HUCKLEBERRIES: Shore is nice here

Coeur d’Alene took its waterfront for granted until Bob Templin built his North Shore Motor Hotel.

Before then, the site was dominated by railroad switchyards, a steamboat landing, a lumber mill, industrial warehouses, log storage, junk and weeds.

Locals dumped trash in the water, including old appliances.

Sandy Emerson, a former chamber of commerce manager, remembers, as a kid, dodging submerged fencing, stoves and refrigerators to swim in oily Lake Coeur d’Alene.

All that began to change Oct. 5, 1964, when the Coeur d’Alene City Council voted 7-1 to approve a $1,590,425 motor-motel project, offered by President Bob Templin of Western Frontiers. Dissenter Del Breithaupt objected that street access to the future North Shore hadn’t been defined.

The plan called for a convention center that would seat 1,000, a 90-unit motor motel, and a deluxe restaurant on the waterfront. More would come later, including a seven-story tower with 60 additional rooms, topped by the renowned Cloud 9 restaurant, with a stunning view of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Templin told the City Council that Coeur d’Alene needed the North Shore to attract tourism, then Idaho’s third leading industry.

“We have many fine motels and restaurants in the city,” he said, “but we haven’t had a centralized convention center.”

Templin’s project was greeted with enthusiasm.

Virgil Thompson, the new chamber of commerce president, told The Press that Templin’s plan was “a gigantic step in modernizing the business district and providing a financial boost.”

In Boise, Louise Shadduck, a Coeur d’Alene native who then directed the Department of Development and Commerce, was “most enthused.” Said she: “These outstanding facilities will make Coeur d’Alene one of the finest convention cities in the entire West.”

The old North Shore prospered and expanded under the Western Frontiers banner for two decades. Then, in June 1983, Duane Hagadone purchased Templin’s hospitality empire and overhauled its waterfront resort. In May 1986, the 18-story Coeur d’Alene Resort opened, with a boardwalk three-fourths of a mile long and a new luxury dining restaurant named after Hagadone’s mother, Beverly.

The Resort’s golf course would open five years later at the old Potlatch Rutledge Mill site.

Meanwhile, Templin moved on.

In 1986, he opened Templin’s Resort and Marina in Post Falls — now Red Lion Hotel Templin’s on the River. And poured himself into boosting another town. At his death in 2017, at age 93, he’d seen the fruits of his labor in Post Falls, as well as the dynamic upgrade in Coeur d’Alene.

“Bob Templin was an amazing man; he was Mr. Hospitality,” said Sandi Bloem, a Coeur d’Alene native and the city’s only three-term mayor. “He built a tremendous anchor for the downtown that drew locals as well as tourists. It was a gathering place with hospitality galore.”

Above all, Templin helped Coeur d’Alene realize the value of its waterfront.

Poor judgment?

The Coeur d’Alene Press was lambasted by readers when it featured Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler in a full-page Sunday profile Oct. 2, 1994: “Meet the People Who Make News in North Idaho.”

Reader Eli Ross of Coeur d’Alene wrote: “Anyone who subscribes to the beliefs of Adolph Hitler and 'Mein Kampf' is one who would replicate the Holocaust were he in the position to do so. Is this the kind of mentality The Press wants to lend credibility to?”

Conducted at Butler’s compound, north of Hayden Lake, the feature elicited the usual answers: Whites, good, non-whites, bad.

But the article also included personal snapshots.

Butler’s family believed in Jesus Christ but didn’t go to church. His father was a Los Angeles machinist. Butler described himself as an “average boy” who was interested in race cars.

And why did he become a Nazi?

During World War II, he was stationed in India, where a servant asked why white Americans were fighting their white European brethren in Europe. “You’re Aryan, they’re Aryan,” the boy said. “Why are you killing each other?”

And that question spawned an awful idea that later bedeviled North Idaho for some 30 years.

Whistle stop

Once upon a time, when the parking lot at the end of Third Street was an unsightly gray slab, motorists paid at a toll booth at the entrance.

And, 30 years ago (Oct. 1, 2004), whistler Robert Stemmons manned that station.

He thrilled customers by mimicking mourning doves, whippoorwills, killdeer, bluejays, robins, sparrows or switching things up — Mozart.

Richard’s audience didn’t have to stop at his ticket booth to hear him. He made CDs, performed “Whistle-Grams,” and whistled impromptu when asked.

His break came in 1994 when a music teacher overheard him whistling and asked him to perform at a concert. That led to more than 1,500 concerts in 30 states.

Of whistling, he said: “It comes pretty natural to me, but I’ve heard that the mouth is the hardest of all musical instruments to learn.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: The crew is in a dreadful mess,/When will they send an SOS?/For it is clear as it can be/the Mariners are lost at sea — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Shipwreck”).

• Famous Potatoes: In 1964, Mrs. E.E. Hill, of Hayden Lake, appeared on the front page of The Press. Why? She’d grown an Early Ohio potato that looked like old-time comedian Jimmy Durante — big schnoz and all. It weighed a half pound and was 5 inches wide and long. Said Mrs. Hill: “We’ve dug potatoes for years, and this is the first time I ever found a familiar face.”

• Namesake: Raise your hand if you know the name of the park at Seventh and Montana. Give up? It’s G.O. Phippeny Park, named after the longest-serving superintendent in local school history. At age 98, Phippeny, who led local schools from 1930-58, was on hand Oct. 4, 1989, when the park was dedicated to him. Mayor Ray Stone had recommended his old mentor for the honor.

• United We Stand: In fall 1959, Coeur d’Alene was all in on the United Way, setting a fundraising goal of $42,238. And, as “a guide to thoughtful giving,” the campaign committee suggested a donation of one hour’s pay per month: “If your hourly wage is $2,” it said, then “$24 for the year would certainly be considered a fair share” (to help 11 organizations).

• Did You Know … that local Councilwoman Kiki Miller once won a grand raffle prize offered by the Eastern Washington Arabian Horse Association? On Oct. 4, 1979, Kiki was shown in The Press with her prize: Wild Willy, a 6-month-old Arabian gelding. She trained and showed Willy for a while. But had to sell him when she became allergic to alfalfa. Said Kiki: “It was quite a ride.”

Parting shot

If she was alive, Jo Webb would encourage lifelong learning. She was the first woman to obtain an electrical engineering degree from Purdue University. Later, as an engineer for Western Electric Corporation, she worked on the design grids of Coulee, Hoover, and Boulder dams. And in 1950, she continued to innovate and learn when she moved to North Idaho. In 1968, she gladly accepted an appointment to the North Idaho College trustee board, based on NIC’s “good reputation.” In the 1970s, she helped save the NIC beach from condo development. She was a driving fundraising force behind several NIC projects. In October 2004, at age 84, she was the college’s oldest student, having enrolled in concert/choir classes for about 15 years. “This campus is full of people of all ages,” she told The Press. “It (her age) doesn’t bother me at all.” In May 2017, at age 98, Jo died, leaving behind an example of excellence to judge future trustees by.

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

    Bob and Mary Templin pose at the 50th anniversary of the Post Falls Chamber of Commerce in 2014.
  

    Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler is shown at his compound in 1994.
  

    Richard Stemmons at the Third Street parking toll booth amuses himself and motorists by whistling in 2004.
  

    Mrs. E.E. Hill displays her “Jimmy Durante” potato in 1964.
  

    G.O. Phippeny, then 98, talks to a well-wisher at a ceremony naming the new city park at Seventh and Montana in his honor in 1989. Coeur d’Alene’s former junior high and high schools were once located on the site.
  

    Mel Mertens of Panhandle Neon puts a thermometer in place on the Elder Building in downtown Coeur d’Alene to keep track of United Way giving in 1959.
  

    Councilwoman Kiki Miller wins an Arabian gelding in a raffle in 1979.
  

    Jo Webb, 84, the oldest student at North Idaho College in 2004.