Ghost towns spot the landscape

SPRING

2014

Ghost Towns of the Pend Oreille

Local Scouts attain Eagle Status

Stop & Rest at Kalispel Interpretive Center

A supplement publication of the Newport and Gem State Miner Newspapers

Ghost towns spot the landscape along the scenic river

P

BY DESIREÉ HOOD

end Oreille and West Bonner counties are rich in history and had many small towns that dotted the horizon, full of dreams of timber, cement, the railroad and shipping

in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some of those small towns don’t exist anymore, save for a few remnants and mentions in history books.

Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County Historical Society

The train wreck of 1906 was a huge tragedy for the area, killing 12 people and injuring more when it jumped the tracks and crashed down an embankment into Chain Lake. This view of the train wreck shows three cars along the shoreline with the mainline repaired. The car in the lake appears to be the mail car.

The ghost towns chosen for this story may have recognizable names and some people still call them home.

Of the many towns that qualified for the story, these had a rich past filled with success, tragedy, innovation and a unique history as part of Pend Oreille and West Bonner County history.

This information was compiled with the help of the Pend Oreille Historical Society and Museum and from the books, “History of Pend Oreille County” by Tony Bamonte and Suzanne Schaeffer Bamonte and “The History of Bonner County, Idaho” by Marylyn Cork and the Bonner County History Book Committee.

Horizon photo|Desireé Hood

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Camden, Wash.

amden began in the late 1880s on the first old wagon road between

Newport and Spokane. The Little Spokane River is located just northeast of Camden.

It started thriving when John Hoisington chose a 160-acre homestead and the Lyon brothers built and operated a water-powered sawmill a half-mile below Camden in the 1890s using the Little Spokane River for power.

Judge Alex Owen opened the first store in Camden in 1901. In addition, the small town had a Grange, blacksmith shop, post office, train depot and several saloons. The Owen family eventually moved the business to Newport and it still strives today.

On Monday, July 23, 1906, tragedy 6 Horizon| 2014 Spring

struck the small sawmill community. The westbound Great Northern train No. 3 jumped the track about two miles east of Camden. When the train appeared from a tunnel and attempted a sharp curve, it jumped the track and went down a 40foot embankment into Chain Lake. The engine, coal car, mail car and baggage car were completely submerged and it partially submerged the smoker and day coach.

“There was a lot of controversy if all parts of the train were pulled out or not,” local historian Faith McClenny said. “We still get people asking about that. It’s still in people’s minds.”

McClenny said the controversy is over the locomotive or coal car not being recovered after the accident.

Reportedly, 11 people died in the accident, the conductor’s body being found later to make it 12. Several passengers were seriously hurt. Today, all that remains of the small community is the Grange hall and a few residences.

Below: The town of Camden used to boast a Grange, blacksmith shop, post office, train depot and several saloons. Today, this Grange still stands showing signs of the once thriving town.

Scotia, Wash.

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he Scotia Valley lies along a natural route toward Spokane, below

Albeni Falls Dam at the northern entry of Spokane County.

In the early 1890s, Scotia became part of a route for one of the first transcontinental railroads in the U.S. The area was rich in timber and when the railroad was being constructed through the area, sawmills popped up as well.

Emmanuel Graham and his four sons established the sawmill industry in Scotia. The Graham family had helped furnish the timber for the original Monroe Street Bridge in Spokane, which was made entirely of wood at the time. They heard of the railroad moving into the Scotia Valley and made plans to move.

Emmanuel died of pneumonia before making the trip so the sons carried out Horizon photo|Desireé Hood their father’s dream and moved to the The only pieces of Scotia that remain after the town faded in the 1930s is several homes, small old buildings, as seen above, and a few original area opening sawmills. building foundations.

Scotia had a store, post office, school, two saloons, a hotel, boarding house, train depot her his body was buried near Scotia and the pair 60 cords of firewood that had been set on fire durand several homesteads during the peak years. went looking but found nothing. A week later, the ing the hottest part of the summer. McNutt’s two Three murders happened in Scotia during those sheriff received a call from an anonymous caller out sisters and their two brothers were arrested for the years, one of the cases has never been solved. of Los Angeles about where the body was located. crime, robbery the apparent motive. The sisters had William McNutt, a Spokane businessman, was McNutt was found on the property of John been leasing the McNutt Hotel. killed on his way to Spokane. His wife reportedly Wright, under Another tragedy, still unsolved told the sheriff that a psychic told today, happened in Scotia in October 1968. Joe and Marjorie Shaner owned the home of the old store, the Wigle house, and were found dead in their home following a fire.

It was later found by x-ray that Joe had been shot twice in the head.

Marjorie’s body was too badly burned to identify the cause of death. Robbery was the apparent motive at the time, however, no arrests were ever made. It goes down in Pend Oreille County history as one of the few unsolved crimes.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28 Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County Historical Society Museum

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Horizon| 2014 Spring

The location known as Scotia, Wash., north of Diamond Lake, now consists of a county road intersection but this circa 1910 winter scene shows it had several store fronts and a railroad depot. Note the depot outhouse. There also was the Charlie Graham sawmill, which burned in 1917, and the Scotia School. Shown are Stangland Barbershop, left, Wigle Store, Pulford Hotel and the Great Northern Railway station.

Seneacquoteen, Idaho The town of Seneacquoteen was once one of the best known locations in Idaho. The name means “crossing of the river,” a fitting title because of the ferry that operOne man’s dream ated there for almost a century. The ferry was of cement the first one in operation in Bonner County. production started Cement The lush meadows at the mouth of Hoodoo Ione I a small town Creek were a welcoming sight for the Native Americans who began to establish the region in 1810. The ferry service began in 1860 and the Mary Moody steamboat was built on the downstream side of Hoodoo Creek for the Oregon The town Steam Navigation Company in 1865. The ferry stopped survived only service in 1957.

The Seneacquoteen school was one of the first eight short schools in Kootenai County. It was school district 3, years however, speculation around whether this was the Diamond City D y first school is still occurring.

During the peak years, the town had two trading posts, two saloons, a school, a hotel and a post office.

The former Washington Governor Miles Moore operated one of the trading posts in Seneacquoteen before Blueslide Bl B lue Resort t becoming governor.

The tunnel Located near current day Leclede, the town was had murder named the Kootenai County seat by Idaho’s and lives lost Second Territorial Legislature, however, The first school the designation failed because 50 qualified while building teacher in the electors could not be found to certify the county hailed spot.

L Locke from Locke Seneacquoteen was the stopping point on the Wild Horse Trail, which was used to carry supplies to the mines in British Columbia and Montana. The area saw many campers, the common lifestyle of the Native Americans who lived in the town.

Cusick The Northern Pacific Railway used Seneacquoteen for camping while laying the line in 1881. The railroad put down the tracks one valley to the east, however, which eventually led to the demise of the small town.

During the early 1880s, Francis and Elmina Markham moved to the area from Astoria, Ore., with their seven children, Elmina being the first white woman in the area. She held that title for several years and their son was the first white baby born to the town. The family soon learned to “talk Indian” and befriended the Native Americans. However, in the One of Pend Oreille Newport spring of 1889, the family had a dispute with the County’s unsolved Indians from the Metaline area. They had used the murders happened family’s meadow for their horses but Francis had bought 10 cows a few years before and was using in Scotia Scotia the meadow for hay. He asked them to move the horses and when they wouldn’t, he grabbed the horses’ tethers and started them across the creek.

The Native Americans were not pleased and as Francis was halfway across the creek, an Indian man pointed a gun and said to leave the horses alone. Since Camd Camden den n Francis was unarmed at the time, he began yelling for his family. One of the sons, Captain M.C. Markham, A train wreck came out and pointed a gun at the Native American, leaves the town which eventually ended the fight without anyone bedevastated ing shot.

With the railroad a valley away, the town eventually faded into the meadows that highlight the landscape.

All that is left of Seneacquoteen is a cemetery filled with headstones and the memories of a town that once existed.

Valencia, Idaho The town of Valencia, Idaho, grew on the west end of Keyser’s Slough, about a mile east of present day Priest River. According to the July 1982 edition of the Pend Oreille Review, the name originally may have been Priest River until the Great Northern Railroad changed it to Valencia in 1892, later changing it back to Priest River.

McClenny said the original post office was built in 1891 by James Judge and carried the name Valencia. Judge may have also been operating a store in the town.

In 1894, a flood of the Pend Oreille River drowned the town. It was not rebuilt in the same location, but on higher ground to the west, where Priest River stands today.

“That was probably one of the worst floods in the area,” McClenny said.

First ferry operation in Bonner County

Seneacquoteen

Priest P st R River

Valencia

Old site and name for Priest River

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Blueslide, Wash.

lueslide settled in the early 1900s about 13 miles

south of Ione. Timber was the main reason for settling of Blueslide, named for the 150foot blue-clay embankment just north of the Blueslide flat.

The Hollister sawmill started in the early 1900s, cutting match plank for Diamond Match plants in California.

The White Pine Cedar Company built a mill in 1907 near the town where rough lumber was sent by Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County flume on Ruby Historical Museum Creek to the Right: This is a “bird’sEdwards and eye view” of the town of Brothers Planer Blueslide when its biggest Mill. A shingle industry was Leach White mill, a pole Pine Lumber Co. The company and company had a logging another large railroad and sawmill up sawmill also had the hill on Ruby Creek. operations near The rough cut lumber was Blueslide. sent by flume to Blueslide The 1,100-foot where it was planed, dried the tunnel was Blueslide tunnel and shipped out on the Milwaukee Railroad. This took complete. The shift boss, Eli Anderson, was constructed place in the 1920s. The view is looking north. disappeared following the celebrain 1909, allowing train passage to Ione.

McClenny said the tunnel was carved through the mountain where the name comes from. The tunnel was built manually with men drilling and dynamiting from both sides.

It took six months to complete and a night foreman was killed by a large mass of rock that gave way and fell on him.

Another death was reported during the workers’ celebration when tion and workers speculated he was involved in an altercation at the party, was shot and dumped into 28 Horizon| 2014 Spring

the river. Three months later his body was found floating about a mile and a half downstream. The workers had already dispersed by this time and the death was not investigated. Anderson is buried at Blueslide.

Another tragedy hit the small community when 8,960 acres were burned.

Large amounts of white pine and cedar logs that were cut and ready for transport were also burned. Fortunately, not much standing timber was damaged. About $35,000 was the estimated loss.

Another fire hit the town in 1924, destroying much of the town Horizon photo|Desireé Hood and sawmills.

Left: The 1,100-foot tunnel was Many residents constructed by hand with two moved in the wake crews blasting from each side of of the fire and as the mountain. It took six months the timber began to complete. The railroad tunnel to dwindle, the still sits in the mountain as a population did reminder of the flourish of activity also. the area once saw.

Today, Blueslide is a small recreational community with a small resort. The tunnel still remains and dots the landscape with the memories of a bustling town years ago.

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Cement, Wash.

he town of Cement sits just north of and

part of present day Ione and was founded in 1901

by Frank Jordan when he was on the search for gold in the north end of the county.

Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County Historical Museum

Cement was an early town located just north of what is now the town of Ione. The highway and railroad tracks are about a mile from Ione’s Main Street. Cement, which once had several businesses, appears to be all residential in this picture that dates to the 1920s or 1930s.

Horizon photo|Desireé Hood

Right: This furnace of a kiln was used for cement production by Frank Jordan and his company in the town of Cement, Wash. It is one of the few remains for the town that was created for the purpose of making cement.

(208) 691-7670 FAX 208-265-8882

Jordan did not find gold, but he found limestone and quartzite and quickly had dreams of a cement plant. The towns of Ione and Cement quickly became integral parts of each other.

Jordan filed for a homestead claim on 132 acres just north of present day Ione. The claim included a part of Cement Mountain. Financial troubles hit Jordan and after numerous attempts to get backing from investors, he finally landed a $200,000 deal with a resident of Nelson, B.C. and his cement dreams became a reality.

Jordan’s cement plant, the Pacific Portland Cement Company, began in 1902 with seven employees.

He dammed Cedar Creek for power and by years end, a small amount of cement was being manufactured. McClenny said the cement plant never really made a profit.

By 1906, the community of Cement had a school, post office, store and steamboat landing. The post office was established in William Weltzine’s

store in 1904 and McClenny said it was closed by March 1915.

Longtime area residents Lila and John Middleton said the cement plant bored a small “hole in the wall” in Cement Mountain for the plant. The hole is still carved into the mountain today.

“The kids would go in there and have their lunch,” Lila Middleton said.

Jordan soon became entangled in lawsuits about the claim on Cement Mountain and became suspicious of anyone venturing onto his property. He shot at three men from Spokane who came on his property without permission in 1907. The men were not hurt in the incident.

By 1909, the Pacific Portland Cement Company was sold and plans were made by Jordan and the new investors to employ 300 workers and produce 2,000 barrels of cement, a dream that never happened.

“Because of financial difficulties, it did not get off the ground,” McClenny said.

“They didn’t make anything.”

The Inland Portland Cement Company was in operation in nearby Metaline Falls by this time and they were producing cement cheaper than Jordan could. He lost his financial backing and with that, his cement dreams were gone.

Today, the hole is still in Cement Mountain, and a large furnace for the kiln of the cement plant sits off of Highway 31 just off the railroad tracks. The Middletons said the remains of Jordan’s house are still in the area as well. These are the only remains of Cement, Wash., a town built because of one man’s cement dreams.

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Diamond City, Wash.

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n a period of eight years, Diamond City was settled and thriving as a saw-

mill community and then disappeared completely off the map in the 1920s in Pend Oreille County.

The Diamond Match Company entered the county, quietly buying match block stock from existing mills. The company took advantage of the post-war recession affecting the lumber industry and bought up large stands of timber and distressed sawmills at low prices.

Once they acquired the water rights to LeClerc Creek from the Panhandle Lumber Company through a court case in 1920, the area saw a flourish of activity.

A high volume sawmill was constructed that used power from the newly dammed creek. The mill was capable of producing 50,000 board feet of lumber per eight-hour shift.

The railroad was on the west side of the Pend Oreille River, however, and there was much confusion on how to transport the logs to the far side of the water. In March 1921, a tram was built spanning three and a half miles from the loading dock at the end of the sawmill, crossing the river at the narrowest point in the area and ending at an unloading device next to the railroad on the old Honsinger homestead, about a mile north of Lost Creek. This was the second longest tram in the U.S. at the time, the longest being in California.

Diamond City was placed next to the mill. It was a small community of about 20 homes, a one-room school, a store, a few bunkhouses, a commissary, recreation hall, dining room, kitchen, barn, offices, work shops and horse and feed sheds. Baseball became the favorite pastime and the Diamond City team, complete with uniforms, played opponents from Cusick to Metaline Falls.

McClenny said this team was “super 30 Horizon| 2014 Spring

Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County Historical Museum

The Diamond Match Co. had a sawmill and company town known as Diamond City east of the Pend Oreille River in the West Branch of LeClerc Creek area from 1920-28. Production from this mill was carried overland and across the river on a large aerial tram that connected with the Milwaukee railroad near Lost Creek. The only remnants today are a few concrete pillars surrounded by natural forested land.

duper” and many good players frequented the area.

“If a man was a good pitcher, he was almost guaranteed a job at Diamond Match,” McClenny said.

The peak years were 1922 through 1925, but then the White Pine timber was slowly being exhausted. In 1927, Diamond Match ceased operations and with it, the town slowly faded.

The mill was moved and the remaining buildings were torn down or burned restoring the site to Mother Nature as required by the Forest Service use permit in 1920.

The area is now covered with national forest and a few cement pillars are the only markings that the town ever existed.

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Courtesy photo|Pend Oreille County Historical Museum

This photo from the Ralph R. Isaacs album is one of several showing this pipe-smoking dog. We believe this shows Isaacs and his son-in-law on the porch of the Isaacs cabin at Locke.

Locke, Wash.

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he town of Locke, located about 24 miles north of Newport on Highway

20, was settled in the mid-1880s with the dream of farming on the rolling fertile grounds and fresh virgin timber being plucked from the landscape.

The Forest Homestead Act of 1906 was the main reason for the settlement of the Calispell Valley area. The act gave settlers 160 acres within the forests if the land had the potential for agriculture. Settlers could earn a living in timber but still farm their land.

The first post office in Locke, located in settler William Fountain’s living room, saw people come from areas as

far as Lost Creek. The Fountains often brother Robert also served as Stevens county is used to. fed the visitors lunch before they made County Commissioners and William Tragedy struck the small farming the long trek back to their was elected to Pend Oreille County town in June 1930. The L.M. Sibbitts homes. family, which lived The name just north of Locke, Locke came lost three children to a from the first drowning accident at postmaster Cusick Creek. The chilDavid Locke dren, ages 6, 8 and 10, Smith, were wading the creek who later when the youngest fell changed into a deep pool. In an his name to attempt to save him, the David Locke two other children were to differensucked under and also tiate from drowned. the rest of The Newport Miner the world’s reported in July of that Smiths. year that nine lives had “Every been lost to drownings fool in the in the area. country Horizon photo|Desireé Hood Today, driving north was named The remnants of Locke include this sign, placed at the site of the once bustling town. Locke is on Highway 20, one Smith,” about 24 miles north of Newport on Highway 20. of the only indications McClenny the town ever existed is laughs. commissioner in 1913, after it split from a sign that says “Former Site of Locke, Fountain was the first school teacher Stevens. McClenny said the schoolhouse WA.” in the county in 1889. He and his collapsed during a hard winter the Spring 2014 |Horizon 31