Posts
By Richard Sheldon And Deborah Mitchell| February 27, 2021 1:00 AM Peter C. Sorenson was born in 1833 in Kragero, Norway, where he learned the art of boatbuilding. In 1864, Peter, a young widower, and his brother, Lars, immigrated to the U.S. and for several years worked in Michigan building boats for the Great Lakes. Later they…
Read MoreBy Robert Singletary For twenty years, 1878 to 1898, the military band at Fort Coeur d’Alene/Sherman provided much of the musical entertainment for the village of Coeur d’Alene. After the closure of the fort in 1898, the town was without an organized band for several years. On March 12, 1907, Professor James Austin organized the first…
Read MoreBy Robert Singletary for the Nickelsworth On Sunday night, June 25, 1972, the Desert Hotel, and several offices in the building, were destroyed by fire. None of the guests or employees were injured. The fire started in the northwest corner of the basement and traveled through the air conditioning system to the rest of the building.…
Read MoreBy Robert Singletary Fort Sherman was officially closed on March 9, 1900, after being in operation more than twenty years. In 1901, the grounds and buildings were turned over to the Department of Interior for disposal. Several attempts were made to save the fort but none materialized. Finally, on June 6, 1905, the land and…
Read MoreWritten by Robert Singletary for the Nickel’s Worth 2/12/2021 The first sawmill to operate in northern Idaho was built in 1878 by the U.S. Army on land near the Spokane River. Under the command of Col. Henry Clay Merriman, a detachment of cavalry hauled the machinery for a small circular saw with steam power from…
Read MoreCoeur d’Alene Press| January 30, 2021 1:00 AM Excerpted from Coeur d’Alene’s Parks and Recreation 24-page “Walking Tour of The Forest Cemetery” Over 140 years ago, the U.S. Army established a 1-acre cemetery for Fort Sherman near what we know today as Government Way. When the fort was decommissioned in 1900, the bodies of 37 soldiers…
Read More
Written by Robert Singletary for the Nickel’s Worth 1/8/2021 On January 2, 1911, one hundred and ten years ago, a new and modern high school building was opened for classes at Seventh and Montana in Coeur d’Alene. After passing a $40,000 bond levy in the spring of 1910, construction began the following summer and was completed…
Read MoreWritten by Robert Singletary. Featured in the Nickel’s Worth Jan 1, 2021. One of the first automobiles in northern Idaho was a 1902 Oldsmobile owned by Fred Landrus, pictured above. It was used primarily as a race vehicle. Most people in the early 1900s considered the automobile a novelty or a sport rather than a…
Read MoreWritten by Robert Singletary. Published in the Nickel’s Worth December 25, 2020. This log house was built in St. Maries in 1902 and started out as a men’s club. From 1906 until the early 1920s it served as the office and treatment center for Dr. G.S. Thompson. In 1926 Raleigh Hughes purchased the house and…
Read MoreBy Robert Singletary Special To The Coeur d’Alene Press| December 18, 2020 1:00 AM Thomas J. Purcell was born in Wales of Irish parents in 1868. He came to the U.S. with his parents when he was about 12 years old. After working in the Pennsylvania coal mines as a teenager, he made his way west, first…
Read More