Wallace Chugs Into Celebration Depot Day Festival Turns 10 On Saturday

Ten years ago, organizers of the first Depot Day billed it as the “first and last.”

“It was so much work we were sure we’d never do it again,” laughed Dick Caron. Instead, he has toiled to pull off the event every year since.

The festival marks the anniversary of the day the town’s historic train depot was moved to make way for a new stretch of Interstate 90. Last year, the event drew almost 3,000 people - three times the population of the entire town. This year’s festival will be held Saturday.

“It’s gotten easier,” said Caron. “When we first started, two of us spent two months straight on the project. This year I’ve probably put in only about 10 full working days.”

The festival is one of a halfdozen staged by the tiny town. Having so much fun can take a heavy toll on volunteers.

Something as simple as finding a sponsor to supply free pop can take days of effort, said Caron. First comes a visit to Coeur d’Alene or Spokane to pitch the cause. Then follow-up letters and phone calls and finally, when the equipment arrives, a crash course at the local bar in how to use it.

Now, most of those sorts of details and contacts are routine procedure for Depot Day organizers. But the real reason the festival is still possible, says Caron, is the hundreds of volunteers who work to sell raffle tickets and pull off each of the festival’s events.

The classic car show, a Depot Day favorite, is sponsored by the Silver Wheels Kar Klub. Caron predicts it will attract as many as 200 entries.

A new event, a 10-mile mountain bike ride, has been organized by the Lookout Bike Club.

Kids’ events are handled by Playtime Daycare. This year, the big draw is a bicycle safety course with cookies, punch and prizes for everyone, said Playtime owner Marcy Hayman. Playtime pays its staff to attend the festival and supervise the events.

The Valley Fitness Center has sponsored another event, the Fun Walk, for years.

“Three years ago, when it was handed to me, I must have put in a hundred hours, I was so panicked,” said fitness instructor Patty Baker.

This year, she estimates, it’s down to 40 - mailing out registration forms, ordering T-shirts, coordinating the volunteers who point the way and dispense water to the walkers.

Almost every volunteer you ask will describe their efforts as enlightened self-interest.

“This one-day event is the depot’s major fund-raiser. But over the course of the summer, the depot will bring many, many people into town,” Caron said.

After the depot was moved to accommodate the interstate’s new route, devotees developed a museum in the historic building.

“The year we moved the depot, a lot of people would just as soon have blown it up,” Caron said. “Now, to those same people, it’s ‘our’ depot. It reminds us that we’ve got something pretty special.”