Bonner County History - July 3, 2025
Brought to you by the
Bonner County Historical
Society and Museum
611 S. Ella Ave., Sandpoint, Idaho, 83864
208-263-2344
50 Years Ago
Sandpoint News-Bulletin
and Sandpoint Bee
July 3, 1975 – NEW N-B OWNER
Laurin E. Pietsch and Gary L. Pietsch announce the sale of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin, effective July 1, to Pend Oreille Printers, Inc., and Pete Thompson, publishers of the Sandpoint Daily Bee. Laurin Pietsch has been in the newspaper business in Sandpoint since September 1924 when he founded his newspaper as a mimeographed daily in partnership with J.L. Stack.
Gary Pietsch, a 1952 SHS graduate with a B.A. degree in Journalism from the U of I, has been associated with his father in operating the Sandpoint paper the past 17 years. He has resigned as editor and publisher, to devote his full time to managing Selkirk Press, Inc. and Selkirk Stationery.
•••
WOOD-FIRED STEAMER TO APPEAR
The wood-fired steamer owned by Harold Miller of Sandpoint, will return to the Fourth of July Parade this year after being absent from last year’s parade.
•••
CORN ABOVE ‘KNEE HIGH’
Corn will be well above the traditional “knee high by the 4th of July” in the corn belt, indicates an Agriculture Dept. report. According to farm lore, knee-high grain in the Midwest by Independence Day foreshadows a good crop. This year, the signs point to a record harvest that could substantially ease food inflation rates by late 1975 and 1976.
75 Years Ago
Sandpoint News-Bulletin
July 3, 1950 – EARLY JULY 4 MEMORIES
Sandpoint pioneer Delia Holton’s memoir, now in the possession of her daughter, Mrs. Katie Atleson, describes July 4,1886 in Sandpoint: “My first July 4 here was spent on the lake. The Gray brothers had a big scow they used to haul lime from what is now called Lakeview, but then was called the Lime Kiln. The men scrubbed that scow clean and George Ellis, owner of the only steamboat on the lake pulled it all around the lake with all the people of Sandpoint on it. We women took large baskets of all the good things we could make out of what little we had. A man with an accordion played while the rest of us danced until we couldn’t dance any more. It was Sunday, and I kept wondering what my mother would say. But there were so few ladies that if one refused it would spoil the fun for the rest.”
•••
FIRST FOOT BRIDGE MADE OF SPLIT CEDAR
The deck of the first bridge over Sand creek from the N.P. tracks to the west bank was of split cedar logs, flat side up, right down at water’s edge. In high water, the bridge floated off its moorings and had to be dragged back as the water receded.
•••
OLD HUMBIRD STORE WAS GIRLS’ GYM
Mrs. Claire Gorsline recalls with laughter the early gymnasium where the high school girls’ basketball team played in 1905 - an empty Humbird company building near the N.P. depot. The ceiling was very low and only by constant practice did the local girls learn to make baskets. “We always won games on that court,” she said, “visitors rarely made a basket.”
For more information, visit the museum online at bonnercountyhistory.org.