27 July - Lunch with Bob and Phyllis; Road trip to Murray ID with John and Donna Schwandt

27 July
Earlier this week Bob and Phyllis's kids purchased them a Nixplay cloud-based photo frame they can enjoy in their apartment at the assisted living facility. We have one here in the RV that our kids gave us and we love it.   I worked on theirs late last night to create the account and configure it.  This morning we headed over to Coeur d'Alene ID with the new photo frame to get it installed in Bob and Phyllis's room.  Unfortunately it exhibited some problems and after about an hour on the phone with the Nixplay helpdesk, we came to the conclusion it is defective and needs replaced.  We are awaiting a call back from Nixplay on this for their way ahead.

After lunch we left the assisted living facility and drove to Doreen's cousin John and Donna Schwandt's house, just a few blocks away.  We dropped off Liberty there and we headed east and north from Coeur d'Alene ultimately to the small mining town of Murray ID.  On our journey there, we exited I-95 and headed north on Coeur d'Alene River Road.  We passed the small town of Enaville and stopped at the gas station to take a picture of good ol' Smokey the Bear!

Yogi Bear standing guard of the area!

Up the road we ran into a bar that brought memories from home.  The "Snake Pit" bar!!  The service club at our Air Guard base is named the "Snake Pit Lounge" after our former aircraft the F16 Viper.  Here's to our 132d Fighter Wing Airmen, past and present!

The Snake Pit Bar, since 1880!!

The Snake Pit!

As we continued up the road it was a beautiful drive through the country.  The road paralleled the Spokane River and there were many tubers, kayakers and rafters all along the way.  In many cases the scenes along this route are like stepping back in time.  We continued our drive north and then headed east to Murray ID.  

In 1882 Mr. A.J. Prichard discovered gold on Prichard Creek.  Word of this spread like wildfire and in just a few years over 10,000 people traveled to this area with hopes of striking it rich.  The center of this gold rush became Murray ID, "The Cradle City of the Coeur d'Alene Mining District". Prospectors searched the entire area and discovered one of the largest silver deposits in the world not far from here, producing over 1.2 billion ounces of silver, more than all of the other locations combined.

Signs to all the "Murray's" in the United States, Iowa included!

One of the inn patrons rolled in on this beautiful old Harley, unknown year.

Murray still exists and there are still hidden treasures here and plenty of evidence of the gold rush.  One sights along the drive leading into Murray is miles of "tailings", the rock piles left over from the gold dredging process.  The "pay" gravel is excavated by huge machines and washed.  the large rocks are removed and the heavy gold settles to the bottom of the machine and finally is "sluiced" and recovered.  Huge tailings piles remain.  

A picture of the huge tailing piles from years ago.

A picture of the tailings today

Huge tailings piles between the road and the river.

An aerial view from Google Maps clearly shows the tailings remaining from the gold mining process:

Once in Murray we stopped at the historic Sprag Pole Inn and Museum.  It has not changed much in many years.  

Yester-year.

Today!

The building was purchased by Walt Almquist in 1933 and he remodeled it into the Sprag Pole Inn.  The name is derived from the wooden supporting poles used to support the walls during hard winters.  It's more than an inn now!  It is the Sprag Pole Inn and Museum, and this museum is unlike any museum I have ever seen.  You really must check this place out if you are ever in this area!!  Supposedly it all started when a friend gave Walt an old whiskey jug to display behind the bar and then the collection of stuff "exploded".  As the collections grew, so did the space needs so they kept expanding east, building by building and connecting them with hallways.

The buildings behind these totem poles are all interconnected and part of the museum.

So we went inside the inn and walked through the bar area and down a short hallway.  WOW!  Collections of about everything and anything you can imagine, and signs prominently posted that nothing is for sale.  Here are quite a few pictures from inside the museum but they by no means capture the uniqueness of this place!!!

Ammunition, all calibers, all gauges.  Rim fire, center fire.

This is a wooden chain, with no breaks in the links.  This was carved from a solid piece of wood!  Amazing!

Most of the displays were behind fencing, which complicated taking good pictures. Donna, Doreen and John checking out the stuff! 

A complete blacksmith shop.  Looks like they walked away from it 100 years ago.

Cigarette and tobacco collection

Stones, gems, and various figurines

Donna and Doreen checking out the hip joints.

Michelle, yours probably looked like one of these!

Typewriters

Liquor bottles, beer bottles and signs

 Maggie Hall was an Irish woman who made her way to Murray with the gold rush.  As the story goes, in 1884 she saved the life of a stranded woman at Thompson Pass.  In Murray she "set up a business in town doing pleasure", using the name Molly Burdan.  The Irish brogue in her voice was translated by the locals as MollieB'Damn.  She worked hard in town and she gained "Florence Nightingale-like status" as she nursed many miners suffering from smallpox back to health.  She died at the age of 35 in 1888 from tuberculosis, and she is buried here in a local cemetery.  Her room and her property including her original headstone is captured here in the museum!

John, Donna and Doreen checking out Maggie Hall's room.

A better view of Maggie Hall's room.

An original wooden barber pole, circa 1900

 There is a huge mining display inside the museum and many artifacts.

A Murray ID town plat from 1894

Mining equipment recovered

A picture of Murray from back in the day.

A mining display showing drilling equipment

A huge dredge that created the tailings piles and recovered millions of dollars of gold near Murray.  It was dismantled in 1926 and was left stranded in the last pool.  There are no signs of it's remains today, unfortunately.  

Mining equipment

Murray firefighting equipment

 

A hose cart and other equipment

Logging equipment of all kinds.

A log sawed into lumber

Rocks, plates, decanters, you name it!!

Explanation on how the wooden chain is made.

A close-up of a section of the wooden chain

A beautiful 1909 calliope, which takes it's name from Calliope, the ancient Greek Goddess of Poetry.  This literally is an "organ on wheels", patented in 1855 by an American inventor. The original calliopes contained their own boiler, producing the steam needed to operate.  

 

One of the neatest pieces I found.  A very old Smith and Wesson advertisement with a real pistol and whiskey bottles.

I could have stayed there and looked around for a few more hours, but we needed to head out.  The inn  serves beer and other adult beverages but they are also famous for their huckleberry milkshakes.  Oh yeah, gotta have one of them.  We were disappointed to find out they were out of ice cream!

A couple blocks away was another inn called the Bedroom Goldmine Bar.  This place got it's name from the gold mine and maze of tunnels and shafts located under the structure, specifically under a room in the back which used to be a bedroom!

The Bedroom Goldmine Bar.  

Doreen walking towards the bedroom.  John standing over the opening in the floor which leads to the gold mine.

The sign points down to the mine opening

A hole in the floor of the bedroom covered by Plexiglas, which leads down into a mine shaft.

We stopped down the road and found another inn that had ice cream in stock, so John, Donna and Doreen all had cones and I had my huckleberry shake.  It was delicious.  We then drove the 60 miles back to John and Donna's house in Coeur d'Alene, picked up Liberty and drove the 51 miles back to the campground.  Was a long day but we had a blast!!  I consider this trip to Murray one of those little "nuggets" that we don't have on out radar but stumble on to and really enjoy!  Thanks John and Donna!!

Tomorrow (today since I am finishing this late), we will drive again to John and Donna's and take a boat ride down the Spokane River.