Kootenai History
Hayden was booming at turn of century
Dec 28, 2004, 21:55
By Ruby Bolan,
Hayden Lake was a thriving boom town early in the century.
Logging, lumbering, steamboat and barge operations, ice storage plants, dairying, mining, agriculture, chicken ranching and recreations were some of the major attractions.
And residents, workmen and pleasure seekers depended for transportation first on a stage coach from Coeur d’Alene and later an extension of the electric train line from Coeur d’Alene.
When business was booming in the early days, it was confined primarily to the west lakeshore. Today there are two incorporated villages using the name Hayden – Hayden Lake Village which embraces the busy area of six decades ago, and Hayden Village, which has grown up in recent years along U.S. Highway 95 to the west where many businesses and professions are represented.
Father Peter DeSmet, Jesuit missionary who first came to what is now North Idaho in 1842, is credited with being the first white man to visit Hayden Lake and to have written the first chapter of the area’s history.
In 1846, when Father DeSmet was traveling from the missions at Pend Oreille to the Sacred Heart mission, near Cataldo, he saw the lake for the first time and named it Lake DeNuf, paying tribute to a benefactor of the Sacred Heart mission.
Father DeSmet also wrote about the Indians in the vicinity and of their superstitions about the lake which they called the “swallowing monster.”
One legend which has survived the years is that the chilefs of two different tribes there were opposed to the coming marriage of a brave of one tribe and the princess of another. One night the brave canoed from his camp, near the present location of the Clark House, to the camp of the princess, on the west shore where Bozanta tavern is located. They left by canoe which capsized near English point and were drowned.
The story continues that the father of the princess went by canoe to find them and his canoe also capsized and he drowned. Later, according to the legend, his body was found floating in the Spokane river near the falls, a mystery as there was no known outlet to the lake.
Also, there is a story told of a one-time whirlpool on the water which frightened the Indians, and still another quoted an elderly Indian chief as saying he was told by his grandfather that many years before Hayden and Coeur d’Alene lakes were one body of water.
Hayden Lake, 2220 feet above sea level, with waters as deep as 400 feet, is three miles wide and seven miles long, and has 45 miles of shoreline, surrounded almost entirely by foothills.
The area first attracted homesteaders in the late 1870’s including Matt Hayden, who gave his name to the lake, John Hager and John Hickey.
Hayden homesteaded at the present site of Honeysuckle beach. Hager where Bozanta tavern has been situated for many years, and Hickey at the present near-by Avondale farm.
How Hayden Lake was named is an interesting story. The name was the result of a game of cards played by Hayden and Hager with Hayden the winner.
Other early settlers included Frank Lee, who owned and operated the first steamboat on the lake in 1904, the Hudlow brothers, Robert and Alf, who had the second such boat on the lake, the Frank Thunborg family who homesteaded on the north end of the lake in 1892, and Charlie Porter, who reportedly built the first frame house on the lake. Earlier homes had been built of logs.
Joe Shirts, another of the early day residents, reportedly killed the biggest cougar ever in the area, with old-timers remembering the cat as 11 feet, four inches from tip to tip.
Residing at the east end of the Yellow Banks in those days was Professor Walker, who taught for years in the first Hayden Lake school, and his family.
Remembering well the early days of Hayden Lake is a present-day resident, Frank Thunborg who was six years old when his family moved there. Frank’s sister, Marie, relates that the Indians would burn the mountain sides so the huckleberries would grow bigger and better. She also remembers tepees scattered on or near her father’s property.
Lumbering and logging operations were flourishing in the area early in the century, the period when much of the virgin timber was cut.
One of several sawmills was on Honeysuckle Beach, operated by Frank and Charles Wood and a Mr. McGee, which later was sold to M. D. Wright where he founded the Atlas Tie Co. This mill was operated by Wright and T. J. Stonestreet until about 1909 when it was moved to its present location, along highway 10, immediately west of Coeur d’Alene. Another mill was operating north of Bozanta Tavern, still another was at Toe Head Point, Victor Harmon had a mill and James Casey operated a stream-driven sawmill as early as 1899.
During the lumbering-logging era there were four steamboats in all operating on the lake, as well as barges, which served as passenger crafts as well as the lumber industry. In addition to the boats of Lee and the Hudlow Bros., a Mr. Skinner had two.
In these long ago boom days, the electric trains made 11 runs daily to Hayden Lake, a connecting railroad ran to the Honeysuckle beach mill and about four miles of track ran to the Rimrock. The train’s service was discontinued in 1929.
Attracting many visitors to the area was Bozanta Tavern which was built in 1904 by Homer King with K. K. Kutter of Spokane as designer. It was the first resort in the area and the first proprietor was Dan J. Moore who had under his supervision as many as 50 employes at a time.
The property was sold to the Spokane and Inland Empire railroad in 1907, to the Great Northern in 1924, and to the Coeur d’Alene Country club in 1929.
Distinguished visitors there have been President Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. President Taft was an overnight guest in 1909, played golf there and was served a dinner of bear, deer, fish and other game of the area. Theodore Roosevelt came in 1914 or 1915.
The golf course, which once was an orchard, was first nine holes but later was enlarged to 18.
First store in the area was at Honeysuckle beach, near the sawmill, known as Monaghan’s, owned by a Mr. Justice who later sold to a Mr. Dawson. In 1906, the store was moved to west of the tavern and burned in 1911. However, another store was built on the same location the next year. The new owner was a Mr. Arnold who named it the Avondale store.
The first Hayden Lake postoffice was at Porter’s Point, was moved later to Monaghan’s store and took the name of the Monaghan post office. When the store was moved, the post office moved to one of the Bozanta cabins, later to the hotel dining room and still later to the Avondale store. The name was changed to Hayden Lake when it was moved to the cabin. In July 1925, the first mail route was established with Albert McBride as the first mail carrier. Still later the post office was moved to a smaller building, and in 1959 to its present location to Hayden Village on the highway.
Important to the area was the creation of the Hayden Lake irrigation district which took place in 1906.
Development of the area’s agricultural resources and the first prospecting for gold and silver date back to the 1880’s.
Worthy of mention in connection with the agriculture of the area were the early day sugar beet projects of D. C. Corbin and the J. Lewis poultry ranch.
Corbin owned 1,200 acres in 1907 all planted to sugar beets. He had many Japanese working for him and camps to house them. One camp was a half mile west of the Hayden Lake school, the second one, one mile north of the school and the third, a mile south of the school. Later Corbin sold his land as small irrigated tracts.
Lewis raised many varieties of fowl on his ranch, including peacocks, ducks, and doves. Chicken hill, on Strahorn road, which is north of Lewis’ property was named for this ranch.
For the convenience of fruit growers, a packing plant was erected in 1914. In 1923 the Growers union built a larger packing plant to accommodate the increased fruit production, primarily apples and berries. It was located at the present site of the Finucane ranch and was torn down about 1939.
Of interest to the early residents, some of whom turned prospectors, was the first finding of gold and silver in the early 1880’s along Hayden creek. The first mine in the area was named for “Fatty Carroll,” now known as the Commonwealth. ….
No history of the Hayden Lake area would be complete without the story of the Clark Estate, a spacious home built on the south end of the lake in 1909 by F. Lewis Clark, Spokane millionaire, whose disappearance about five years later continues to be a mystery today.
The home originally had 85 rooms, including 35 bathrooms, and some of the walls were decorated with handpainted wallpaper, reportedly brought from Europe at a cost of $500 a roll. A small reservoir, fed by a spring, supplied the home with water, and it is reported that the flower garden cost $2,000. Clark is credited with building the dike at the lower end of the lake in 1911, hiring 120 men to do the job. Also owner of English point at the time, Clark had rocks barged across the lake to be used in building the wall which extended along the road to his property.