Lake Probably Named After Indians

Nestled along the scenic Pend Oreille River in northeast Washington, the little town of Newport is the county seat for Pend Oreille County. Interestingly, Newport lies just across the river from Oldtown, Idaho.

Pend Oreille is from the French language, and pronounced “Pon-duh-ray.” It’s also the name of Lake Pend Oreille, a large and very deep lake in Bonner County, just across the state line into the northern panhandle of Idaho.

According to “Bonner County Place Names,” by James Carl Dahl, published by the Idaho State Historical Society in 1969, the name Pend Oreille is derived from early French traders and explorers. The name Pend Oreille, or earbob, was given to the Indians because they wore pendants in their earlobes. The lake is also reported to have been named for its earlobe shape, but this is unlikely. (Gosh, that’s what we locals have always thought!)

Lumbering is what first drew folks to this area, a draw which continues to the present. There was some mining and some ranching, but in this expanse of pines, firs, tamarack and spruce trees, it seemed the supply of lumber would never run out. The railroads were first built to haul timber logs. Homesteaders and settlers came wherever there was a living to be made from the land.

The place to begin researching in this forested county is at the Pend Oreille County Historical Society Museum, at the south end of Washington Street, west of the gazebo in Centennial Park. The museum complex contains the 1908 passenger depot, designed by the New York-trained and locally famous Kirtland Cutter, and built for passengers of the Idaho and Washington Northern Railroad.

The Stuart Bradley building, dedicated in 1994, was built to resemble the exterior of the 1908 depot. This building houses the research library, meeting rooms and historical society offices, plus some displays.

The slightly newer and much larger Great Northern Depot sits nearby, closer to the railroad tracks. Opened in 1912, the depot was built as an obvious answer to the competition from the Idaho and Washington Northern. A copy of the dedication brochure reveals that the exterior is built of Minnesota repressed red brick, with the water table and cross sills of Minnesota sandstone. Above the cross sills are panels of hard plaster. The building has an overhanging roof that projects 5 feet in all sides. The roof is of Bangor slate with ridge and hip rolls of red tile. Some 125 electric lights are used to illuminate the building. In the waiting room are massive four-light chandeliers. The rooms’ interiors have 5-foot wainscotting of Tiffany-enameled white brick. The ceiling is 14 feet high, with cove effect, and walls and ceiling tastily decorated. All interior woodwork and furniture are of finely polished birch. The floor is mosaic tile.

Think of the size and elegance of this building, built in a time when most Easterners thought of the West in terms of uncharted forests, Indians to be feared, buffalo roaming everywhere - and mostly fit for scallywag adventurers. But this building would not have been built if there were not people to use it. James Hill didn’t waste money on non-essentials for his Great Northern Railroad. A very large crowd of ancestors came to this, the northeastern-most county in the state of Washington, and many lived out their lives here.

(To be continued next week.)