Sagle's Camp Bay Road was constructed for public's benefit

I am writing to correct the fictional history of Camp Bay Road presented in the letter to the editor (Daily Bee, Nov. 28, 2023) from my brother, Jim Green. 

In 1909, when the road was constructed at public expense, only two people lived at the lake end of the road, our great-grandmother and our grandfather. Instead of ending at the property line, the road continued across their private property for about a quarter mile. This expenditure of public money for a road through private property had to be done for a purpose beneficial to the public. There was nothing at the end of the road of benefit to the public in 1909 except access to the lake. Transportation at that time for people, freight, and mail was by steamboat to other ports such as Sandpoint, Hope, and Bayview.

Jim Green wants you to believe that the pioneer population of 1909 would have paid tax money to travel the road to within feet or inches of the lake only to then be barred from launching a fishing boat, boarding a steamboat, or watering a horse.  I remember that pilings for the steamboat dock were still present in the lake in the early 1950s when we swam from the beach at the end of the road. The road was built to encourage steamboats to stop.  The steamboat company accommodated by constructing a dock that rested on pilings driven into the lake bottom and was accessible from the road.