Coeur d'Alene's Garden District makes history
The Garden District in downtown Coeur d'Alene has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pictured: Ninth Street and Garden Avenue, looking east.
DEVIN WEEKS/Press
Coeur d'Alene's Garden District has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Walter Burns, chair of the city's Historic Preservation Commission, was pleased. He said it's been a long road to reach this point.
"It draws awareness to historic preservation and the need to look at our historic resources, value them and maintain them," he said Thursday.
Burns said while the designation does not provide any special protections for properties in the district, it does "give the neighborhood a good amount of pride."
"It speaks to the fact this grassroots activity really is important," Burns said.
The effort to list the Garden District in the National Register of Historic Places can be traced to a group of Garden District neighbors who approached historian Robert Singletary, then the chair of the Kootenai County Historic Preservation Commission, with the idea of placing their neighborhood on the National Register, a press release said.
That commission received a grant from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office to conduct a reconnaissance survey of the district.
The project was then handed over to the Coeur d’Alene Historic Preservation Commission, which applied for another state grant to officially nominate the Garden District to the National Register of Historic Places.
Burns said the community has made it clear preserving historic properties such as The Roosevelt Inn and the Hamilton House in Coeur d'Alene is important.
"This is what the public wants. They are having their voices heard," Burns said.
The Garden District is one of Coeur d’Alene’s oldest neighborhoods, featuring houses built primarily from 1890 to 1940.
It has over 500 primary buildings and nearly 400 outbuildings, and stretches roughly from Lakeside Avenue to Montana Avenue, and Fifth Street to 11th Street.
A “Garden District Weekend” has been planned to commemorate the neighborhood’s new status.
The Museum of North Idaho will conduct a tour of the Garden District on May 31. On June 1 in Phippeny Park, the Historic Preservation Commission and the Garden District board of directors will host a celebration.