More than just a park

Coeur d’Alene City Park wasn’t always just a park. It’s been home to a baseball field, a train depot, a shooting range and a dance pavilion.

Its 40 acres (now 16) stretched from the lake waterfront north to Garden Avenue, east to First Street and overlapped with the southeast corner of the Fort Sherman Military Reservation.

“The park has changed dramatically over the years,” said landscape architect Jon Mueller as he stood Wednesday on the southwest corner of Lakeside Avenue and First. “The easternmost line is the right-of-way of First Street. Imagine all this, undeveloped, with beautiful shady ponderosa pines, which I remember as a kid.”

He also recalls the cooling canopy of the park’s black cottonwoods on summer days, and the rush of field trips at the end of the school year/Devin Heilman, Coeur d’Alene Press. More here.