History: It’S Everywhere You Look

I can almost see boys in porkpie hats and knickers playing stickball on the rolling lawn behind Coeur d’Alene’s Gray Mansion, now that I’ve taken time to look.

I’m ashamed to admit the 85-year-old, Tudor-style house escaped my notice for 20 years, even though I periodically jog past it.

A recent trip to Charleston, S.C., sharpened my sense of local history. Easterners exude history. They recite their lineage back 10 centuries, post biographies of their homes by their 200-year-old front doors and flaunt ancient crafts and rituals for tourists.

“We get kind of tired of it, ” a friend at the Charleston Post and Courier told me. “That’s what I like about the West. There’s not history everywhere you look.”

Yes, there is. We Westerners are just a tad more subtle about it.

There’s no plaque at 712 Foster Ave. The red-roofed house sags a little. The red columns supporting it look a bit weary. And it’s no wonder. They’ve worked hard since 1895.

Fort Sherman’s veterinarian, Dr. Young, built the Victorian when blue-uniformed soldiers still awoke to reveille and scared decent folks with their carousing.

That’s why Young built so far away from his workplace to protect his daughter from those soldiers.

Even older is the colonial at 501 Foster Ave. Postmaster Emma Nickolas must have shared Young’s concerns about soldiers. She had the house built in 1893 to put plenty of distance between herself and the fort.

The old colonial sees a lot of action for a 107-year-old. Up the brick walkway and behind the green shutters, brides and grooms pledge everlasting love in a house appropriately unrocked by the ages.

The P.W. Johnson house at 622 Coeur d’Alene is only pushing 90, but it’s an eyepopper. P.W. built steamers and obviously wanted to show off his talents on land.

His porch is the size of some newer homes, and supported by massive square columns worthy of a Greek temple. Inside, he built an elevator to carry wood from the basement to the kitchen stove.

Apartments have altered the interior but allowed the grand exterior to survive.

These three homes are a sample of the 60 buildings Dorothy Dahlgren and volunteers at the Museum of North Idaho compiled into a driving tour of Coeur d’Alene a dozen years ago.

Dorothy knows which house was just completed when its owners died within 14 hours of each other, which house a parent built for his newly married son and where the turn-of-the-century business kingpins built.

She’s ready to update the tour, if anyone’s willing to help.

It’s worth the effort. We’ve got history all around us. It’s time to brag about it.

English posies Priscilla Portenier was lucky to find an English travel agent. There’s nothing like someone who speaks the native language to help find the good deals.

Priscilla coordinates North Idaho College’s Alumni Association. To raise money for the club, she planned a group trip to England to tour gardens and castles.

The nine-day trip, May 23 to June 1, costs $1,999 for everything, and $100 from each ticket goes to the alumni association.

Thanks to someone with connections, the tour will visit the private estate of Sir James Scott in addition to Leeds Castle, Hampton Court and Cornwall. A gardening expert will accompany the group.

This trip is open to the public. Priscilla says the tour has room for 40; 18 are signed up now. The deadline for registration is March 14. Call Lindsey Shocklee at (800) 975-7775 if you see English gardens in your future.