Wild Card/Thursday — 5.11.17

From the Hook Houses of Wallace to Coeur d’Alene’s City Park, I’m caught up in local history again. I’m now a third of the way through Jon Mueller’s soon-to-be-released history of City Park (“Private Park, Public Park”). I had no idea that the rascals from Washington tried to force a veterans home on Coeur d’Alene — at what is now North Idaho College. Nor that Washington congressmen thought stealing Lake Coeur d’Alene water to irrigate central Washington was a good idea. Nor that there was a push after statehood to combine North Idaho and eastern Washington into a new state called Lincoln, presumably with Spokane as the capitol. And Washingtonians wonder why we North Idahoans are as skeptical of them as we are of southern Idahoans. I’m up to about 1905 when Blackwell constructed the electric railroad to link Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. Good thing today’s Kootenai County Republican Central Committee wasn’t around. It would have tried to stop the progress. Here’s your Thursday Wild Card …