Turnbull recalls Sandpoint's early days as a lumberjack town

(Sitting down with Harp Turnbull at his kitchen table was an experience I will long remember. Erik Daarstad and I were at his home interviewing him for the Sandpoint Centennial Movie. The interview took place in 2002 and Harp died a few years later. Today, Harp gives us a picture, in his own words, of what the area was like and how difficult it was for his family to make a living.) 

Question: Harp, you told me that your dad and Uncle John ran a saloon for about six weeks before it burned. How did they make a living after that?

Harp: This is a story that will make some of our environmentalists a little upset. They squatted here on the place and it was all timbered. The railroad went through but there was no occupation, no farming, nothing to do. They built their house here, dug a well, and got things going. Their source of income at that time was hunting deer. My dad and John would shoot the deer and send them to his brother that was over in Washington at the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge, and he would sell them. My dad would pay the conductor, or brakeman, on the freight train twenty-five cents a head to bootleg them over to his brother. They would hunt deer for about two and a half months and that's how they got their cash for the first two years they were here. Then, in the mean time, they were clearing land and building a road down to the railroad so that they could make ties for the railroad - that was the way they made their living.

Question: What was Sandpoint like at that time?

Harp: When my dad came here in 1882, there were two buildings between where the railroad was and the beach. These two buildings were for the railroad workers - telegraphers or something like that. What is Sandpoint now was a virgin forest and my dad said it was beautiful timber there at that time. Then I go into the history of Sandpoint - I guess that is what you're looking for. This connects me to the Farmin family. I never met the man but he was a man of great foresight to homestead that piece of land and plat it out as a town site. This happened about the 1900s - around that time. I don't know just when it happened. Mr. Farmin (L.D. Farmin) homesteaded that property west of the railroad track, west of Sand Creek, and had the foresight to plat it out for a town site. That was the beginning of Sandpoint. Now, of course, Bonner County did not exist at the time Uncle John and Dad moved here. It was Kootenai County, Idaho Territory.

I can't tell you at what time it was surveyed - sometime in the 1890s - and my dad helped survey it. He and Uncle John had been here several years, they had started a little beef herd, and they were making ties and selling them to the railroad. They continued clearing land and building a road and Uncle Cy came up from the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge in Cheney and squatted on that place over there where the Turnbull boys live now - Bob and Jim and their children. That would have been in 1886 that Cy came here.

Now here is some information I think you would like to hear. Father had built a fence for nearly a quarter of a mile for pasture but he had to give it up when it was surveyed. He had done some improvement on it and he could have bought it for a $1.75 an acre, but they didn't have the $1.75 to buy it.

Question: Let's go back to Sandpoint for just a minute. Did they tell you anything about the growth, what it was like as it grew? What do recall in your lifetime?

Harp: Well, I've seen an immense change in Sandpoint since I can remember it. I can probably remember back, let's say a boy can remember when he was seven years old, that would make it about 1920. The picture of Sandpoint has changed immensely since that time. Bob, it was just a village. It was just people starting out. The land had to be cleared, later on it had to be mapped out, streets named, and the like.

This didn't all happen at once - It just evolved from the forest. That's about the only way I can describe it - my impression of it. And to me, Sandpoint is Farmin. It is Sandpoint to you but that family was the beginning of Sandpoint.

Question: How do you remember Sandpoint as a kid, Harp? What did it look like?

What were the people like?

Harp: I can remember Sandpoint, of course. The streets were not all paved by any means. It was a lumberjack town. Humbird (Mill) moved in there. It was a lumberjack town and they were in there on Saturday nights. I never saw a fight there but I've seen men staggering drunk on the streets and they couldn't stand up. But, it was a different town than it is now - A different type of people.