Voice summer 2017

V

Summer 2017

oice

Of the Pend Oreille River Valley

A supplement publication of the Newport and Gem State Miner Newspapers

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Summer Voice

Editor’s Note

A

rea has plenty of unique, interesting homes The Pend Oreille River Valley offers a variety of homes, from the rustic to the opulent, from large to small, from historic to new.

Due to last year’s popularity of this theme, we have a featured a number of homes in this issue of Voice.

In north Pend Oreille County, one of the area’s most historic properties, The Washington Hotel, is the subject of a story by reporter Sophia Aldous. She captures owner Arlie Ward’s appreciation for the historic role the hotel and his mother, former Metaline Falls Mayor Ernestine “Lee” McGowan, have played in the area’s past.

The tiny house movement has picked up steam in the last decade and Dave Bates of Portable Cedar Cabins in Spirit Lake is riding the wave. His custom cabins are 400 square feet in size, not counting decks and lofts. He’s building the small cabins as fast as he can for customers around the country.

In Newport, the Wagars are the owners of a house with a lot of history, some of it chronicled by the children of Anna and Frank Horton, the home’s builders and first occupants. They wrote about their parents’ experience with the house that was built in 1909.

The Keyser House in Priest River is now home to the Priest River Museum, but it is also an historic house built in 1895. Henry and Elizabeth Keyser were a well-liked German couple who opened their home to many a visitor. In 1995, descendants of the Keysers donated the house to the Priest River Chamber of Commerce for use as a Chamber office and museum, so the house was moved from its original farmland property to its current location in town. The home and its history are the subject of another story in this issue.

We at The Miner learned a lot writing these stories and we hope you enjoy reading them.

-DG

INDEX Local craftsman Page 4

Tiny cabins Page 10

Washington hotel Page 16

Keyser House Page 24

Voice Published: June 2017 Publisher: Michelle Nedved Writers & editors: Sophia Aldous and Don Gronning Design: Chuck Waterman Advertising: Lindsay Guscott, Cindy Boober and Micki Brass

VOICE is published quarterly as a supplement to The Newport Miner and Gem State Miner, 421 S. Spokane, Newport WA 99156.

TELEPHONE: 509-447-2433 E-MAIL: minernews@povn.com FAX: 509-447-9222 Reproduction of articles & photographs is prohibited without permission of the publisher. See all issues at The Miner Online: www. pendoreillerivervalley.com

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A true Craftsman lives on

Wagar family resurrects vintage beauty to original grace

By Michelle Nedved

Courtesy images|Pend Oreille County

When Pend Oreille County celebrated its centennial in 2011, the cornerstone was taken out of the Courthouse which contained a time capsule. In that time capsule was a brochure for the county, which included a photo of the Horton House, seen in the top right corner of the image.

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‘Are you sure you know how to get into the house? It’s not supposed to be finished for another two weeks,’ Anna anxiously questioned.” “‘Just take my hand. We’re going through the hole for the fireplace. Let’s hope the fellows haven’t started to lay brick,’ Frank reassured Anna. ‘No one will find us here.’”

Anna and Frank Horton were just back from their honeymoon in 1909, waiting for the house that they were building on the corner of Cass and Fourth in Newport to be finished.

This story is from small vignettes the Hortons’ children wrote of life for the family, that the Wagars found at the Pend Oreille County Historical Museum. The house is listed on the Pend Oreille County Historical Registry as the Horton House. It is now owned by Jon and Chris Wagar, who bought the house 20 years ago Memorial Day weekend. The Wagars did their homework, and the house – now 108 years old – is restored to its original grandeur.

The home is a classic Craftsman and the décor is Arts and Crafts. The Wagars found books about the Craftsman movement, their furniture and custom cabinets, as well as paint colors, were all researched and inspired by the Arts and Crafts style.

The night the Hortons snuck into their own house, two weeks before it was to be completed, their friends were looking for them. The young couple was certain that a roaring “chivalri” had been planned for them their first night back in town, and they could hear their friends calling for them. “’Without attracting any attention, Anna and Frank stealthily crept into their unfinished home. There they spent the night.

Their delight knew no bounds as they listened to their friends calling to each other during the hunt that lasted far into the night.’”

The beginning Ambrose Frank Horton and Anna M. Thursen were married June 22, 1909, in Spokane. Ann was from Spokane, and Frank was a farmer from North Dakota. He sold his farm and moved west. The couple settled in Newport and built the house, which is now two-toned gray in color, with an immaculate lawn.

The Hortons had four children, three boys and a girl. They lived on the corner of Fourth and Cass until the Great Depression of the early 1930s brought unexpected

changes for the Hortons. They left the home in Newport and settled in Spokane, becoming associated with the Spokane Radio Company. There they stayed until 1939, when they arrived in Seattle.

Their years in the Newport home were happy ones, according to the stories and poems written and compiled by their daughter, Agnes, with the help of her siblings and in-laws.

Anna and Frank were both avid readers, and evenings were spent reading together as a family. Anna and Frank would continue reading into the night in the living room, after the children were in bed. Sundays were special days, with church in the morning and big delicious dinners in the evening.

But it wasn’t all good times. The Hortons, along with most of Newport, were hit by the Spanish Influenza in 1919. Anna was the first to come down with the illness, and while the rest of the family was vaccinated, they became ill too.

“People in Newport, by the dozens, were coming down with Spanish Influenza,” the Horton family history reads. “The epidemic soon closed all schools, many businesses, Continued on page 6

Courtesy photo|Chris Wagar

The Wagar family lives in the home now. Pictured are: Jacob, Jonathan, Christina, Zach, Stevie and Noah, holding Grayson. Jon and Chris bought the house in 1997.

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The Wagar house, as it looks today. Officially named the Horton House on the historic registry, the paint colors were researched and are period correct for the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s. The home was built in 1909 by the Hortons.

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From Page 5

and turned church basements into hospitals. As the disease spread, those who were able to be about wore face masks.

Then the funeral processions – one, two, sometimes three each day – started to pass by the Horton home on the way to the cemetery. The survivors were

‘People still ask us, you’re in Aherns’ house, or you’re in the Sedlacek’s house. I love that piece of it. That we have a house that’s been in the community so long. People remember being in it when they were kids.’

Chris Wagar Homeowner

left with a devastating weakness from the illness, and many suffered relapses. Pneumonia usually followed the relapses and was, in most cases, fatal.”

A delivery boy left supplies on the Hortons’ porch: groceries, medicine, a bolt of cheese cloth, large rolls of cotton, and large safety pins. The Hortons’ aunt and grandmother, who were caring for the sick family members, fashioned vests out of the cotton and cheese cloth, fastening them with safety pins. They would rub chest and back of the sick with hot camphorated oil.

The family always wondered if it was the oil or the vests, but they all recovered from the Spanish Influenza and didn’t succumb to the deadly pneumonia.

New families Chris and Jon Wagar were married in August 1996. Jon grew up in Wallace, and Chris in Pennsylvania. Jon moved to Newport with his family, and attended Newport High School.

He went to Eastern Washington University for his teaching certificate and eventually returned to Newport to teach. When he and Chris met, she moved here too.

Chris works in administration at Newport Hospital and Health Services. The connection between her house and her occupation isn’t lost on her.

She remembers studying the Spanish Influenza extensively in school. She also discovered that Frank Horton was one of the original commissioners of the hospital district.

The Wagars bought the home from Renee Mortenson in 1997.

They had been renting on Pend Oreille Homes Road, from Geoffrey and Nancy Thompson, who are now their neighbors in town.

When they decided it was time to buy a house, finding one wasn’t easy.

“We looked and looked and looked and looked,” Chris said.

“We looked everywhere.”

Then one day, “Jon’s mother Lois called us frantically one Saturday and she’s like, my favorite house in Newport has a for sale sign on it. You’ve got to go look at it.”

Chris saw it that day, and Jon saw it the next. While there was already an offer on the house, their realtor encouraged them to make their own offer, because you never know what’s going to happen.

“You could tell it had great

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The Wagars have been careful to buy furniture to compliment the house. This Arts and Crafts dining room table and chandelier are perfect compliments in the dining room.

character, but let’s just say it needed a lot of work,” Chris said. The original offer was denied because of contingencies and the house was theirs.

“We consistently say ‘Lois found our house for us,’” Chris said. Lois Bridges passed away in 1999, one of the many reasons they don’t have any plans to leave the home.

While Chris was digging through records for this story,

she came across the first “to do” list they had created just weeks after moving in. It included everything: long term and short term goals.

“We were looking through (the list) and a lot of things we did right off the bat,” she said.

The biggest problem was the kitchen, other than carpeting.

Everything was carpeted in chocolate brown, except for

Continued on page 8

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From Page 7

the TV room, the floor of which was splintered wood. A bedroom was carpeted in yellow shag.

“We immediately removed carpeting through the hallway and the mustard yellow shag carpet in the bedroom. We had the original floors refinished just in those three area,” Chris said.

They had to wait several more years to have all the floors refinished, which they did in 2001. They were the original fir floors, a very soft wood.

“Add kids, dogs, furniture, they just very quickly got scratched up and splintery in places,” Chris said.

Jason Lindburg, a local carpen-

‘You could tell it had great character, but let’s just say it needed a lot of work.’

Chris Wagar

ter and floor refinisher, came and looked at them. By that time they had been redone four times, and there was nothing left. “They were down to the tongue and groove,” Chris said.

So they hired Lindberg to relay floors – maple this time. “The hardest American wood we could find,” Chris said.

Lindburg was inspired by a stencil around the ceiling of the Wagars’ TV room. They found a woman who recreated Arts and Crafts stencils, mentioned in one of the books they used for research. They contacted her and were able to buy the stencil. Lindburg used the image to create an inlaid artwork that hangs in the Wagar dining room.

They have completely renovated the kitchen, having custom cabinets made that are period to the house.

They painted the fireplace white, which had been painted beige, with dark brown painted grout. The hearth was stick-on linoleum tiles of brown and gold, same as the kitchen floor.

The house still features the original lead windows on the main floor. The slender glass pieces were started to bow, and some began falling out.

Jon painstakingly removed

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the glass and took them to a stained glass company in Spokane Valley. The windows were rebuilt with the original panes of glass.

“That was the most petrifying thing,” Chris said.

The exterior of the house is a two-tone dark and light gray.

When it was time to choose colors, the Wagars again referenced the books on the Craftsman style, and Googled images of Craftsman homes. They found that Sherwin Williams had resurrected several collections based on their own archives of colors, including the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Wagars settled on the two shades of gray after painting samples on sheetrock and looking at them at various times of day at various locations around the house.

Then they began to paint.

“We buy eight gazillion gallons of paint. We put the top on first, and people were coming up to us and asking why were painting our house black. That’s what it looked like,” Chris said.

She was terrified. “I thought we made a mistake.

“As soon as the bottom color went on, it was right as rain.

Those same people came back and said, ‘huge difference.’”

Timeless beauty With Chris working for New-

Voice photo|Michelle Nedved

Jason Lindburg laid new maple floors in the home, and was intrigued by the stencil in the TV room. The Wagars found a woman who recreated Arts and Crafts stencils and bought this from her.

port Hospital and Health Services, she knows a lot of patients who have lived long lives in Newport, and some remember the various occupants of the house.

“People still ask us, you’re in

the Aherns’ house, or you’re in the Sedlacek’s house,” Chris says. “I love that piece of it.

That we have a house that’s been in the community so long.

People remember being in it when they were kids.”

Voice photo|Michelle Nedved

Lindberg was inspired by the stencil in the Wagars’ TV room and created this inlaid artwork. The colors in this piece are original to the wood. No stain or paint was used.

Summer Voice

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Voice photo|Michelle Nedved

The Wagar living room is full of furniture and accessories of the Arts and Crafts movement.

They did extensive research to make the furnishings match the house, not the other way around.

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The fireplace was painted beige with dark brown painted grout, and stick-on tiles for the hearth. The Wagars painted the entire fireplace white, and installed a brick hearth to match.

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Tiny, portable cabin market growing

By Don Gronning

Courtesy photo|Janet Thome

Most of the cabins have a loft. Lofts and decks aren’t counted in square footage.

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D

an Bates looks down the road from Portable Cedar Cabins, his Spirit Lake business in the Industrial Park.

“Those are going to a Girl Scout Camp,” he says, pointing to a half dozen cabins bound for Florida. In the eight years he’s had the business, he’s sold to people in Hawaii, Florida and California.

Bates is riding a nationwide trend towards smaller housing.

People use them for caretaker dwellings, for camps, for rentals and to live in as a full time residence. After years of McMansions, Bates has tapped into a market for smaller places, a lot smaller.

Most of the custom cabins built at Portable Cedar Cabins are no larger than 400 square feet, some as small as 8 feet wide.

“When you live in an 8 foot wide cabin, you have to love the one you’re with,” Bates says. “There’s nowhere to go.”

One of the attractions to the smaller places is their affordability. Bates says you can get a 400 square foot cabin with a deck and loft for about $61,000. The most expensive cabin he offers costs $75,000. That one is 14 feet wide and 20 feet long with a deck and a loft.

The cabins are custom built from the ground up.

“You give me a wish list and we start there and go to what you can afford,” he says.

The cabins come with a stainless steel double kitchen sink, refrigerator, a four burner stove with a conventional oven, a one piece fiberglass shower, a 10-gallon electric water heater and a toilet.

Buyers can choose a variety of

upgrades, including radiant floor heating ($1,500), washer and dryer ($1,250) and on demand water heater ($950) among others.

Bates got his start in the custom home building business, something he came to north Idaho to do in 1994. He did all right, even building himself a 6,000 square foot home he intended to sell. Then the recession hit and he started Portable Cedar Cabins.

“When the market fell in 2009, nobody wanted houses, so we started building the portable cabins,” Bates said. It was slow going at first but he felt he was on to something.

But it was a housing need in North Dakota that gave the business a boost.

“Out of the blue, a guy called and said we needed housing and we needed it fast,” Bates says. “That started things off.”

The guy wanted a four plex – four units on one trailer, 76 feet long by 16 feet wide. Bates sold a dozen of them for oil worker housing, giving his business a boost.

Eventually he sold about 50 units in North Dakota, even setting up a small home for himself because he was there so often. Among others, he sold to farmers who wanted a place to rent to oil workers. When he didn’t need the home any more, he put up a sign and sold it the next day for $25,000.

The oil glut caused the North Dakota market to fall off, but Bates is convinced it will come back.

In the meantime, the compact cabin market began to take off, with plenty of cable television coverage, such as Tiny House Hunters, Tiny House Nation and Tiny

Voice photo|Don Gronning

Dave Bates in a cabin under construction. Note the custom ceiling with the fan and window lit loft.

House Big Living.

That keeps Bates busy. He says it will take about eight months from putting money down on a place to delivery.

Bates builds all the cabins from the ground up. To be cost effective,

he waits until he has orders for a half dozen cabins to order steel.

Portable Cedar Cabins employs 18 workers and builds seven days a week. Bates says he’s always runContinued on page 12

Courtesy photo|Janet Thome

Some of the larger homes need a bigger truck to pull them.

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Voice photo|Don Gronning

Dave Bates went into the tiny home building business in 2003. He founded Portable Cedar Cabins in Spirit Lake.

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From Page 11

ning ads for workers. He sold 54 units last year, so the demand is there and shows no sign of letting up. If anything, it’s increasing.

“Everyone wanted to down size or to put Mom or Dad in a cottage in the back yard,” he said. The portable nature of the cabins is also appealing.

“If you don’t like the view, you move,” Bates said.

The cabins are certified park model mobile homes, with wheels.

Bates says you can pull the smaller ones with a three-quarter ton pickup but the larger ones require a bigger truck. They come with a one year manufacturers warranty.

Financing the compact cabins was a challenge for some at first, as banks were reluctant to make home loans on them. Bates said credit unions were better and now he says several credit unions will finance the cabins, some with minimal down payments.

Bates grew up in California. He has always been interested in construction. His first job was stripping roofs off homes when he was 16 and his favorite high school class was shop. After high school, he joined the service, where he operated heavy equipment. After he got out of the service, he worked at a steel plant, then went into plumbing and eventually homebuilding.

He traveled a lot building homes and he got tired of it. He told his wife Cheryl he was tired of the traveling. He started researching tiny houses.

The first few he looked into were

about 120 square feet, pretty small he figured. But he found out about park model sized cabins and decided to start building them.

Park model homes don’t require certification but all Bates’ cabins are RV certified by Pacific West Associates Inc., checked for mechanical, electrical structural and forensic engineering.

For Bates and his wife and their two dogs, Rudy and Louise, the trend is paying off and keeping them busy. Cheryl works in the office for the business.

There are some of Bates cabins at Skookum Village in Usk. Mike Smith and Lynda Clark live at Skookum Village in a Tiny Portable Cedar Home bought from Bates.

“We call it our river place,” says Clark. They make their full-time home in Spokane. “We’re up there about every weekend we don’t have something else going on,” she says, including in the winter.

They didn’t have any trouble with the cold weather last winter. “We didn’t freeze or anything,” she says.

Clark prefers the cabin to the fifth wheel trailer they used before.

For one thing, it doesn’t have a flat roof. For another, it’s bigger.

Bit it still isn’t very large. The small size of the home doesn’t bother them.

“It feels like it’s easier to keep clean,” she says.

Clark says they bought the cabin for $55,000, then did some work on it, including building an enclosed porch and deck. The end result is just what they wanted.

“We love it,” Clark says.

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This cabin is about 400 square foot in size, the maximum size to be accredited by Pacific West Associates, Inc., a Design Approval Agency that certifies park model mobile homes.

Courtesy photo|Janet Thome

Most of the custom cabins have kitchens and make efficient use of shelves.

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The exterior of The Washington Hotel, home and workplace of Metaline Falls resident Arlie Ward.

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Hotel serves as home and hallmark of history

By Sophia Aldous

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

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ETALINE FALLS – Have you ever seen a house or building from days of yore and thought to yourself, “I wonder what it would be like to live there?”

Arlie Ward knows. He inherited the Washington Hotel from his mother, Ernestine “Lee” McGowan, respected artist and former Metaline Falls mayor, upon her death in 2012. Ward lives in an apartment in what used to be the hotel’s mess hall and kitchen. His mother’s oil paintings decorate the outside room where he still receives the occasional overnight guest at the hotel and his living quarters in an open floor, studio-like apartment that he shares with his two dogs, Sugar and Riley, and three cats, Black Bart, Black Jet, and PJ. “I’m trying to maintain that early 20th century look (to the hotel),” says Ward, who is in the midst of renovating some of the hotels plumbing and interiors. A carpenter and retiree of Alcoa Wenatchee Works, Ward has spent the last 20 years being the hotel’s caretaker as well as its owner. He still rents out rooms for the night, but he doesn’t do any advertising, and anyone looking for a trendy tourism website or Facebook page touting the hotel’s nostalgic appeal won’t find it.

“I don’t mean to be rude about it, but if you’re a high maintenance guest than this is not he hotel for you,” Ward says nonchalantly as he gives a tour of the rooms. “There’s no television, no private bathrooms---it has a bit more of a hostel feel.”

Still, at 110 years old, the Washington Hotel is still standing strong, and is one of Metaline Falls most recognizable landmarks. In its heyday, it was a working class hotel that lodged many of the areas, miners, loggers, and served as the customs office for those traveling from Canada. Construction started in 1903 at the behest and finances of Lewis P. Larson, the founder of Metaline Falls.

Born in 1876 in Denmark, Larson became a prominent miner, prospector, industrialist, metallurgist, and financier, after immigrating to the United States in 1895. In the early 1900s, he came to what is now North Pend Oreille County, attracted by the undeveloped mineral resources he found in the area. He was instrumental in bringing rail transportation to the area, as well as electricity and clean water. Larson also played a major role in organizing the Pend Oreille Mines and Metals Company and promoting the development of a cement plant for the area (the now shuttered Lehigh Portland Cement Company).

Finished in 1906 for the sum of $15,000, the Washington Hotel became a hub for laborers and travelers, even serving as a gathering place for former Washington governor Marion E. Hay’s visit to the area in 1911. Debts caused Larson to transfer the ownership of the hotel to the Lehigh Portland Cement Company, who sold it in 1956 to Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Lowe. The Lowes operated it as a hotel and boarding house until 1974, when McGowan purchased it.

The hotel’s brick structure still remains the same; no painted façade or cheesy, incoherent avant-garde updates to its aesthetic, as can sometimes befall old buildings that don’t succumb to development or a disaster, like fire. Most of the flooring and the trim is the exact same wood that was used in the hotel’s construction. There are four floors to the Washington: a basement, the first floor where Ward lives and where a new bakery and art gallery is being installed in the front of the hotel, the second floor that has around 19 rooms for guests, a shared community bathroom with multiple showers, a laundry Continued on page 22

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Summer Voice

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

One of the guest rooms on the hotel’s second floor. All of the beds are covered in quilts made from cloth and fabric from the local quilting store.

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Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

Tended flowers and hanging baskets line the side of the hotel.

Miner photo|Washington State Library

Wintertime in Metaline Falls as lodgers pose in front of The Washington Hotel (year unknown).

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Summer Voice

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Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

Lee McGowan’s oil paintings of people, paces and nature line the walls of the hotel’s lobby.

From Page 18

room, and then the attic, which Ward uses for storage. In some of the guest rooms, colorful, patterned World War II linoleum still lines the floor, in perfect condition. Ward does all the landscaping outside of the hotel as well.

The upkeep is a lot of work for one man, and Ward makes no bones about that. The hotel isn’t on any historical registry, so funds for repairs and maintenance come out of Ward’s pocket.

The thought of selling it had crossed his mind, but in the end, he appreciates the opportunity the hotel gives him to keep sharp on his craftsmanship of building and repairing. Plus, it was the place his mother returned to when she purchased the building in 1974. Her family had a history of working at the hotel and she grew up in Pend Oreille County.

“She did so many things in order to see this town thrive,” Ward recalls. “It was important to her that people see all the potential this town had to offer. She went out into the world and de-

cided to come back, so you knew it meant something to her.”

That’s partly why Ward is glad to see a new bakery going in, along with the art gallery. Both are scheduled to open this summer. The other reason is that

Ward understands the fascination people have with older buildings, fashioned from materials that no longer exist, such as old growth timber and local clay, at a time that seems mostly foreign to modern sensibilities.

“We’re curious as to how people lived back then,” Wards says. “When you walk down a hallway or into a room where someone was living their life over a 100 years it kind of makes you pause.”

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

A double guest room that has a small, adjacent bedroom. Much of the trimming and light fixtures are still original to the hotel.

22

Summer Voice

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23

A home to history

Priest River Museum nestled in original pioneer house

By Sophia Aldous

Courtesy photo|Priest River Museum

(Above) A side view of the Keyser House on Main Street, which is home to the Priest River Museum.

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

(Left) A picture of the Keyser House before the home was restored by volunteers in 1995.

24

Summer Voice

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

Wedding dresses worn by Keyser family women throughout the decades are displayed in the master bedroom.

P

RIEST RIVER – What makes a house a home? Is it the manicured lawn or the recreational toys parked out front?

Is it the décor and plethora of family photos lining the walls?

Or is it a quiet determination to establish a life for you and yours?

Is it an effort to succeed in a new place, far from what you know? If so, the embodiment of that spirit could be found in the Keyser House, one of the first pioneer homes of Priest River that now serves as the Priest River Museum. Originally owned by Henry and Elizabeth Keyser, the butter yellow wood house resides at the end of Main Street in Priest River’s historic downtown.

The Keysers, both emigrants from Germany, were well respected by Native Americans and pioneers alike and were instrumental in establishing the Priest River community.

“He was a businessman, as well as a farmer and a rancher, and she was a midwife,” says Donna Jones, a Priest River Museum volunteer.

“Like other families in the area, they were instrumental to the town’s history.”

Charlie Johnson built the balloon framed stick structure in 1895 with square nails and it was the first wood-framed home in the community. In 1995, descendants of the Keysers donated the house to the Priest River Chamber of Commerce Summer Voice

for use as a Chamber office and museum, so the house was moved from its original farmland property to its current location. At the time the house was gifted, it was in derelict condition, so volunteers stepped in, rolled up their sleeves and restored the structure. The first level was renovated as close as possible to its original appearance and many of the heirlooms displayed when visitors walk into the mu-

seum indeed once belonged to the Keysers, including an ornate family bible that sits on the family’s piano in the parlor and several wedding dresses worn by Keyser women throughout the decades.

Jones says Henry and Elizabeth were known as generous people who often opened their home to travelers. A small room on the first floor that is now home to historical artifacts and records was once used

by Elizabeth as a birthing room for her midwifery practice. The home’s pioneer kitchen was the original kitchen when the house was first built, but was later converted to a bedroom for one of the Keysers three children (Henry had two daughters from his first wife, Emma Eresch, who passed away in 1883).

An add-on was built to serve as the Continued on page 27

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

The Keyser House parlor.

25

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Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

A period light fixture in the Keyser House.

From Page 25

kitchen, but when the house was transported into town, the add-on was left behind due to its irreparable condition. The upstairs rooms were all bedrooms, but now serve as displays for Priest River’s history, including timber industry memorabilia and more. The Priest River Chamber of Commerce is no longer located in the home, but in its office in the historic Beardmore Building.

Completely run by volunteers, the Keyser House is supported by the very thing its original inhabitants set out to establish and be a part of: community. Donations of time and

money are what keep the door open and the welcome mat set out.

“When you think about the life they must have lead, how so many of them came to the United States then out west knowing they would never see their families again, gives you an appreciation for your history,” says Jones. “The fact that we have this house here with the things we have in it is a blessing.”

For more information about the Priest River Museum, including hours, donations, and volunteering, go to www.facebook.com/ Priest-River-Museum or call (208) 610-9643.

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Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

Volunteer Donna Jones points out details of the house’s pioneer kitchen, including the pantry.

Miner photo|Sophia Aldous

A former bedroom upstairs houses local historical memorabilia, including victors’ trophies from Priest River’s annual logger celebrations that eventually turned into what is now known as Timber Days.

Summer Voice

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