Trip to Lewiston ID - my old stomping grounds
Posted this one on the other list too ..
I went up to Lewiston (Idaho) Sunday and Monday, the Tribes are extending technical assistance to the city for their waterfront redevelopment plan, so I was the one selected to go. For those unfamiliar with Idaho, Lewiston is at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater, about 900 ft elevation. Needless to say, it is much warmer than the surrounding countryside. It's where the Nez Perce and Palouse used to winter over, eating up their stored food, singing, dancing, racing horses, chasing the opposite sex, etc.
When gold was discovered, the steamboats started coming up to Lewiston. And canneries were set up to process the salmon that ran up in the spring and fall – chinook and sockeye, more than anyone could ever use up, let alone count.
It was really a paradise, but one brought low by the Potlatch pulp mill and the slackwater behind Lower Granite dam that flooded the beaches and rapids. Well the mill brought a lot of blue-collar prosperity and the slackwater brought the barges. Like they say, did some good, did some harm.
I used to go down to L-town in my younger days when I was a student at U of I in Moscow, then later with my first wife and daughter. We'd take mini-vacations in the winter, take the truck down to the valley and luxuriate in the 40+ degree sunshine and roll around in the green grass.
This time it was winter. Lewiston is struggling, lots of vacant storefronts downtown. The mill is still there, so is the smell. Just the jobs are gone. I walked around downtown, saw deer tracks right downtown just south of the Snake River bridge. Look acoss the river, the port was loading a grain barge, all automated. Not maNY jobs there. The port can not grow unless US 12 goes to 4 lanes all the way from Missoula. Do that, it's gonna be 300 million to build and trash out the Lochsa and Middle Fork of the Clearwater in the process. Or do the smart thing, restore the Milwaukie Line from Deer Lodge MT to Avery ID for half that amount and run the grain cars from there to Ice Harbor on the Columbia. But if you do thaT, who needs slackwater to Lewiston? That's when the dams will come down and the fish will come back.
Some of the old places are still in business. Effie's is still open, selling the 12” diameter, gutbomb, Effieburger. Effie is long gone, probably killed by those CaMels she like to smoke. She would cut the camel out of the pack and glue it to the wall of her tavern .. lines of camels marching along the wainscot, into the cans, up the corner, aLONG THE ceiling, ETC ETC. like ants swarming. You could get sick just looking at them, everything in there brown from the smoke.
Speer Bullets and CCI are all one company now. The planners looked at them as a problem use but they did admit the company had just hired 200 more people and put on another shift. The ammo biz is good just now. For Lewiston's sake I hope people keep buying. Hear that guys? Keep hoarding ammo, it's good for the economy.
Lolo Sporting Goods on Main St. was there when I was a kid. I remember going in and being blown away by the row of '86 Winchesters for sale. They were not cheap, either. $200 on up to $350 for a really nice one. They had 45-70s, 45-90s a few .33s, and a few of the new Model 71s in .348. Those were high prices for guns that were rare and desirable then … this was when you could buy a really nice used Harley dresser for $300. I took a pass that year on a cherry, cobalt blue '46 Harley 80” flathead dresser with concho fringed leather bags for $150.
There was a pawn shop two doors away from Lolo that also had excellent old guns and lower prices. In between IIRC was the Silver Dollar bar. This was when you could get your change in silver dollars, and spend them in a place like the Silver Dollar. That was what I call money! None of this paper stuff.
Up the street was a warehouse where I did buy a motorcycle – a 1948 Indian Chief I got for $100. Man it was ugly. It started right up and I rode that baby right up the grade into winter.
Well, as far as renovating and redeveloping the riverfront, I did recommend that they work closely with the neighborhoods and the community, don't do this as a top-down thing. Suggested that they remember who they are - Lewiston is not Seattle or Beverly Hills, it's a western working class town. Be who you are, only more so. Do what you can with the resources you have. I also suggested they do an economic analysis. Use industry figures for the benefits of slackwater, but count each fish swimming by at $200. Cost-benefit. My own thought is the lower Snake River dams will come down because they aren't pulling their weight economically and probably never will, and because the fish are so valuable. Just maybe not in my lifetime.
Well, that was **my** weekend. Guess I've done enough damage for now.
jn
