Diamond of a park is rough
PLUMMER, Idaho – A tract of forested lakeshore 40 miles south of Coeur d’Alene was once mentioned in the same breath as Yellowstone and Yosemite as a contender for national park status.
It didn’t make the final cut. Heyburn State Park, the oldest state park in the Northwest, still has the scenery, but the park facilities are becoming musty and mossy with age. Cabin logs are starting to crumble and rot. Bats have taken up residence in the attic of the main lodge. And visitors are clamoring for the latest campground comforts, things like Internet access and hot showers.
“What this park needs is revitalization,” longtime park manager Fred Bear said.
Sen. Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene, added, “It’s really run-down at the heels. That is a great natural resource we have in Idaho and just to let it deteriorate is irresponsible.”
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne agrees and recently proposed a $3.2 million face-lift for Heyburn. State leaders have an obligation to use a small portion of a budget surplus to help reverse years of neglect at the park, Kempthorne said in proposing the funding boost as part of a $34 million plan to renovate seven state parks.
“You can only do it if your economy’s strong and our economy is,” he said last week in Coeur d’Alene. “If this isn’t the time, I don’t know when it will be.”
At Heyburn on Tuesday, Bear pointed out areas slated for improvement should the Legislature agree to the funding request. First stop was the park headquarters, located in a small office attached to a maintenance garage.
“This is it, this is our visitor center,” Bear said, pointing at a 3-foot-wide countertop where information is doled out to campers, hikers and bird-watchers.
A proper visitor center would be built near the Chatcolet boat ramp and marina. In its heyday during the early part of the 20th century, Chatcolet had a floating hotel, a dance hall and a bustling steamship dock. Visitors who didn’t come by boat arrived by rail.
The train tracks were recently capped with asphalt and now bring thousands of visitors by bicycle. The park is near one end of the newly opened 72-mile Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes. On busy summer weekends, up to 120 bicyclists at a time have been counted in the trailhead parking lot at Heyburn, Bear said. “It’s almost a traffic hazard now with bicycles.”
Apart from the floating hotel, two other resorts once operated inside the park. “This was the place to come and have a really good time,” Bear said.
The resorts are all closed and the buildings have been torn down.
Extra state funding could be used to improve campground and marina facilities and build several new rental cabins. One change might be larger slots for boats. Existing spaces work well for the duck hunting boats and cruisers, but they don’t seem to be large enough for the speedboats favored by many new residents, Bear said.
Some form of Internet access would likely be offered in the renovated park. During summer months, a steady stream of campers comes to the small headquarters office asking to borrow a telephone line to check e-mail, Bear said. Satellite television access is also sought by many in RVs and campers. Everybody seems to want a hot shower.
“People aren’t satisfied with just going camping anymore,” Bear said.
The money would also be used to renovate the park’s historic lodge. Like many other park buildings, the lodge was built in the early 1930s by workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the CCC to help the country work its way out of the Great Depression. Camp Heyburn was a work center and training site for Company 1995 of the CCC. A back room of the lodge holds evidence of this past, including a portrait of Roosevelt on the fireplace mantle and a printed menu from a long-ago Christmas dinner served to workers: roast tom turkey, chestnut stuffing, buttered peas, sweet potatoes, hot buns and cigarettes.
On Tuesday, the building was dark and cold, and smelled musty. It was silent except for the honking of geese on nearby Chatcolet Lake and the steady dripping of rainwater from cedar branches onto sodden snow.
Bear envisions the lodge someday becoming a bed and breakfast hotel and the showcase building of a renovated park.
“Who knows?” he said. “There’s lots of potential and possibilities.”
Bear has spent most of his 34-year career working at Heyburn park. Until now, most of those years were spent watching the facilities at the once-grand park slowly deteriorate. Although he has put in enough time to retire, Bear said he wouldn’t dream of leaving the park before it has a rare chance at renovation.
“I would love to see it redeveloped.”