press on May 4, 1994.

It didn’t take long to find the owner: Coeur d’Alene Monument.

Seems the 150-pound stone, valued at $600, had vanished from the company about 18 months earlier. It wasn’t the first marker to go missing, according to owner Tom Ball. But it was the first to travel across town. Usually, a thief or a prankster tired of the heavy lifting and dropped the stones within a few blocks.

To show his appreciation, the owner gave Vickey a gift certificate for two steak dinners.

Said he: “I don’t think there’s enough recognition for the people who step out, to be honest and do the right thing. It’s refreshing.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Tulips blooming,/robins singing —/all around us/Spring is springing –— The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Don’t Miss It”).

• Just Say No: Maude Becker had but one gripe in spring 1959 as she retired after 15 years as Hayden Lake postmistress: She didn’t want to see the post office moved from Hayden Lake to U.S. 95 in the growing village of Hayden. “It just seems to belong here,” she said. It had been in Hayden Village once before. And it would be again forevermore.

• All Shook Up: How total was the deconstruction — and later revitalization — of Sherman Avenue? So complete that Bruce English of English Funeral Home, eating at the old Jimmy D’s in May 1989, said that downtown Coeur d’Alene “looks a lot like downtown Beirut.” Ah, Beirut, at the time, was caught in the middle of the Lebanese Civil War.

• Factoid: The North Idaho Worker's Memorial in City Park was dedicated April 28, 2019, inscribed with the names of 26 Idahoans who died on the job or from a job-related injury. The last two workplace victims to make the list were Sandra Lynn Botz and Donnie Dorame. The memorial, said the North Idaho Central Labor Council, is a reminder that “many accidents are preventable.”

• In Memoriam: On May 2, 1974, 2,000 people, including U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, dedicated the Sunshine Miners’ Memorial at the mouth of Big Creek, along Interstate 90. Sculpted by Ken Lonn from mining material, the 12-foot statue of a hard-rock miner honors the 91 miners who died — and the survivors — of the deadly fire two years before.

Parting shot

Dr. Ted Fox’s stately 1925 house on East Lakeshore is the latest historic building to fall to a demolition crew. And the old Roosevelt School is likely to be next.

Progress has leveled much of Coeur d'Alene's history.

Thirty years ago, firefighters used the Hubbard Apartments for a practice burn. In the Fort Sherman days (1878-1901), the structure housed unmarried Army officers.

Historian Merle Stoddard, who lived across the street, tried and failed to save the Hubbard Apartments. It was too expensive to renovate.

After firemen razed the historic place in May 1989, only three structures remained of the 52 that existed when the government abandoned the fort in 1901: Fort Sherman Chapel, the Powder Magazine, and the Fort Sherman Officers Headquarters.

They still exist and are probably safe. But such treasures elsewhere in town need protection.

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

    Councilman Woody McEvers interviews children at the McEuen Park opening.
  

    The Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority of Washington State University makes amends for an unruly spring break visit by picking up litter on Tubbs Hill — twice.
  

    Tom Ball of Coeur d’Alene Monument and resident Vickey James with a found gravestone.
  

    Postmistress Maude Becker
  

    1989 downtown revitalization tore up Sherman Avenue.
  

    Dennis and Kam Murphy of Garco prepare North Idaho Worker's Memorial for grand opening.
  

    U.S. Sen. Frank Church helps dedicate Sunshine Miners’ Memorial.
  

    Local historian Merle Stoddard holds his scrapbook of items from Fort Sherman.