Early Sandpoint Idaho - Hang Town
by Bob Gunter
Today
Sandpoint, Idaho is known for its beautiful lake and
majestic mountains. It is known as a good place to
find serenity and a sense of peace.
But the Sandpoint of old had a
different reputation. As early as 1884 Sandpoint had
garnered quite a reputation. W.A. Baillie-Grohman,
an early traveler, tells of his experience in the
area. He stated, "...obliged me during 1884 to
be frequently for days at a time in Sandpoint, the
nearest rail and post station, which then afforded
the only approach to Kootenay. In this wretched
hole, one of the "tough" towns in the
tough territory of Idaho, where shooting scrapes and
"hanging bees" were common events."
Baillie-Grohman wrote this description of payday on
the railroad. "It was that the monthly pay-car
had passed through Sandpoint that afternoon, and
hence all the male population in the place with the
exception of Weeks were "filling up" as
fast as the six whiskey dens in the place could
bring about that happy end." He said,
"...I knew Sandpoint--known also as Hangtown--could
hold its own for depravity."
Click on photo
to enlarge
Major Fred B. Reed confirmed the early
image of Sandpoint in an interview with the Pend d'Oreille
Review in 1964. He stated, "I was through here with the
Northern Pacific construction gang in 1880 and Sandpoint was
the toughest place in the United States. Over at the end of
your big bridge was 'Hangtown' and it was over there that we
had our necktie parties." He went on to tell about the
time that six men were hanged at one time.
Click on photo to enlarge
A Sandpoint paper reported in 1906 the discovery of
four skeletons found by a worker while digging a
ditch for a water main. At first the remains were
thought to be the bodies of Indians because it was
known that an Indian burial ground had been in the
area. Each skeleton had been placed in a wooden
coffin and one of them was a red headed woman.
An
old timer remembered the bodies were there as a result of
blood shed during the time the Northern Pacific railroad was
being built.
One body was of a man who went into a
local saloon and was taken suddenly sick and died. His
sickness and death was a mystery. The red headed woman and
her lover had quarreled over the dead man and the woman shot
her boy friend. That was grave number two. She killed
herself by an overdose of whiskey and morphine and grave
number three belonged to her. The last grave was that of a
man who was shot through the heart during a gambling
argument.
It is hard to imagine the Sandpoint of
today being one of the roughest places in the nation.
All photographs have been used with permission of the Bonner County Museum.
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