Those **** Californians!

By Nancy Foster Renk
Reader Contributor

We love to complain about newcomers. After all, they’re loud. They drive too fast. They think they own the place — and they probably do. They’re changing our town. **** Californians!

The Kalispel people might have voiced the same complaints when the first Californians arrived in 1881. That’s right — some of the earliest non-native settlers in Sandpoint were from California.

The Idaho panhandle was a lively place during the early 1880s, with thousands of men building the Northern Pacific Railroad. Moving from west to east, crews cleared, graded, built bridges and laid rails. Lake Pend Oreille presented a major obstacle to progress until 1882, when the wooden trestle — stretching more than a mile and a half across the lake outlet — was finished.

All of this railroad construction required massive numbers of ties and bridge timbers, along with lumber for everything from railroad buildings to water tanks. Here’s where those Californians came in.

E.L. Weeks & Co. store in the original townsite of Sandpoint, c. 1880. Image courtesy Bonner County Historical Society.

Robinson Jones Weeks, a rancher near La Honda, Calif., contracted to mill timbers and ties at the north end of the long trestle. He and his sons, Burt and Asa, packed up their sawmill equipment and headed north in the spring of 1881 for an adventure in the sparsely populated Idaho Territory. They had the mill running by mid-summer. Other family members joined them later that fall, including Cordelia and Ella (Robinson’s wife and daughter) and Emma and Percy (Burt’s wife and 2-year old son).

Within a short time, the massive railroad construction project moved eastward into Montana, leaving behind the tiny settlement of Sandpoint. At that time, the town consisted of a handful of wooden buildings lining the railroad tracks on the narrow spit of land between Sand Creek and the lake. The enterprising Emma Weeks served as postmaster, agent for Wells Fargo & Co. and proprietor of the general store that bore her name. The Weeks family also owned and operated the Lake View Hotel.

Three other Californians arrived in 1881: James and Mary Baldwin and their adult son Harry. After moving from the San Francisco area, James established a stage line connecting railroad camps across the Idaho panhandle and into Montana. Harry worked at a number of jobs before opening a restaurant in 1885 and later a hotel.

While the Baldwins remained in North Idaho for the remainder of their lives, the Weeks family returned to California. Robinson and Cordelia were the first to leave, departing sometime in 1883 after completing the contract with the railroad. The elder Weeks sold his sawmill to two men from Spokane Falls and transferred his interest in the hotel to his son Asa.

Mary Baldwin. Photo courtesy of An Illustrated History of North Idaho, 1903.

Burt and Emma Weeks remained in Sandpoint for 10 years. During that time, their family expanded with the arrival of a daughter, Rena Idaho Weeks, in 1888. Three years later, Burt and Emma were ready to return to California so they sold their business to Ignatz Weil, another former Californian. He and his wife Irene had recently moved to Sandpoint from Helena, Mont. Weil was born in Austria but immigrated to the United States at the age of 18. During much of the 1870s and into the early 1880s, he lived in San Francisco with his brother, Leopold, working primarily in sales. Irene was born in Kentucky but her family relocated to the Ukiah area of California when she was a small child.

After settling in Idaho, the Weils became well-known citizens in Sandpoint and Bonner County. In the early 1900s, Weil platted his large land holding for an addition to Sandpoint that includes much of the southern part of town. Their handsome home remains a local landmark on the corner of First Avenue and Superior Street. In 1907, Ignatz was appointed the first clerk and recorder for the newly formed Bonner County. Although their fortunes collapsed in the early 1920s, the Weils remained in Bonner County for the remainder of their lives.

These early Californians laid a strong foundation for the community, contributing to the economy, infrastructure and government, and helped chart the course of development for Sandpoint and North Idaho. 

Nancy Foster Renk grew up in Southern California but hopes that more than 50 years of living in Bonner County, working and raising a family, have helped to lessen the taint.

Read more of the author’s work at northidahopastpresent.com.