Huckleberries Wednesday:

What’s a nice place like Harrison, Idaho, doing celebrating a fire that destroyed the town?

The lakeside community of about 215 at the mouth of the Coeur d’Alene River will commemorate the big fire of 1917 because, well, it survived.

“It never got back on its feet,” Sherry Skarda of the Osprey Bed and Breakfast told Huckleberries. “But it didn’t go away either.”

Harrison, now a favorite stop on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, plans a series of activities to commemorate July 21, 1917, the day the town burned down in 90 minutes. The festivities will start Saturday morning with firefighting and equipment demonstrations, including a practice burn involving a giant doll house and hands-on water brigade competition. It will end with a three-hour concert, from 2 to 5 p.m., at Harrison City Park.

It’s hard to believe now, but Harrison, in 1911, was the biggest town in Kootenai County with 1,200 residents, five sawmills, and a large fleet of paddle-wheelers and steamboats. People were constantly on the move between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene and the Silver Valley mining district. Harrison was at the hub.

“It was a wild, happening town,” Sherry said.

Everything changed at 6:30 a.m. that fateful July 21, a century ago. Full column here.

• Spokane Chronicle report on 1917 fire
• The town that grew out of fire/Estar Holmes
• Information kit about the 1917 fire that destroyed Harrison
• Schedule of events for 100 Year Fire Commemoration Saturday at Harrison City Park