NEWSLETTER | FALL 2021 | VOLUME 41 | NUMBER 4
Ford Tractor Dealership, Coeur d'Alene Tractor Company, circa 1945. CDA-45-52
Beginnings of the Adams Tractor / Coeur d'Alene Tractor Company in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene as told to Sandy Emerson by John and Wally Adams The Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area in the early 1900s was known as an agricultural center. Fruit orchards were prolific from west of Green Bluff, along Spokane Valley’s Appleway, continuing over to Coeur d’Alene's Appleway Avenue (formerly Fruitland Lane), over to what became known as Cherry Hill and out north to Dalton Gardens. According to Marvin E. “Snowball” Shaddock’s history of Dalton Gardens, ”The Dalton Story,” most of the acreage in Dalton was taken up by fruit trees in the early days after the turn of the century (1900).
Apple orchards were plentiful in the area during the 1920s before killing frosts in 1923 and 1935 affected the entire region’s orchards, including those of Dalton Gardens and Spokane. A happy transition from the beginnings on a west Spokane family farm started with a young family man loading apples into railroad cars at a depot in Spokane. We see Coeur d’Alene Tractor Company, located at 1112 W Appleway Avenue, on the north side of the I-90 Freeway when coming into Coeur d’Alene from the west.