Sandpoint’s Early History

A story of how pioneers carved this city out of a wilderness
By Gary L. Pietsch

Nonfiction, 165 pages, 8 1/2 x 11
Softcover
ISBN: 978-1697677539

Aptly titled, "Sandpoint's Early History" begins at the beginning, with the ice age floods of Glacial Lake Missoula, which had their genesis with the giant ice dam that formed at the mouth of the Clark Fork River at current-day Lake Pend Oreille more than 10,000 years ago.

The story quickly progresses to the history of the native peoples and the first white explorer and surveyor David Thompson in 1809. The bulk of the book is devoted to the varied stories of ensuing waves of settlement sparked by miners and ferryboat operators in the early 1800s, steamboat lines in the 1860s, the completion of the first railroad line through here in 1883, platting the original Sandpoint townsite, "stump farmers" and loggers of the early 1900s, up to the blossoming of community with the construction of the City Beach park in the 1950s.

It's a wide sweep of Sandpoint's history and – surprisingly – the first book to tell the town history. Author Gary Pietsch is well qualified to tell the story. Former editor and publisher of the Sandpoint News Bulletin, he subsequently was the proprietor of Selkirk Press and now retired. When he isn't playing golf, he volunteers his time helping at the Bonner County Historical Museum.

Proceeds from the sale of "Sandpoint's Early History" benefit the museum and historical society.

*Not available for retailer discount

Price: $19.95

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