Temporary Classroom Becomes Tensed Library Awaits Warmer Weather For Move To City Site

Tensed, Idaho, is about to get a library, thanks to a donated building and donated books.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe has given the building to the reservation town. It used to be a temporary classroom. It’s no longer needed since the new tribal school opened in DeSmet, Idaho.

The building is sitting in a parking lot along U.S. Highway 95, waiting to be installed on adjacent city land, Mayor Mariane Hurley said Monday.

“With this cold snap, we haven’t been able to pour the foundation,” she said. “We’ll have to wait until the weather breaks.

The building also will house a small-business incubator, providing inexpensive office space to new companies, she said.

“There’s been quite a bit of interest in the incubator,” she said, but no definite tenants yet.

The library will be run by volunteers. Its books are from small-town libraries that have closed, or are disposing of older volumes.

The building will share the parking lot with the Community Center. It will be behind Frank and Dorothy Martin’s home, which faces Highway 95.

“That will give us 20 feet of space behind our house and that big building,” Frank Martin said from Arizona, where the couple is spending the winter. “We have our money tied up in that place; we just fixed it for retirement. We feel we’re being mistreated.”

Originally, the town had planned to put the library beside the post office. But that would have infringed on the baseball field, Hurley said.

The Martins were concerned about not being contacted when city officials changed the location. Hurley noted that the couple has been out of town.

Tensed has no zoning regulations, she said.

“I’m hoping Mr. Martin will understand when he comes home and sees the building,” Hurley said. “If his concern is traffic, why would he be living on the highway?”

, DataTimes