This day in history: State Line speedway destroyed in rock fest riot. Accused burglar escaped St. Maries jail

Sun., June 7, 2026

Kootenai County Sheriff Thor Fladwed said there were 10 deputies on duty while attendees at the Nor’wester rock festival at Northwest Speedway in State Line rioted, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on June 7, 1976. But that would not have been enough to control the site, so they let the destruction continue and focused on stopping it from spreading off the property, the sheriff said. (Spokesman-Review archives)

By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

From 1976: Officials were sorting through the debris left by the riot at Nor’wester ’76, an ill-fated rock festival at Stateline, Idaho.

“Not one scrap of building is left,” said the president and general manager of Northwest Speedway, which the promoters had leased for the concert. “We had a 300-foot, 8-foot-high fence. What they didn’t burn, they hauled away.”

The trouble began during the afternoon of the festival’s second day when the company providing the audio equipment began dismantling the sound system. At that point, it became clear that Bachman Turner Overdrive and the other bands would not be appearing as advertised.

“By then the word was getting around that it wasn’t going to come off,” said Kootenai County Sheriff Thor Fladwed. “The crowd moved against the fences and I watched the plywood fencing quiver. The whole thing was collapsing. The management had left. The security people were pulling out.”

The crowd surged forward and some people set trucks ablaze and toppled a huge crane atop the stage, which was then set ablaze.

The Kootenai County prosecuting attorney said there were “innumerable possibilities” of criminal charges, including arson. But he said it would take days to sort it all out.

From 1926: Joe Fonder escaped from the county jail in St. Maries, Idaho, by “making a saw from a case knife and sawing the bars.”

He then made a rope from the blankets in the cell and “slid to the ground.”

Joe Fonder escaped from the county jail in St. Maries, Idaho, by “making a saw from a case knife and sawing the bars,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on June 7, 2026. (Spokesman-Review archives)

He was being held on first-degree burglary charges. He apparently faked an illness and prevailed on the sheriff to let him spend the night in the women’s ward, from which he made his escape.

Then he stole an Overland car, which was “last seen to pass through Tekoa.”

He was still at large.

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