By: Bob Gunter
When the little village, that was to be
Sandpoint, was very young the people who had
gathered along the Northern Pacific Railroad
tracks had to have a place in which to bury
their dead.
The
land on the West side of the creek was a remote
forest and a plot more accessible was needed. A
Mr. Ferguson met this need by donating to the
Town of Sandpoint a strip of land to be used for
burial purposes. The land given was also wooded
but was closer to the few people living in the
village.
In
1893 the J.D. Nesbitts owned a boarding house
and a shingle mill located close to the cemetery
near the tracks. After the Humbird Lumber
Company had established itself as the largest
mill in the area more land was needed.
Arrangements were made for the Humbird Company
to purchase the boarding house as well as the
shingle mill. They also purchased the ground on
which the cemetery sat. The Humbird Company had
its manager, A.E. Rickard, purchase a five-acre
plot of land from E.T. Vought for the purpose of
moving the bodies of those that had been buried
in the old cemetery.
Today, these five acres are known as the old
part of Lakeview Cemetery. In 1929 another four
acres was purchased in order to expand the
cemetery. Lakeview is located at the end of
Division Street and for many years it was the
burial place for the Sandpoint area. To walk
through the quite and serene area is like
experiencing a page from the history of a town
and its people. Names like Coons, Farmin,
Ferguson, Page and Whitaker are seen and remind
us of those who made our town what it is today.
The bodies of men and women who served in the
armed forces of our country are buried at
Lakeview. As one stands and gazes at the
beautiful trees and the lake one experiences a
sense of quietude as if some unheard voice is
saying to those sleeping there, "Take your rest,
take your rest."
Someone once said that you could tell the
character of a town by the way they maintain
their places of burial. From the beginning
people stepped up and took a responsible role in
maintaining Lakeview Cemetery. In 1903, A.E.
Rickard, H.E. Hunt, P.H. Moran, and Charlie Foss
filed articles of incorporation. This group of
men became the first managers of the new
Lakeview Cemetery. Later men like H.C. Culver,
Robert Coons, Charles Wilson, Andrew
Christianson, and Frank Culver assumed the
responsibility to see that Sandpoint's place of
burial was maintained to honor those who had
gone before.
During this Centennial Year of our town it seems
fitting for each of us to have an opportunity to
remember and honor all those pioneers that gave
so much to the place in which they lived.
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