Coeur d'Alene

Long ago, say the Coeur d'Alene Indians, a medicine man named Circling Raven had a vision. It came to him that the Blackrobes were coming. They would bring medicine for healing and peace to the tribe. In 1842, some time after Circling Raven had passed away, Father Pierre DeSmet, a Jesuit missionary, did indeed arrive among the Coeur d'Alenes, probably meeting them near where the city of Coeur d'Alene is today. Having been alerted by Circling Raven, the people were inclined to accept the priest and the faith he came to teach them.

Relations between the Indians and later arrivals were not as salutary as that of the priest. General William Tecumseh Sherman came to the area in 1877 looking for a place to build a fort from which to control the Indians. He chose the north shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene. A sawmill was soon up and running, and the usual support buildings appeared in due course--quarters, chapel, blacksmith shop, stables, ice houses.

Civilians clustered around the fort, and the community grew. When miners found gold and silver in the fabulous Coeur d'Alene Mining District in 1883, the settlement quickly became rather more than a fort. The gold was 27 miles up the Coeur d'Alene River to the east of the lake. Coming from the west, miners headed for the excitement booked passage on one of the steamers plying the lake. The town boomed.

A few years later, the timber barons who had removed the native timber from Minnesota and Wisconsin took note of the endless valleys of white pine, fir, and tamarack forests beyond the town. Someone later described the lake as a "magnificent mill pond," as the timber industry brought sawmills, new docks, banks, hotels, and stores, continuing the boom.

Like the other lakes in north Idaho, Lake Coeur d'Alene also invited a substantial tourism economy. By 1900 or so, party boats carrying as many as 1,000 people featured moonlight cruises, dining, and dancing. Today the town is much diversified. The North Idaho College campus occupies the grounds of the old fort. The tourist industry includes sophisticated modern resorts and marinas on the lake. And high-tech businesses are headquartered in the city.

The beauty of the lake is unparalleled. However, the hundred years of mining in the watersheds feeding the lake polluted the lake with lead and other heavy metals. These have now settled to the lake bottom. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe, some 1,200 enrolled members, remain a persistent political force in the area. They spend much of their political energies on efforts to have the hidden pollution under the lake cleaned up, an issue that Circling Raven did not foresee.