More Coeur d'Alene From the Air

Here's another arial photo from around 1960. Looking from bottom to top note the Government Way, 4th Street, 7th Street and 9th Street bridges.

Pretty sparce neighborhoods, you can tell which homes have been around that long. At 4th Street, about the only building that remains is Lake City Lanes (Auto Body).

On 7th Street is Borah School, which just had its first expansion on the west (near) end, and the 2 churches that are still there.

Above 9th Street is the brand new Monte Vista neighborhood. You can see a row of homes on 11th Street just this side of the tree line. From left to right, these were occupied by the Fossum, Robideaux, Walker (me!), Ashleby, Hubbard, ?, Scott and Cook families. You can't tell from this pic, but decades earlier a railroad line ran behind where these houses are. Behind Mike Scott's house there were still a couple old RR ties in the ground.

This was a great place to grow up. North of the bridge is Homestead and the angled street is Syringa. This little triangle neighborhood at one time had over 70 kids of all ages. There was plenty of room to explore, build forts, ride bikes and generally do all the simple things that kids of the 60's did. All my buds had HO slot cars and we'd combine our track to build huge layouts and race, when we weren't building model cars.

As Monte Vista was built out (the big field to the left) we had dirt streets to play "prisoner escape", which was just an excuse to ride our bikes like hell all over the place chasing each other. When houses were being built we crawled through them at night, when utility lines were being installed we climbed in and out of the trenches "saving" each other like we saw on the TV show Rescue 8. We'd pack lunches and climb "Big Best" and eat looking over the City.

And, being kids in those carefree times, our only rule was to be home in time for dinner. We'd ride our bikes all over town and at least once a month and would go to every store in town that sold comic books and stock up for summer reading, always making sure everyone bought different ones so we could trade them around.

Then there was the Diamond Cup hysdroplane races, which to us was better than Christmas. We'd spend all day, every day down at the pits where the big boats were in town, collecting booster buttons and every other thing we could get out hands on. You have no idea how big the spark plugs were for those giant V-12 engines. The mechanic's junk was our treasure. (More on the Diamond Cup in a future edition.)

Life was simple then. Kids grow up so dang fast now. Grade school kids think they are too mature to do some of the stuff we enjoyed into our early high school years. I don't want to go back but I do have some awesome memories of growing up with a bunch of great friends.

Looking Down on the Past

Here's another one of Dad's photos of I-90 taken around 1960. Looking from bottom to top (west to east) are the bridges of Lincoln Way (now Hwy 95), Government Way, 4th Street, 7th Street and 9th Street. Yes, things have certainly changed.

Lincoln Way was destined to become Highway 95 but when the overpass was built it just came to a T at Appleway. Government Way was still the main north - south route. But Sherman was still part of Hwy-10 as well. I-90 changed everything.

You don't see the hospital, Shopko, the CdA Inn, Wild Waters or any of the many buildings and businesses that have showed up in the last near 50 years. Looking at Government Way you can see which houses are now that old. Continuing to look east you can pick out a few places that still exist like Borah School and Lake City Lanes (now Lake City Auto Body). Also of note are the dirt streets in the Borah neighborhoods. And there's the house I grew up in.

I'll post more detailed photos in this series soon.

The Best Beer Ever

OK, this blog doesn't have to all be about history. As you may know, I'm a fan of quality beer. And I thought it worthy to write about the best beer I ever had. It was just a couple weeks ago. It was at Xmas in July at Capone's on the 2nd and it was incredible.

It's always fun to have a Snowcap or a Jubleale in July but on this night I was smitten with a very special beer. I will be so bold as to say it was the best beer I've ever drank in my life.

Full Sail Ales has a wonderfully hoppy winter warmer called "Wreck The Halls." A Full Sail sales guy (dude! bring your biz cards) came and brought what looked like a blender about 30 inches tall. On the floor were a keg of Wreck the Halls and a big CO2 tank. Hoses ran from the tank to the keg to the "blender" which wasn't a blender at all but more like a beer compressor named Randle. Filled with fresh hops the beer pressure pushed through the wonderfully fragrent buds before being tapped out through an ice filled cooler. Full Sail called it Wrecking Randle.

This was without a doubt the tastiest beer I have ever enjoyed. I even had my wonderful wife go home and grab a couple of growlers which I got filled before she took me home. I then shared the goodness with friends on the 4th of July. The growlers hadn't been filled properly and the brew lost a lot in about 40 hours. BUT, everyone who tasted it even then was wowed by the flavor.

Thank you Full Sail for what has to be the best bar/beer promo in the world. A close runner-up was Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale that had aged in a burboun barrel. Only a couple kegs of it were ever filled and it was the hit of the 2007 12 Ales of Xmas at Capone's. That was damn fine beer as well.

Hooray Beer!