Guns-in-pools rumor doesn’t hold water

Bayview ushered in the 2010 centennial year with a town meeting Jan. 15 called by the Independent Centennial Committee.

This group of historians and community activists was able to put together a community calendar that was as spectacular as was the speed it sold out. Some of us still don’t have a copy, but there is a move to create another for next year.

Private donations have created a monument still in the process of being set up near the entrance of town.

Many people wonder why, since Bayview isn’t incorporated, it can have a centennial. Back in 1910, an enterprising investor purchased a large tract of land smack in the middle of what was to become Bayview. The Prairie Development Co., and a spinoff, Bayview Townsite Co., platted 27 lots that became the core of the town that isn’t.

The program introduced was different than most community meetings. Gone was the verbosity that tends to extend content without necessarily adding to the value. This gathering had not one, but two local authors selling and signing books.

The first was Jane Fritz, author of many articles in periodicals who finally accepted the challenge of writing a book. Fritz is a student of history and involved in much interaction between modern North Idaho and the various Indian tribes that inhabited Kootenai and Bonner counties. Her book “Legendary Lake Pend Oreille” has recently been published by Keokee of Sandpoint. About 40 guests lined up for autographed copies of the book.

Following her was Dennis Woolford, park ranger at Farragut State Park. Woolford and Gayle Alvarez of Boise, who runs the state archives, put together a complete history of Farragut Naval Station through World War II. They gathered items that had been donated to the park as well as records from the Navy and state archives.

Stories of hidden weapons buried by the departing Navy turned out to be false. Apparently a rumor had circulated for many years that when the base swimming pools were filled and covered up at the end of the war, brand-new rifles still covered in Cosmoline were buried in these pools.

Last year, a ground-piercing sonar was brought out from the East Coast and used above all of the various pools. One more war story disproved. No guns were found, just junk that was buried in the handy spots.