Bayview Historical Society
BAYVIEW, ID
dedicated to preserving the history of Bayview, Lakeview and other locations on Lake Pend Oreille
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dedicated to preserving the history of Bayview, Lakeview and other locations on Lake Pend Oreille
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Bayview is located in the Panhandle of Idaho, midway between Sandpoint and
Coeur d'Alene. Idaho historians claim that local Indians and occasional
fur trappers set up camp at the head of Squaw Bay on the southern end of Lake
Pend Oreille in the 1800s. It soon became a hunting, fishing and logging
location. Timber was in constant demand for home construction, fuel for
the steamers on the lake and for limestone production.
The first limestone claims were filed in 1882 by G. W. Bristow and the first
homestead family, the Elmer E. Haddons, settled above Squaw Bay in the 1890s.
(See Families) Early maps do not identify a town on Squaw Bay but postal
records show that the first post office in the town of Bayview opened in 1906.
The first road came from Granite, some 8 miles away, which was a tiny community
along the Northern Pacific rail line. It wasn't until 1910 that the
official town site was platted. By 1916 the town leaders changed the name
of the bay from Squaw Bay to Scenic Bay.
Five businessmen from Spokane, Washington, formed the Prairie Development Company in 1910 and set out the town of Bayview in a configuration of 27 blocks, complete with paved sidewalks and a water system. These men, John J. Browne, Donald K. McDonald, J. Grier Long, William S. McCrea and Walter G. Merryweather, saw promise in developing a resort town on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille within 50 miles of Spokane. They convinced Daniel C. Corbin to build a branch line of his Spokane International Railroad into Bayview from Corbin Junction, which was just south of present-day Silverwood Theme Park on Idaho 95. This branch line, called the Coeur d'Alene and Pend Oreille Railroad, was completed in 1911 and remained in operation until the late 1930s.
The limestone claims were bought by
Washington Brick, Lime and Sewer Pipe Company of Spokane in 1900.
There
was a great demand for building materials in Spokane, especially brick and terra
cotta, and the Bayview
The limestone operations across the lake
near Lakeview were vitally linked to Bayview.
Portland International
Cement Company, another Spokane-based business,
built their first quarry north of Lakeview in 1912. It was primarily an
underground mine and employed over 100 workers, most of whom were Italians,
Greeks, Bulgarians or Austrians. The company mined several hundred tons of
rock each day. The crushed rock was loaded onto a barge with gondolas cars
brought to the site by a steam tug called the Dora Powell.
(See Steamers) The tug made two trips a day from the railroad
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J.
Grier Long built a two-story brick hotel in 1910 called the
Bayview Inn. It had 20 rooms on the second
floor and a roof garden overlooking the lake. Long's daughter Frances ran
the hotel from 1929 until 1942 when the U.S. Navy took over the property as part
of the Farragut Naval Training Center. Frances, better known as Mickey,
was an avid Indian artifact collector. She changed the name of the hotel
to the Wigwam Lodge and decorated each room in the theme of a different Indian
tribe.
plant supplied much of the needed processed limestone.
The business developed five quarries on the hillside above Bayview. The
quarried stone was transported to one of five kilns near the lake.
Originally the processed lime was carried in barrels by steamer to Hope and then
via the Northern Pacific to Spokane, but when the Spokane International Railroad
came to Bayview, the lime was loaded directly onto rail cars at the plant, taken
to Corbin Junction and then on to Spokane. 
dock at
Bayview where the Spokane International tracks went directly onto the dock.
The gondolas would be loaded and unloaded from the barge. All 12 cars
would then be taken to Corbin Junction, transferred onto the main line and
brought into Spokane. A second plant was built south of Lakeview in 1921.