Sandpoint, ID for the Day

Venturing further afield, we spend our day in Sandpoint, a place Steve and I enjoyed the last time we were in Idaho.

Rich in history, we visited this caboose for a local education. By 1882, Northern Pacific began building the stretch of railroad that ran between Montana and the tiny community of Pend Oreille. The settlement grew slowly over the next decade, during which time its name was changed to Sandpoint. Sandpoint officially became a village in 1901 and a city in 1907.

Since the history museum was closed, we spent some time admiring the native flowers.

“In the past we have asked one thing of our gardens:

that they be pretty.

Now they have to support life,

sequester carbon,

feed pollinators

and manage water.”

-Doug Tallamy

I appreciate that the gardens of Idaho are still pretty!

This 1880s cabin intrigued. Such history!

A visit to the Farmers Market was a must.

The plate-sized peonies are stunningly beautiful right now. WOW.

How cool is this which was built in 1909 by P.E. Bigelow, who financed the construction of the building bearing his name. The ground floor housed the Cranston Brothers Hardware store till the early 1930s.

William August Bernd, born in Bernburg, Germany, arrived in Sandpoint in 1903. W.A. Bernd, 23 and unmarried, opened a dry goods store before commissioning the substantial two-story brick Bernd building in 1907. The second floor was a fourteen-bed hotel, while the ground floor housed a dry goods store and grocery store. Circa 1913, Bernd married Sarah L. Hughes and they lived in the hotel. The building has a unique upper façade, decorated by eight evenly spaced round arched windows and accented by a raised band of repetitive arches.

This two-story brick building was built in 1909 as a hotel and pool hall. In 1920, the pool hall became the Economy Grocery offering fresh butchered meats, farm produce and merchandise and lasted until the mid-1970s. Interestingly, local wildlife artist Ward Tollbom’s part time job was to help his father Stewart Tollbom, the butcher, wrap customers’ meat purchases whereupon Ward would embellish the plain brown paper with hand-drawn ducks, birds or plants. Now named the Hotel Elliott, upstairs rooms are still available for rent.

Our final tour stop was at the very awesome Panida Theater. This Spanish Mission style structure, built for $70,000 in 1927 by F.C. Weskil, first opened its doors as a vaudeville and cinema venue. The entrance fee was a bottle cap, and by the 1940s had increased to 9 cents. Dedicated to the people of the PANhandle of IDAho, the theater was given the name PANIDA. It was the first building in Sandpoint built of reinforced concrete. The theater had a unique “Cry Room” where mothers with babies could sit in comfort behind a glass window to view performances and films with audio piped into the room. In 1985, the Panida was slated to be destroyed. Three local women, the Panida Moms, raised the money to save it. The theater received the Orchid Award from Preservation Idaho in 1986.