Greetings from Grangeville

GRANGEVILLE — Like many small, rural towns, Grangeville has had its share of challenges in its 150 years of existence. Yet it remains a viable community with an evolving business district and a population of mostly friendly folk.

“What I like most about the small town of Grangeville,” said City Clerk Tonya Kennedy, “is, you can walk down the street, you say hi to people, you can smile at people and you get that same reaction back. They might not know who you are but people are friendly and they always say hi or wave or smile, and I appreciate that.”

Grangeville’s genesis was something of an afterthought when, in August 1874, members of Charity Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, organized under the leadership of Henry Hart Spalding, a son of Rev. Henry Spalding, the pioneer Presbyterian minister of Idaho.

The group sought to build a location in Mount Idaho, which, at the time, was the only town between Lewiston and the gold fields in Idaho County.

Loyal P. Brown, one of the leading citizens of Mount Idaho, opposed the Grange and would not donate the land for a grange building — something he later came to regret. When John M. Crooks, who had settled on his farm in 1865, offered a site, the Grangers built their meeting place in 1876 where Trails Restaurant is now located on Main Street. The grange hall is believed to be one of the first in the Pacific Northwest.

According to an article in the Lewiston Tribune on March 23, 1934, the Nez Perce name for Grangeville was Sike-sike, meaning “the foot of the mountain.”

Some of the earliest businesses included the Grange Flouring Mills Co., organized in 1876. A hotel, a funeral home and a drug store soon followed. In 1879, Alexander and Freidenrich, one of the oldest stores in northern Idaho, opened a clothing shop and many pioneer sawmills sprang up in the vicinity to manufacture lumber for the buildings that replaced primitive log structures throughout the area.

A.F. Parker, owner and publisher of the Idaho County Free Press that was established in 1886, wrote of Grangeville in 1890 that the town “has all the elements of a quiet, progressive center and is one of the most moral, orderly and law-abiding towns in America. Every sojourner is struck by the steady air and self-repose of its citizens. It is not a county seat and between it and its near neighbor, Mount Idaho, the most cordial feelings are entertained. It is the commercial center of Idaho County, being situated in the most fertile and thickly-settled portion of Camas Prairie. It is a farmer’s, miner’s stockman’s and prospector’s trading point and does a very large mountain trade.”

A few years later, Parker noted in the Free Press: “The consumption of bottled beer on Camas Prairie is something enormous.” Soon, two breweries sprang up, von Berge’s Eagle Brewery and Grangeville Brewery that was built in 1893 and produced “what was reportedly a good beer at $1 for a baker’s dozen bottles.”

Grangeville’s changing profile

At one time a whiskey distillery operated on Three Mile Creek that runs through the eastern section of town. Local option regulations closed both breweries in 1910 but the law was repealed two years later. In 1914, prohibition again shuttered those businesses and the area was officially “dry” until the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1933. Unofficially, according to local lore, there were plenty of bootleg manufacturers in the area and considerable consumption of home brew.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Grangeville’s business district suffered a number of major fires that destroyed several buildings, with thousands of dollars in losses. In 1921, a flood damaged the business district and trapped P.M. Glanville, a prominent citizen, in the basement of his drugstore and he drowned.

Although the Free Press’ editor had described the town as law-abiding, by 1897 the town’s demographics had diversified and it was decided to incorporate and elect city officials, including a marshal. Because Grangeville’s population had outpaced Mount Idaho’s, friction arose between the two communities over which one should be the county seat. By 1902, the issue was settled with an election that Grangeville won with 2,637 votes to Mount Idaho’s 743 votes.

Parker, a flamboyant newspaperman, published colorful accounts of locals happening, such as the first legal execution to take place in Idaho County — the hanging at the county seat of Mount Idaho of Theodore Warlich for the murder of his mining partner. Parker later displayed the fatal rope in the newspaper’s front window.

One of the major changes in the past 150 years, according to the current mayor of Grangeville, Wes Lester, has been the shift away from retail businesses to more niche or service industries.

“I look downtown where a lot of department stores were and they’re not there anymore,” Lester said. “They’ve turned into either insurance agencies or banks or so. I don’t see a lot of empty buildings downtown but they’ve just changed the types of business. And I’m not sure if some of that’s to blame on the internet or if it’s just the product of time. I don’t know.”

Lester pointed out that with the upgrades to U.S. Highway 95 in the past 30 years, along with faster cars and a 65 mph speed limit, it’s easier for people to travel to Lewiston to do their shopping.

“You can get to Lewiston in an hour and 10 minutes very easily,” he said. “Not that Lewiston has a lot. They’ve lost a lot of their businesses, too. But sometimes you just need to get out of town.”

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau reports, Grangeville’s population is 3,443 with a median age of 48.1. Median household income is $59,013 and 16% of the population lives below the poverty line. There are 1,461 households in Grangeville and 55% of the population is married.

The largest employer in town is the Idaho Forest Group with 200-plus employees. Other major employers include the Mountain View School District, Syringa General Hospital, Idaho County Courthouse, U.S. Forest Service, Anderson Aeromotive and Advanced Welding. There are two grocery stores, six restaurants, Larson’s clothing store, Lindsley’s Furniture Store, Irwin Drug, three garden shops, farm implement businesses and several real estate offices, electronics shops, lawyers offices, thrift stores and coffee kiosks.

A century-plus of schooling

Soon after the founding of the town, schools were established to educate children of the settlers. A public school was started in the mid-1870s and the Columbia River Conference Academy was opened in 1877 by the Rev. J.D. Flenner, a Methodist clergyman. Sessions were held upstairs in the grange hall and the enrollment was about 100 students. A single teacher split his time between both institutions, drawing salary from both.

By 1890, the number of children in the district had increased, prompting the construction of a new public school building on North State Street. An article in the Free Press on Dec. 19, 1901, crows about the education system of the county:

“From such weak beginnings has grown the magnificent structure of the present school system of Idaho County. ... Idaho County has 3061 school children as shown by the last census report. There are at present 62 regularly organized school districts within the county. Of this number six employ more than one teacher as follows: Grangeville, 8; Cottonwood, 3; Denver, Mt. Idaho, Stuart, and White Bird, two teachers each.”

The county population continued to grow, especially after World War II when veterans returned home and farmers were feeding the world. A national building boom made for a lucrative timber industry and Idaho County schools received the benefits of timber sales receipts that were funnelled into new buildings.

A new laminated wood high school was built in Grangeville in 1958 to accommodate the post-war baby boom. About that time schools in Grangeville, Riggins, Elk City, Kooskia and Powell reorganized into Joint School District 241.

Consolidation, however, has not been without problems. School patrons in Riggins and the Kooskia area have long felt that Grangeville schools got preferential treatment in buildings, services and equipment while the outliers received the leftovers.

In 2006, Riggins patrons, determined to go it on their own, voted to split from the larger district. Currently the Kooskia-Elk City area is in the process of doing the same.

A vote on the deconsolidation process has been set for May 20 and the proposal must be approved by a simple majority in both the Grangeville and the Kooskia-Elk City areas to pass.

Alicia Holthaus, superintendent of the current Mountain View School District, said that if the deconsolidation is approved each district must “make a solid plan for two good school districts. If (the proposal) is denied, in my opinion, you mend some fences and you make a plan to move forward, as well. If the voters choose not to separate, there needs to be some healing.”

Marquee event: Border Days

In 1912, Grangeville residents organized the first Border Days celebration that has become the oldest continuous rodeo in Idaho. The Sept. 5 edition of the Idaho County Free Press advertised that Border Days “will put Grangeville on the map in such big and indelible letters that the entire country no longer will be in the dark about the liveliest and biggest little city in the Northwest.”

Besides cowboy contests the early Border Days featured exotic animals, Bohemian glass blowers and even Viola the Fat Girl.

Through the years rodeo stars such as Jackson Sundown and Guy Cash performed at the event.

The three-day rodeo continues over the Fourth of July holiday and in recent years one of the biggest attractions has been the Super Egg Toss on Main Street that draws thousands of participants and spectators. Teams of two fling raw eggs at each other until the field is cracked down to the final two, who win a trophy and a $10 bill for tossing the egg the length of half a city block.

“A lot of people that come back for Border Days are people that grew up here and went to school here,” Lester said. “It’s usually when the school has their reunions. There are people that just show up because they hear of Border Days. Financially, for the city, it doesn’t make the city money but as far as the businesses in town, it does help.”

Snowhaven draws a crowd in winter

The city of Grangeville owns the rodeo arena, the Grangeville Golf Course and Snowhaven Ski and Tubing Hill located 7 miles south of town. Although it’s not a major resort, the hill does attract plenty of recreationists during the winter when there’s plenty of snow.

Lester said he drives up to the ski hill about once a weekend to check out the activity, “and at least half the cars in the parking lot, if not more, are from Nez Perce County, Latah County. It’s not Grangeville people that are the majority supporting it. It’s a bigger area.”

Recently the city received a $690,000 American Rescue Plan Act fund, most of which will be used to update the Snowhaven T-bar and lodge to make it Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.

Lester said the ski hill isn’t a big money maker for the city “but this year, so far, we started slow but the snow has kept up and there’s no projected closing date. It’s a very affordable hill. It’s maybe not as daredevilish as what a lot of skiers like but it’s great for kids. And the tubing facility always seems busy.”

Mammoth discovery

In 1994, a group of local volunteers digging around Tolo Lake, about 7 miles west of Grangeville, discovered the leg bone of a mammoth. Archaeologists and others from the Nez Perce National Forest, the Idaho State Historical Society, the University of Idaho and the Idaho Museum of Natural History collaborated on an excavation project that soon revealed a mammoth graveyard of hundreds of skeletons.

Organizers raised funds to purchase a resin mammoth skeleton replica and built an enclosed interpretive structure to house the creature. The display is located along U.S. Highway 95 next to the Grangeville Chamber of Commerce office. One of the actual mammoth tusks is on display at the Bicentennial Museum in Grangeville. The lake was refilled to protect bones still unearthed and to provide fishing opportunities.

U.S. Highway 95

In the discussions during the early 1920s about construction of a continuous North-South arterial linking the extremities of Idaho, one proposal was to build the portion of the highway from White Bird to Cottonwood along the Salmon River canyon, which would have bypassed Grangeville.

Business people lobbied officials to have the main highway redirected through the town. And on July 31, 1931, the Lewiston Tribune reported: “Construction work on the highway from the south to the north end of Idaho has been completed between New Meadows and Grangeville. This work has transformed into a high-class roadway those places that used to send terror through the travelers. Two places in the canyon of the Little Salmon known as Devil’s Elbow and Hell’s Half Acre, are now a broad, paved highway.”

Travelers continue to look, however, for speedier ways to get to their destinations and the Lake Road cutoff, about 4 miles south of the entrance to Grangeville, and the Johnston Road cutoff see plenty of traffic, especially when university students in Moscow are traveling to and from southern Idaho. The Grangeville Highway District recently completed a $2 million pavement rehabilitation project and is seeking federal funding for an asphalt upgrade to the two-lane highway.

Going east, travelers can drive on Main Street, which is also Idaho Highway 13, to access the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, Elk City, the Clearwater Valley and beyond to Montana.

Gravity or Magnetic Hill

One of the strange phenomena found near Grangeville that never ceases to intrigue curiosity seekers is a spot called Magnetic Hill or Gravity Hill, where a driver can put a car into neutral on the highway and it appears to roll uphill against gravity, picking up speed as it rolls along. The hill is located on the grade between Grangeville and Mount Idaho where the trees obscure the horizon. It’s an optical illusion but one that has been fascinating locals and tourists for decades.

Bicentennial Museum

The two-story brick building adjacent to the City Hall-Library complex features a number of displays that tell the story of the early days in Grangeville and Idaho County. Among the exhibits are an extensive collection of Nez Perce Indian artifacts, early day mining equipment and tools, and a handmade embroidered quilt representing 16 communities in the county.

Chamber of Commerce

The Grangeville Commercial Club, forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce, was organized in 1906 and is believed to be the oldest Chamber of Commerce in Idaho.

The chamber has been a supporter of the Fourth of July Border Days celebration, lobbies for better transportation, helped to raise money for new buildings, street lights, Christmas decorations and the lighted cross on the mountain above the town.

Hedberg is a retired Tribune reporter who has lived in Grangeville for 43 years. She may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune. Some of the sources used in this story include the Idaho County Free Press, Lewiston Tribune, "Idaho County Voices," "Pioneer Days in Idaho County" and "Idaho for the Curious."