Restoration reveals a link to ice plant history
(Courtesy photo) The Cocolalla Ice & Fuel Company building on the southeast section of Cocolalla Lake was 700 feet long and more than 20 feet high. The plant held 32,000 tons of ice harvested from the lake and included two bunk houses, a barn and a blacksmith shop. At its peak in the early 1920s, the company employed 300 men and was the largest ice plant west of the Mississippi.
(Courtesy photos) Matt Dortmund removes wood trim to be labeled and set aside for cleanup and reinstallation as part of the restoration of what now is believed to be the family home Cocolalla Ice & Fuel Company owner E.J. Bower had built soon after 1900.
(Courtesy photos) Above, this turn-of-the-20th century, two-story home sits immediately north of and adjacent to what would have been the location of the ice plant on Cocolalla Lake.
COCOLALLA — Contemporary history surrounding the Cocolalla Ice & Fuel Company has it that “nothing remains of this once large ice factory on the banks of Cocolalla Lake.”
There were old-timers’ memories, to be sure, as well as some rough coordinates that stated the place sat on the southeast corner of the lake. Until this winter, however, there has been no intact, physical evidence connected to the business that once employed 300 men working more than 60 horses during the ice-harvesting season.
That’s when Chic Dortmund and his son Matt, of Dortmund Builders, began work on a rambling, old two-story home sitting on that same section a lakeshore. The home had been empty for a time and the father and son — both veterans of this kind of project, having restored the similarly vintaged Tanner House in Sandpoint — were hired to tackle the Cocolalla structure and work the same kind of magic for new owner Tim Trimble.
Like the Tanner House, this home was built using “balloon frame” construction popular at the time, where unbroken expanses of 2X4 boards go all the way from floor to ceiling. And, in another shared trait, the house had attributes that — compared with most homes built in North Idaho around the turn of the 20th century — showed it belonged to a family of means.
As the Dortmunds began to remove what turned into a mountain of lathe and plaster in order to get to the basic framework, just as when they began the process of cleaning out the basement, they started to notice that nearly every piece of lumber in the place was identified in the same way.
“Everything in this house is stenciled, ‘Cocolalla Ice & Fuel,’” he said, showing those words on boards and on the bottom of a claw foot bathtub. “I’m guessing it was built around the turn of the century — sometime between 1901-1903. The ice house started in 1903.”
Dortmund is spot on with that last date. Cocolalla Ice & Fuel Company was incorporated in 1903, and, by 1921, grew to be the largest ice supplier west of the Mississippi.
The owner was one E.J. Bower, someone of whom little is remembered and a name that might not have resurfaced had the Cocolalla restoration project not taken off. Given the size of the home, its layout and amenities, Chic Dortmund is certain this is the Bower family residence.
“It’s a high-dollar house; that’s why it tells me it must have been owned by the ice house guy,” the builder said.
Dortmund motioned to follow him up the original staircase — sturdy as ever and graced with more than 100 years’ worth of creaks and groans — into an open space that was the master bedroom.
“There was evidence of a little corner sink right here,” he said, standing in the skeleton of the framed-in room. “That tells me it had to be a wealthy family. People didn’t have sinks in the bedroom at the turn of the century.”
The location of the home, too, speaks to evidence that it was the Bower family residence. As the historians note, there might not be any major physical remnants of the ice plant itself, but the property adjacent to the home — a large, vacant rectangle of lakefront that shows signs of some past industrial use — is a good match for the few photos that show where the icehouse sat on the shore.
That the home sits at the end of the road that runs by the vacant production site places it in a spot that would have overlooked both the southern tip of the lake and the ice packing and shipping operation there.
While Trimble directed Dortmund Builders to replace the windows and replicate the front porch that was falling away from the structure, he also has been a stickler for keeping the home intact and much the same as the Bower family would have found it. Upon completion, it will closely resemble the layout of three bedrooms and bath upstairs, kitchen, living room and study on the main floor.
“We want to keep it as close to original as we can,” the owner said. “That’s why we’ve kept all the trim and we’re keeping all the doors with their original hardware — lock sets and everything.”
Removing the lathe and plaster was necessary, in part, to get at the original plumbing and old knob-and-tube wiring, both of which had to be replaced. Not much else, though, needed to be swapped out for modern materials.
“This house has good bones,” said Dortmund. “When we went down into the basement and looked up at the timbers, they looked like the day they went in.”
Stripping away the past from the residence of a well-to-do family raises hopes of finding — if not treasure — at least a secreted-away oddity or long-lost bauble. No such luck at the Bower home, except for a 1918 half dollar found when the carpet was pulled up from the living room floor. Trimble thinks, based on the age of the carpet, that it might have been placed there to denote, upon eventual discovery, when the floor covering went in.
Underneath the carpet, Dortmund Builders did find a treasure of sorts — an expanse of straight-grain fir flooring, sure to be a showpiece when it’s refinished. It’s a sign of the size and quality of wood coming out of the local hills in that era, the builder said, pointing out another example in a top-of-the-stairs linen closet.
“It’s trimmed and stained inside,” he said. “That’s quality work.”
Dortmund drew out one of the shelves — a solid piece of wood measuring roughly 18 inches deep by a couple of feet wide. No joins, no gluing, just one big piece of wood bearing the marks of a circular saw blade.
“That tells you how big the trees must have been back then,” the builder said.
A retired contractor himself, this is not the first old structure owner Tim Trimble has brought back to life. For now, his plan is to get the restoration wrapped up sometime this spring and put the historic lakefront home on the market.
“That’s my intent,” he said. “Unless, once it’s finished, I can’t resist it myself.”