Museum annual meeting will include talk on railroad history

John Wood will discuss “Railroads of Idaho’s Panhandle” at the Museum of North Idaho’s annual meeting and banquet Tuesday at the Hayden Lake Country Club, 1800 Bozanta Drive. Wood will present an overall history of railroad development in the Panhandle with the main emphasis on the lines in the Coeur d’Alene region.

Wood’s 8 p.m. presentation is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. The banquet is at 7 and costs $30, with a social hour beginning at 6. Call 664-3448 for reservations.

When the Northern Pacific completed its mainline through the area in 1883, the race was on with other major lines to control the region and garner the profits to be made from the resulting development. Other transcontinental lines involved were the Union Pacific (through the Oregon Railway & Navigation), the Great Northern, and the Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul (known as the Milwaukee). Smaller railroads such as the Coeur d’Alene & Spokane (known as the electric line), Spokane International, the Idaho & Washington Northern, the Idaho Northern, and the Washington Idaho & Montana were also involved. These lines played a huge role, not to be forgotten, in the history of the area.

Wood was raised in Coeur d’Alene in a family whose ancestors first settled there in 1889. He graduated from Coeur d’Alene High and the University of Idaho. He married another Coeur d’Alene native, Linda Neider, and they moved to the Corvallis, Ore., area, where John started a 30-year public school teaching career. He wrote the book “Railroads Through the Coeur d’Alenes,” which was published in 1983. He is now retired and continues to do research and writing.

Museum director Dorothy Dahlgren said the museum’s theme of railroads this year coincides with the publication of the new book “The Milwaukee Road’s Western Extension: The Construction of a Transcontinental Railroad” by Stan Johnson.

The 2007 Museum of North Idaho sponsors are Yellow Book, USA, Specialty Tree Services, Coeur d’Alene Pediatrics and Avista.