Lakefront Has Changed Dramatically, But Some Old-Timers Still Make Waves

This city’s waterfront was not always home to a world-class hotel and tourist-clogged beaches.

Until the late 1960s, vestiges of old railroad trestles and the industrial needs of the early city remained at - and on - the water from Tubbs Hill to North Idaho College.

Myriad docks served City Beach: a diving dock capped by a giant slide that propelled thousands of happy swimmers out into the water, swim docks, and a log boom that separated swimmers and boats.

Beyond the swim docks were the boat docks and many boathouses resting at the end of Park Drive.

The boat docks were reserved for commercial passenger boats, including short-runs like Mort Hughes and his “Idaho,” and a flotilla of water taxis. At the peak of the taxi service, three docks served the City Beach.

Taxi pilots - the water cowboys of their day - picked up fares and ferried residents to the many homes and other destinations around the lake. Many places could only be accessed by water.

Top pilots were Ken Gunderson, Henry Anderson, the Finney boys - Bill and Frank - and Bob Yandt. Yandt piloted two speedboats, Mermaid and Rainbow.

A mechanic on aircraft engines during World War II, Yandt commuted to the Spokane Air Technical Service Command, now Fairchild Air Force Base.

“I began to get more interested in the boats after the War,” recalls Yandt. “Commercial boat operators on the lake needed pilots. The Coast Guard took over pilot registration after the war. Since Bill Finney and I were both underage when we first got our pilot licenses in 1943, we had to get ours fixed before we could work the boats.”

Yandt came by his experience as an apprentice at his dad’s business: Yandt Boat Works. Born in 1926, Bob Yandt Jr. lived with his mother and father on their floathouse.

His parents moved into their shop in the middle of the Milwaukee Fill and lived in one end of it until the Boatworks was torn down for the old Northshore Hotel in 1965.

A long wood and metal building with a corrugated tin roof, the shop sat right about where the entrance and lobby of the Coeur d’Alene Resort are now. The Yandts built custom-designed vessels.

The senior Bob Yandt, a millwright from Minnesota, built his first boat in Idaho, a rowboat constructed of trimmed up log strips. The early years at Yandt Boatworks saw designs and plans for speedboats coming from the Hacker Company. When those boats did not perform the way the Yandts wanted them to, the elder Yandt changed the design.

By 1948, all but one boat built by the Yandts were also designed by them.

Most boats were long, white vessels with varnished wood tops. Some wore pastel coats on their hulls.

After many spring-to-autumn taxi piloting seasons, Bob Jr. became more and more involved in the building of the boats.

The architectural design for a boat, the lofting, can be done by one man. It takes two to build a boat.

White oak forms the keel and ribs. Perfectly fit boards butted together in two layers of planking, made the hull.

“Most vessels were mahogany,” Yandt said. “Some, like Rainbow III, we made of native cedar. The worst part of the job was when buyers continually changed their minds about the details.”

The Boatworks built its last boat in 1966 for Dr. Orland Scott. Bob Jr. built his last boat in 1970, an outboard runabout. His father died in 1969, his mother in 1980.

Out on Ramsey Road, north of Coeur d’Alene, Bob built a boat-storage with repair facilities. He shut down the repair end in 1991, finding that taking care of storage and his woodworking hobby kept him busy enough.

He and Barbara, his wife of 54 years, live in a ranch house they built on the property.

“I went to a couple of the `Woody’ shows,” said Yandt, referring to Coeur d’Alene’s popular annual wooden boat show. “Saw these boats and knew I’ve driven most of them - built some of them. My best memory is my life on the water.”