Historians Find A Home For Treasures

About 10 years ago someone asked if they thought the Post Falls Historical Society would ever have its own quarters, let alone a “real” museum.

Then-president Lyn Galvin asked for a show of hands, even a vote on the proposal of “shall we establish a museum for the historical society.”

It died for lack of a second. Six or so members cast aside the idea as a “not-too-likely” dream.

Fast forward to a month ago and the christening of the Post Falls Historical Society’s very own museum.

“All I ever wanted for the society,” lamented Galvin, now living in Twin Lakes village outside Rathdrum, “was a single room somewhere with a single naked light bulb suspended on a cord from the ceiling. That would have been really living.”

At the time, the society was a half-dozen cardboard boxes filled to overflowing with “stuff.”

“We had pictures, we had documents, we had artifacts. Seemingly everything owned - or at least claimed - by the society was stuffed in those boxes.”

The boxes, some with broken sides, none with suitable tops, were stuffed in a corner of Galvin’s basement. Once a month, the scant membership gathered with no meaningful agenda, only to look at the boxed items. The history of Post Falls was unpacked, dusted and lovingly repacked, awaiting a permanent home.

“Someday, we’ll have a place for all this stuff,” Galvin would say.

Now, through the efforts of a membership now exceeding 200, the society has its own quarters: six rooms, a meeting area, a lobby, a kitchen and a bathroom in space on loan from the city of Post Falls. The city used the building at Fifth and Frederick for its administrative offices during the recent reconstruction of City Hall.

Sensing a ripe moment, the society gave Bob Templin, a charter member and spark plug of the society, the responsibility of negotiating with the city for room in the vacant building.

At this time, “the city has no real, urgent need for this space,” city administrator Jim Hammond said. “The society fully understands that should the city someday need the building, they will be asked to leave. In the meantime, however, they are welcome to the building.”

The old maps, documents, actual treaties, authentic land deeds, even a hand-crafted canoe once used on Lake Coeur d’Alene were given suitable housing. Local memorabilia is finding its way to the museum, some through new members, some from friends of members. Irreplaceable items that for years, even generations, were kept in homes, now are on display.

Six glass slides, one of the electric train that ran daily from Coeur d’Alene through Post Falls to Spokane, are available for viewing. No two slides are alike.

Paintings and numerous photographs, many formerly in homes throughout Post Falls, now adorn the newly painted walls of the museum.

Incoming society president and former teacher Mary Schell proudly introduces visitors to “her room of school days” collectibles. She recites from memory the history of each school in the Post Falls area. Schools long since burned, some forgotten, even one once used as a reported gang clubhouse, complete with hidden gunports in the walls.

Artifacts, newspaper photographs and stories, even a rare photograph, fill scrapbooks and line the walls.

Schell and others can identify those in the pictures; they went to school with them.

There are schools that try the best of memories: Vesser, Prairie, East Greenacres, State Line, Mill Creek, are gone, except for pictures and their spots in the museum.

Donna Rae Sweeney, another longtime society member, takes her turn as a museum volunteer and is always ready with a story of old Post Falls.

Her family’s association with Post Falls dates back to the early 1800s. Sweeney can tell about Post Falls when its northern boundary was roughly in the area of Tenth Avenue, and how her family owned and operated several downtown businesses.

To name the many others involved in making the dream of a museum a reality for the city and for the Post Falls Historical Society is to unfairly overlook others.

Returning to Galvin and her single light bulb theory: She has not yet toured the new museum but plans to soon. “Understand they have a bunch of lights there. Wow, they must really be living.”