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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Frank and Cathryn Boyles - Bayview
Prompted by the closure of the
Lakeview mines, the Boyles moved to Wallace, and later Kingston, in the late
30's where Frank found employment in the mines there. They still used their
cabin at Lakeview for vacations and holidays. The family returned to Granite in
the early 40's and lived back on the homestead while Frank worked at Farragut
Naval Training Center as a mechanic. While at Farragut he came up with the idea
of opening a resort on Cape Horn. About 1945 his dreams came to fruition when
the couple bought 40 acres of raw land at the tip of Cape Horn. They called it
Cape Horn Ranch at first Frank dug out the bank above the water's edge and fashioned a level location for the main resort building which was a tavern/restaurant. According to his son Bob, “Dad cut the logs at Lakeview – put them in the lake and nailed some 2 X 6s across them, put a motor on them and ran them across to Cape Horn. We had a big winch on an A-frame up the hill and we’d winch those logs up the hill and peel them with an ax, cut them and then roll them onto the building as it was being built.”
Sailors from Farragut came out to the resort. “They were a great source of revenue, Bob recalled. "A man named Cliff, who lived in Bayview and owned a 40’ boat, would bring loads of sailors from town, charge them a few bucks, and drop them off at Cape Horn - return and get another load and pick up the first group. He would crowd 20 or 30 sailors on the boat with some barely hanging on the edges. Their favorite activity was drinking! – until they couldn’t stand up anymore and then they loaded ‘em back on the boat. They mostly drank beer, which was rationed, and there was plenty of hard liquor, too, although I don’t know how much of it was legal! You had to be part of an incorporated town in order to get a license, so I doubt that it was ever legal. We (the resort) served drinks in coffee cups, so if the law walked in they couldn’t see all those cocktails! Dad always paid a pretty good ‘donation’ to the county sheriff, so whenever the state liquor boys came around, he knew it in advance. A one point we bought an amphibious barge from the Navy to transport supplies, so we could haul the ice, beer, liquor and food to the resort.
“The blueback (kokanee) were nice, big 13-14 inch fish in those days. You could go out just about any time and catch enough fish for dinner in an hour. I’d troll and catch all the fish you wanted. When I was nine and ten I fished off Lakeview when we were living there. We smoked them, too. In the earlier days – 30’s and early 40s there were commercial fishermen that caught white fish – white fish was the predominant fish in those days. Those fish would school up ion the winter. The fishermen would have a low boat with a stove that hung on a couple pipes across – a couple of guys would be inside and they would jig for the fish – They’d put 2 or 3 hooks on a line and those white fish by the hundreds. They’d toss ‘em in a sack and drag them alongside the boat in the water until they got their limit or as much as they wanted. In those days any grocery store in Coeur d’Alene or Sandpoint all had white fish for sale.” The boys, Bill and Bob, were sent to Coeur d'Alene for high school and boarded with a family. That didn't work out perfectly and Bob completed his senior year at Spirit Lake. He arose by six a.m., had a quick breakfast and drove his 16' outboard boat with a 16hp Johnson motor to town in time to catch the bus to school. There were a few elementary kids in Bayview at the time but only one other high school student, Dick Compton. The total HS enrollment at Spirit Lake was close to 40 or 50. Bob and Bill left Bayview while
Frank and Cathryn continued to operate the resort. In 1951-52 Frank decided to
spearhead a project to build a road from Bayview to Cape Horn with the help of
Frank Stewart. Those two men provided the major financial
Frank became ill from emphysema prompting him to sell the resort about 1962 and the couple moved to Athol. They moved to the coast where he died in 1965. The tavern burned around 1968. Today an association club house is located on the footprint of the old tavern. An expanded marina has replaced the original breakwater and dock. Two of the resort cabins are easily recognized now, whereas the family home and third cabin have been vastly changed over the years. Cathryn continued to enjoy her children and grandchildren until her passing in 1996.
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Frank Boyles (1900-1965) and Cathryn (1910-1996) Boyles were the couple who built Cape Horn Resort, favorite
gathering place on the lake for fishermen, boaters and townspeople. The couple
were married in 1926 and their first son, Clarence William, called Bill, was
born in 1927. A second son, Robert Martin (Bob), followed in 1930. During
those early years of marriage the couple lived at Granite north of Athol, Idaho,
where Frank's parents had a homestead, and at Lakeview, where Frank worked at
the Idaho-Lakeview and Keep Cool mines. The family lived on Main Street in
Lakeview in a 2-room cabin they bought. Frank added a dining room and
eventually three bedrooms to this batten board home located just up from the
one-room school the boys attended with two other students. Picture on left
shows Bob and Bill standing to the right of the flag in front of the Lakeview
School in 1938.
because it was still the war years and gas was
rationed. More gas stamps were made available to those who owned ranches.
The family lived in a 2-bedroom
cabin just above the tavern which Frank built and later remodeled and expanded
it by adding a glassed-in porch which became the living room and kitchen. Later
he constructed a bath, laundry room and garage. In addition he built 3 log
cabins (one is on left) on the hillside above the tavern to rent to fishermen and other
visitors. 
"We served all three meals and
had 3 cabins and 5 or 6 boats to rent for fishing. It was a favorite place for
townspeople and fishermen. Mom did the laundry for the family and resort in a
large laundry room built off the cabin. She also helped at the tavern making
and serving meals. We also had some slot machines. Everyone loved to play the
slots. Each machine had little cogs and you could set the machines to be loose
or tight based on whether you pulled out the pins or not. We had a gas driven
generator that supplied electricity. If the lights went out, I’d have to go
down below the tavern and fill up the gas tank.
backing while some
funds were provided by a few other residents. Frank hired a couple hard-rock
miners he knew from Wallace to blast out the road along the cliff face. He
bought a used Caterpillar tractor and they managed to scrap out a road. The
road was just one-lane wide and was pretty rugged during the spring thaw.