Search for kidnapper makes Cascade a hub

CASCADE, Idaho – It was already shaping up to be a busy weekend in this otherwise sleepy town, with the usual tourists, the area wildfires and the final days of the Valley County Fair.

But nobody expected the manhunt.

After the search for San Diego County teenager Hannah Anderson suddenly shifted Friday to a stretch of Idaho backcountry 50 miles from here, hundreds of law enforcement officers and dozens of reporters descended upon quiet Cascade.

Satellite trucks took over the fire station’s parking lot. Gun-toting officers walked through the lobby of the biggest hotel.

Weekends are usually big for Cascade, population 997 (or, according to the sign on the other side of town, 1,001). The old mill town is now a tourist spot, with nearby pine-covered mountains, a river and a lake offering a reprieve from the bustle of Boise, 70 miles south on Highway 55.

“We get a big influx of people that get here Friday and leave Sunday. Every fire season, we have helicopters at the airport that come in and take over,” Mayor Rob Terry said. “This isn’t a major Type-A personality town.”

The road leading to where Hannah and her alleged kidnapper, James DiMaggio, were spotted in the rugged Idaho wilderness begins just inside Cascade’s northern limit, making the town the gathering point for authorities and national media.

Debbie Gunderson, manager of the Ashley Inn, said she hadn’t heard much about the search until the Amber Alert was broadcast in Idaho on Friday morning. All of a sudden, she said, pointing to a receiver at the front desk, “that phone started ringing.”

Bill Totten, proprietor of Dollar Bill’s Casual Fine Red Neck Dining, said some FBI agents stopped by for his barbecue, parking their vehicles in the gravel lot next to the restaurant. “It looked like we’d been raided,” he said.

Many residents said they weren’t concerned that DiMaggio would show up in town, given that the search was centered 50 miles away. Others said he would have found trouble if he’d come into town.

“He’d-a been shot if he came in here,” Totten said, noting that he keeps a .38 at the ready and a 12-gauge shotgun in his kitchen. “I’d have no problem with it.”

But it was the FBI who killed DiMaggio, during a Saturday raid on the campsite near Morehead Lake. Hannah was safely rescued, much to the relief of the community.

By Monday, most of the authorities had gone for good; the reporters too.

Terry, the mayor, laughed when he said he was glad the commotion had died down, though he acknowledged the influx was “great for the economy.”

“It’s just kind of a morbid way to boost the economy,” he said. “I’d rather find some other way.”