Landmarks: Colbert barn holds generations of memories
The old saltbox barn looks quite weathered in the picturesque valley in Colbert, just a stone’s throw from the Little Spokane River.
“I’d like to see it get renovated and once again be a place to board horses or maybe serve as a venue for events,” said Kim Davis, grandson of Irvin “Hildy” Hildenbrandt, the early-day Spokane pioneer who in 1902 purchased the Colbert property where the barn stands.
The barn was already in place – built around 1890 to house dairy cattle – when Hildenbrandt bought the property from original owner Charles Downer. Hildenbrandt had married Carrie Brinich in Covington, Kentucky, in 1901 and set out for Spokane on his own the next year to establish himself. He brought his bride to join him in 1907, traveling the last miles from Spokane by horse and buggy, a journey that took an hour and 45 minutes by way of Shady Slope Road along the southwest side of Peone Creek. The original Hildenbrandt buggy is still in the barn today.
“For as old as it is, the barn’s got great bones,” said Davis, who has done extensive research on the 160 acres of pines, pasture and wetlands that caught his grandfather’s eye when he came to the area after working in the horse racing business in Kentucky.
Lumber for the barn likely came from the mill at the nearby Chattaroy Lumber Co., said Davis, who notes that rough hand-hewn logs – still in place in 2016 – were also used as cross supports inside. Back then barns were often whitewashed, a technique of mixing a solution of lime and chalk or other substances in water and applying it like paint, and that is how the exterior of this barn has been covered all these years.
The historic name of the barn at 2429 E. Colbert Road is the Hildenbrandt Barn, but Irvin Hildenbrandt was enamored of the 19th century Longfellow poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” his grandson said, in which the poet spoke of a green and silent valley with a pleasant stream that reminded him of his Colbert home. That valley was called Tawasentha, so Hildenbrandt called his land Tawasentha Farm.
The barn, listed on the Washington State Heritage Barn Register, has a large loft for hay storage, a milking area, tack room, tool shed, box stalls and storage areas. There is a 30-foot silo just to the north and a few other outbuildings nearby – and it is covered with a metal roof on the north side and a shake roof on the south side.
Hildenbrandt continued his connection with horse racing through his adult life, including boarding racehorses in the barn and providing riding opportunities to the public to supplement the family income. Even before bringing Carrie to Spokane, he had racehorses. Jim Price, community historian and retired editor and writer for The Spokesman-Review, said Hildenbrandt owned a horse named Royalty, who won the sixth running of the Spokane Derby in 1903.
He did, at times, leave operation of the ranch to his wife as he went to manage racetracks elsewhere – most notably the legendary track in Juarez, Mexico, during the Pancho Villa days. In 1911, he and some businessmen from Spokane and Coeur d’Alene built the 1-mile Alan Race Track across the border in Idaho at the eastern edge of Post Falls.
In 1935 he and others believed Spokane could support a big-city horseracing venue and formed the Playfair Race Course, where he served as general manager. And, Davis added, back when it was legal, Hildenbrandt took off-track racing bets. “He was a bookie, a legal one.”
“Hildy was, in some circles, close to a legend,” Price observed.
In 1939, at age 60, Hildenbrandt had a heart attack and left his position at Playfair to turn his attention back to the ranch, where – except for an unsuccessful run for county commissioner – he concentrated on raising alfalfa, overseeing the cattle on pastures he rented out for grazing, and providing a good place for riding and boarding horses.
The Hildenbrandts had two children: a son, Leslie, a musician who went on to become concertmaster with the Spokane Symphony; and a daughter, Nicette, who sold real estate and wrote a column for a Deer Park newspaper, her son, Kim Davis, said. Davis, a retired sales analyst for major food companies in Spokane, said his mother, who often rode her own horse, Sonny Boy, in the river on the property and delighted in showing off his rearing abilities, died eight weeks shy of her 100th birthday in 2014. After her death, the property was inherited by her three children.
The barn endures. The last of the boarded horses died in 2015. The inside of the barn is filled with stored items in addition to the buggy, including Hildenbrandt’s old sleigh, an old truck and, of course, countless memories of horses from days gone by.