Humbird Lumber attracted family to community

(During the filming of the Sandpoint Centennial Movie, Erik Daarstad and I had the opportunity to hear Lloyd Larson tell about growing up in Sandpoint — he was 87 at that time. Today, I want to share with you some of the experiences Lloyd shared with us on that day in May, 2001.)

“I was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, on June 23, 1914. My dad came from Norway in about 1910 and he was from way up north of the Arctic Circle. He first went to Wisconsin and then he came alone to Sandpoint and worked for the Humbird Lumber Company.

“In a few years he went in with Ole Jennestad and they formed the Jennestad-Larson Company. The first store was up on Third Street, right across from Sandpoint Motors.  They later moved down on First Avenue about where the Pastime Restaurant was located. Their next move took them to the corner of Oak and First Avenue; I don’t know the exact year but I think it was in the 1920s.

“I recall my dad telling me a little about what Sandpoint was like in the early days. We lived out on Boyer Avenue and in the winter time my dad walked to work. In the 1920s, he had a Buick touring car but they didn’t plow the roads and, in the spring, it was so muddy you couldn’t run a car over it anyhow. So he put the car up on blocks in the winter and he walked back and forth to work. I imagine it was about a mile down to the store.

“Well, in 1930, my mother and dad went back to Norway for a three-month visit and that was when I started working in the J and L. Company (Jennestad and Larson). I worked that summer until they came back and I then went back to school. I think I was 16 years old when I started working in the clothing store.

“When my dad’s brother, Thor, came out to Sandpoint he also worked for Jennestad — Larson. In 1939, the J & L Company split up and Thor and I were going to start a new business. There was a merchant in town, J.A Foster, who called me up and said he wanted to sell out to us as he wanted to move to Portland. So we bought out J.A. Foster in April  1940. Thor and I worked together as partners for 20 years until I bought him out in 1960. I’ve been retired since 1980 and my son, Dick, has been running the store in town and the one in Bonners Ferry.

“There have been some big changes in Sandpoint and Bonner County. When I grew up, I started working in the store and at that time there were a lot of lumberjacks. They would come to town for a few days to celebrate. Most of them would come down and buy a pair of cork boots, or a Stetson hat, and then head back up to camp to work.

“At that time, they mostly logged white pine and logging was mostly done by horses. I did work one summer in the woods as a chute greaser. They towed the logs down the chutes into a pond and then they were flumed down to a mill. The place where I worked was up on Grouse Creek. I stayed right in the lumber camp and it was kind of fun, I was just a kid. I had a bucket of grease and a swab, and my job was to grease the chutes so they could skid the logs down to the pond.

“They always had good meals at our camp and we always had plenty to eat. I kept busy up in the hills but in my spare time I could go fishing; I enjoyed that very much. I don’t remember what I was paid but it wasn’t very much. I know I worked for $2 a day in the clothing store in the 1930s and I was lucky to get that much. I remember in the 1940s, when we started our own business, we sold bib overalls for 98 cents and now I think they are around $20 a pair. Of course, then you could get a hamburger for a dime and a cup of coffee for a nickel.”

To be continued