Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Landmarks: Rodeo champ’s barn stands strong

If a person would throw a rock from Jerry and Barbara Phinney’s barn in Liberty Lake across the road, it would hit the ground in another state. Snuggled up against the Idaho border, the barn was built in 1955 by Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame member Deb Copenhaver.

Copenhaver, who won world championships in saddle bronc riding in 1955 and 1956, is arguably the most famous rodeo champ to hail from the Pacific Northwest. When he was beginning his days on the rodeo circuit in the 1940s, he worked at the Stockyards in Spokane.

Now 92 and living on his ranch in Creston, Washington, Copenhaver recalled that when he began making “a little money rodeoing” in the 1950s, he bought land in Idaho. He added to his holdings and eventually sold his 1,200 acres, purchasing 160 acres on the Washington side of the state line, land that was later subdivided after Copenhaver sold it in the mid-1960s.

He had a brick ranch-style house built on the site and, with the help of friends, put up the barn himself. It was there he raised the quarter horses he used on the rodeo circuit. Today that barn is on the Spokane County Heritage Barn Register.

“The barn is due for repainting, but it’s a solid, well-built barn, with hand-made trusses, really quality work,” said Jerry Phinney, who bought the 10 acres on which the house, barn and other structures are located in 1976. He noted that there’s no real foundation; the barn just sits on pillars, but it’s never shifted. “It’s a strong structure.”

Copenhaver has a lot of memories of the barn. “When I was back on the East Coast, I went to a race at Suffolk Downs in Boston,” he said, noting it was in the early 1960s. “I always kept my eyes peeled for quick speed and saw this sorrel called Gascony running. He was a thoroughbred but built like a quarter horse, and I thought he’d be a good sire for speed. When I got home, I called his trainer and bought him.

“It was January, and they put that little horse in a boxcar with hay and water and sent him out. I got a call at night that the box car was on a siding here, so we went down to get him. Backed the truck up to the car and cracked open the door. That sorrel stud had been in there six or eight days, and, boy, was he glad to see us.”

Gascony moved into the front stall of the barn and went on to sire several foals for Copenhaver, one of which raced at the track in Coeur d’Alene and still holds the track record there.

Phinney said that people stop by his place at 3107 N. Idaho Road east of Liberty Lake and share memories of having ridden in the paddocks there with Copenhaver. One person mentioned a big hole by the house where perhaps a horse was to be buried.

“It’s true,” Copenhaver said. “I had a horse, Rain Cloud, that died, so we dug a hole out in front of the house and buried him there.” He said Rain Cloud had been owned by Homer Pettigrew, who won six world championships in steer wrestling and who would go on, as Copenhaver did, to be inducted into the Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame. “I saw the horse in Phoenix and brought him up north to breed with my mares.”

Copenhaver said he wouldn’t mind owning the state line property again. “It sure was a nice place.”

He might be pleased to know there are still horses in residence. The Phinneys, both retired from the Social Security administration, have two quarter horses and a pony. There are also goats, dogs, chickens for eggs and as pets and – of course – a barn cat.

The Phinneys have held an old time fiddlers party at the barn, complete with kegs of beer. “We had pigs then and gave the leftover beer to them,” Jerry said. “We had very happy, laid-back pigs the next day.”

But they nearly lost the barn in the mid-1980s. They had cleaned out the stalls and piled the manure outside, not far from where they had earlier burned slash. “This guy comes up our driveway all frantic, saying our barn was burning,” Barbara said. “We told him it was just the slash smoldering. He really insisted, and we told him – more to get him to leave than anything else – that we’d look into it.”

“I thought I might as well walk over and take a look, and when I got there, sure enough, the slash had burned into the manure and up the side of the barn,” Jerry said. “I had water right there, so I was able to put it out, but it sure was close.

“The man never came back, but I’d sure like to thank him for stopping by. He saved our barn.”