This church was another beautiful and unique building, as well as a piece of Spokane history that I ran across. I was not able to go in so I was only able to view the outside and get pictures. I hope another time that I will be able to go inside as it looks very beautiful from pictures I have seen on the internet.
In August of 1881, Jesuit Father Joseph Cataldo converted a carpenter’s shop into the Church of St. Joseph, the first Catholic church in Spokane. Only five people attended the first Mass in that wooden shed which measured just fifteen by twenty-two feet.
Five years later, a large brick church dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes replaced the original structure, and a school opened under the direction of the Sisters of the Holy Names. The cornerstone for the present church was laid in 1903. In 1906, the new school was completed. In 1913, Our Lady of Lourdes became the Cathedral for the newly created Diocese of Spokane.
The cathedral is designed in an Italian Romanesque Revival style. The exterior of the structure is faced with red brick accented with granite. The facade is framed by two square towers that reach a height of 164 ft. The interior was renovated in 1971 and most recently in 2019 when the sanctuary was covered in marble and a new marble altar and pews were installed. The old high altar, topped by a Calvary scene, remains in the apse. The bishop’s cathedra (chair) is a combination of the original 1913 throne of Bishop Schinner, the marble cathedra from the 1930s, and new addition in 2018. The cathedral has one organ in the loft W.W. Kimball Pipe Organ. The stunning stained glass windows are from Bavaria.
My friend Mindy and I took a drive today (March 6, 2022) to Cataldo Mission, Idaho which is about a 40-minute drive from where we live in Post Falls, Idaho.
When we first arrived we went to the visitor center which is located at the bottom of the hill from the mission. We paid our $7.00 park entrance fee which gave us access to the Mission and the Parish House which is right next to it. We wandered around in the little gift shop and we both ended up only purchasing a few postcards. I like to buy postcards of places I go because the pictures are always just perfect in case mine turn out awful for some reason. We then sat through an 18-minute film that told the story of the Sacred Heart/Cataldo Mission which was very interesting. I really love that places like this have been restored by those who came before us so that we might still be able to enjoy them today.
In the early nineteenth century, the Coeur d’Alene Indians began to hear rumors of men in black robes who possessed special powers. Curiosity about these alleged powers inspired the tribe to invite the “black robes” to live amongst them. Jesuit missionaries arrived in the St. Joe River area in the early 1840s and built the St. Joe Mission in 1842. Due to seasonal flooding, the mission was abandoned and relocated near the Coeur d’Alene River and modern-day Cataldo, Idaho.
Father Antonio Ravalli modeled the mission after the cathedrals of his Italian homeland. Construction began in 1850 and three hundred Coeur d’Alene Indians and two missionaries built the ninety-foot-long, forty-foot-high, and forty-foot-wide building. The construction required creativity due to minimal building supplies. No nails were used, the chandeliers were made from old tin cans, and the walls were built by weaving grass and straw over a framework then solidifying it with river mud, a method known as waddle and daub. The blue coloring of the ceiling wood is not paint but a stain created by pressing local huckleberries into the wood.
When completed in 1853, the Mission of the Sacred Heart became an important stop for westward settlers, miners, traders, and religious seekers. The original goal of the mission was to serve as a reduction community, bringing Indians from nearby communities to one gathering place to focus on religion and the adoption of Jesuit agricultural practices. It also provided supplies and hospitality in this remote part of the West. By the 1870s, the mission and surrounding farm had grown to between eighty and one hundred acres and made full use of the Coeur d’Alene valley for grazing and cultivation.
In 1961 the Mission of the Sacred Heart was designated a National Historic Landmark, and in 1966 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The mission is the oldest building in the state of Idaho and is now a part of Coeur d’Alene’s Old Mission State Park. The park includes the Mission and the restored Parish house (which was burnt down in 1887), along with two cemeteries, nature trails, and a visitor center.
After the Parish house burnt down, it was rebuilt. It is a two-story building, the upstairs used for sleeping quarters, and the downstairs for daily activities. It contains a smaller chapel, mostly used for daily Mass.
In 1976, a major restoration of the church was chosen as Idaho State’s Bicentennial Project to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial.
A misnomer locally is to refer to the whole mission as the “Cataldo” Mission. This term cropped up in the area due to the fame of Father Giuseppe Cataldo, a Sicilian priest born in the village of Terrasini, who spent most of his life in the frontier community and founded Gonzaga University. The nearest town to the mission is Cataldo, Idaho.
July 5th I took my motorhome into the RV repair shop in Idaho Falls as scheduled. I was able to park on the side of the repair shop and stay living it while the repairs were being done. I was there to get some brake work done……after an inspection by the mechanics, I needed new brakes, pads, and calipers which was to only take a few days. So we mostly hung around the motorhome, walked to the corner where there was a deli, and had lunch. On the second day ( July 6th ) another woman came into the shop with her motorhome that was also in need of repairs. She parked her motorhome next to mine and was able to stay in it as well. Over the next couple of days as we were waiting on parts and repairs to get done we had become acquainted and got to know each other. Her name was Gail, she was about 5 years older than me and was traveling by herself with her cat. Gail had a convertible Volkswagen that was on a trailer that she pulled behind her motorhome. I did not have a car, so with my motorhome being my only mode of transportation, we decided to take a little road trip together in her convertible to Alpine, Wyoming which was about an hour and a half drive. What fun it was to be zipping along the highway with the top down and the wind blowing in our hair.
We stopped off in a tiny town called Swan Valley that has a population of about 200 people. What caught our eye as we were driving through was a Rainey Creek County Store/World Famous Square Ice Cream. Inside was an ice cream bar with 20 different flavors that are served square-shaped. It is a strange way to serve ice cream, but it is incredibly unique. A special scoop is used to serve the ice cream which gives it the one-of-a-kind square shape. The ice cream comes from a company called “Farr’s” from Idaho Falls and is “yummy”
Alpine, Wyoming is a small town with a population of about 828 people that sits against the mountainside at the convergence of three rivers, the Greys, the Salt, and the Snake River. All three of these rivers merge and flow into the Palisades Reservoir. Alpine is also the gateway to Jackson Hole, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone.
Along the way we came upon some beautiful water scenery, so we stopped to check it out. This was just such a beautiful view from up on the bluff and a really pretty little waterfall that was fed by the creek.
On our way back to Idaho Falls we stopped so the kids could swim in the Palisades Reservoir just outside Alpine, Wyoming on the Idaho/Wyoming border. The water was warm, with beautiful scenery, and even an amazing hawk sitting on a tree limb near the water.
Black Foot, Idaho
The next day July 8th I borrowed my friend, Joann’s car again. We made the short half-hour trip to Black Foot, Idaho………Home of the “Idaho Potato Museum,” what an amazing little museum this was with everything you ever wanted to know about potatoes.
The museum shares the history of the revolution of the potato industry, from the original potato planted in Idaho, to the largest potato crisp made by Pringle’s Company in Jackson, TN. The museum also takes you through the growing and harvesting process, nutrition, trivia, and educational potato facts.
Some Potato History
The Russet potato…….a famous Idaho potato is known for being large in size, white, mealy & delicious. It was developed by Luther Burbank, beginning in 1872 when he planted twenty-three seeds from an Early Rose parent plant. All produced tubers, but one was superior in yield and size. Originally smooth-skinned, the familiar Russet potato is actually a mutant of the Burbank. It is more resistant to blight than the original.
Joe Marshall became known as “Idaho Potato King” because of his untiring efforts in improving the industry. He first came to Idaho in 1902. Over the years he was an overseer of all aspects of potato growing, harvesting, storage, marketing, and shipping. He was always ready to pass on his knowledge to other growers, and his reputation as a potato expert became widespread.
Men such as Marshall are given credit for establishing the principle that quality was an important factor in marketing Idaho potatoes. Marshall took great pride in his crop and insisted it be handled carefully and he put only merchandise of which he was proud in bags bearing his brand.
Other shippers soon followed suit when they realized that the introduction of the Russet Burbank had given the state of Idaho a unique product to sell, and quality began to be the watchword of Idaho potato shippers.
Another man, John (Jack) R. Simplot became the largest fresh shipper of potatoes in the state, the largest grower of Idaho potatoes, and the largest processor. He began building his potato empire in the 1930s as a fresh shipper. He aggressively sought new customers and bought out competitors. In 1940 he was the largest single shipper of Idaho potatoes. He had thirty-two packing warehouses from American Falls to Jamison, Oregon, and in 1940 shipped 10,000 cars of Idaho potatoes to receivers all over the United States.
Simplot started a system with growers from whom he bought potatoes. He would buy certified seed and encouraged each one of his growers to purchase ten or more bags from him on credit. They were instructed to plant these ten bags of potatoes late in the season which caused the tubers to be small in size and relatively immature at harvest time. This lot of potatoes then, which had been grown from the certified seed and multiplied by one year’s growth, served as the seed for the next year’s crop. The practice, which Simplot developed, proved to be so superior to using “year out” seed that it became almost a universal practice in the potato-growing areas of Idaho.
Simplot also discovered the value of chemical fertilizers one year when he purchased a carload of fertilizer to try as an experiment. A portion of the field was planted with the plant food as far as it went. When it ran out the rest of the field was planted without the fertilizer. At harvest time the portion of the field where the fertilizer had been applied had a beautiful crop of potatoes. They were large, of good quality, and yielded a heavy crop. Where the fertilizer supplied had run out “was where we ran out of potatoes” according to Simplot.
The fertilizer industry was in its infancy and supplies of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer were difficult to obtain. This led Simplot to build his own fertilizer production plants which had become a large and lucrative division of his enterprises. Simplot also developed a system of dehydrated and frozen potato products. He has plants in many locations and markets all over the world.
The Guinness Book of World Records qualifies this as the world’s largest potato “crisp.”
The invention of the Spudnik
Potato Facts
Potato Heads
Mr. Potato Head was invented and developed by George Lerner in 1949 and was first manufactured and distributed by Hasbro in 1952. It was the first toy advertised on television and has remained in production ever since. Originally, Mr. Potato Head was offered as separate plastic parts with pushpins to be attached to a real potato or other vegetables, but due to complaints regarding rotting vegetables and new government safety regulations, Hasbro began including a plastic potato body with the toy set in 1964.
Potato Sack Clothing
When the Great Depression hit America, millions of people were forced to rely on their wits and creativity to survive. With everything being in short supply, making do was the only option and clothes were an example. Clothing could be made from things lying around the house. Almost 100 years prior to the Great Depression there was a change in the way goods were transported. Potatoes, flour, and animal feed had previously traveled the world in barrels, now those sturdy wooden containers were replaced with fabric sacks. Eventually, the potato sack had a use for more than just shipping potatoes as it became a necessity for clothing attire.
Lots of potato mashers!
I suppose the first potato masher was a rock or smooth stone, followed by a hand-shaped masher made of wood. With the machine age, the wood masher evolved into a hand or machine-turned wooden mallet. In the mid to late 1800s, two masher styles we see today emerged. The most popular has an S wound wire that is flat at the bottom, or sometimes a round or square wire grid that is flat at the bottom. This is probably the potato masher our grandmothers had. Because of the room between these S winds, there was never the worry of over-mashing the potatoes.
Outside of the museum, you will find many different eras of potato equipment……..potato harvesters, potato planters, potato cultivators, plows, etc. Lots of fun and interesting potato history, so if you are ever in the area be sure and make this one of your stops.
We arrived in Idaho Falls, Idaho on July 2nd as I had an appointment to drop my motorhome off on July 5th to have some work done as well as visit and spend time with friends who live here. I grew up and went to high school with Joann. She lives here in Idaho Falls with her husband, Scott. Another friend who lives here is a young man, Brady, who I know through my youngest son when they became friends at the age of 12 and are now 25 years old. We had taken a trip to the dunes and met this young man, his uncle, and friends who were also camping and dune riding. The boys hit it off, became friends, and have kept in touch all these years.
4th of July we spent with Joann, Scott and their extended families. We attended the Idaho Falls 4th of July Parade which was really awesome, and afterward, we were went to Scott’s sister’s house where we visited, had a BBQ and my grandkids were introduced to “Corn Snakes.” I do not care for snakes, I will look at a distance but will not hold or be to close. Corn Snakes are generally docile and make a good snake pet, very colorful and the kids were very intrigued with them. That evening we went to a location near the river to watch the fireworks. It was a really great 4th of July.
On July 3rd, Joann let me use her car so the grandkids and I could go and spend the day at Lava Hot Springs, which was about an hour and a half drive from Idaho Falls. Lava Hot Springs is located in the Portneuf Mountain range in Southeastern Idaho and is one of America’s most unique resort towns. It is a charming town mixed with hot spring pools, river tubing, and an Olympic size swimming pool with diving platforms up to 10 meters high and twisting water slides. The kids and I spent the majority of our time in the pool and the kids did a couple of the water slides and just had a blast. Since it was the middle of summer and a warm July day we did not indulge in the hot springs because it was just too warm, but I would love to come back when the weather is a bit cooler and soak in these amazing pools that are covered with canopies to block the sun and the rain during the winter months.
After swimming in the pool for most of the day we decided to wander around town, have some ice cream and check out the raft tubing. The Portneuf River flows through the town of Lava Hot Springs and raft tubing is hopping with people walking or riding in the back of pickup trucks through town with their tubes, and trailers hitched up behind trucks stacked sky-high with tubes that have been picked up and are being hauled back to the rental locations. There is one place in town where a bridge crosses over the river and it was a lot of fun to stand on that bridge and watch the rafters coming down the river.
Our travels after leaving Oregon took us to Idaho and our first destination we were heading to was Sun Valley/Ketchum, Idaho. I and my family had moved to Ketchum Idaho in 1983 for a job with ACI campgrounds. We were to be running the North Fork Store and Campground outside of Ketchum before heading up into the Sawtooth Mountains. At the time of our move from Washington state, my husband and I had two children, our 5-year-old daughter, and a 4-month-old son. Our home was attached to the back of the store with the kitchen and dining room area downstairs and the living room and bedrooms all upstairs. The grandchildren that were traveling with me on this trip were the children of my daughter, so this was a place where their mother had lived for a year. I may have to share this story on another blog as this blog is about my return visit and my grandchildren’s first visit. One of the unique things about this particular place was that it was famous for the filming in 1956 of the movie “Bus Stop” which Marilyn Monroe starred in. And just a few miles down the road was Steve McQueen’s Idaho home in which his sister-in-law was living at for a time. It has been so many years I have forgotten her name but we met her and became acquaintances during our time there and I was able to visit the home which had on display the motorcycle Steve McQueen rode in the movie “The Great Escape.”
Driving into Sunvalley it had changed so much in the 30 plus years since I had been back that I was wondering if I was in the right town. There is no distinction between Sunvalley and Ketchum, the area has grown so much that it just all blends into one now. As I drove out of town many things had changed there as well, more homes had been built, trees and bushes had grown. I tried looking for the small log cabin driveway of Steven McQueen’s home, but nothing looked familiar……..I read later when I searched the internet that it had been sold a few times, remodeled, and additional square footage added to the point that the original small log cabin home it once was, was gone and had become this huge home that was unrecognizable. As we drove up to the North Fork Store and Trailer Park my mind went back to many memories here. I was saddened by how run down it was and no longer in operation as a place of business. The gas pumps had been taken out at some point. I took a few pictures and shared some stories and memories with my grandchildren.
Here are a few pictures from we lived here in 1983-1984. The first picture is downtown Ketchum, a view of Bald Mountain and the North Fork Store.
Since it was late in the day I drove down the road a short distance to the North Fork Campground where we stayed for the night. The next morning I fixed us all some breakfast and we went on a little walk around the campground and to the river.
EBR-1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor 1) Atomic Museum
Our next stop was to visit the EBR-1 located 18 miles southeast of the town Arco, and 50 miles from Idaho Falls. Looking out over the flat landscape that is mostly sagebrush it is pretty to see why this place would be picked to be used for nuclear reactor experimentation and development. EBR-1 is a decommissioned research reactor and became a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1965. It was the world’s first breeder reactor and on December 20, 1951, it became one of the world’s first electricity-generating nuclear power plants when it produced enough electricity to light four 200-watt light bulbs. EBR-I was able to generate enough electricity to power it’s building, and continued to be used for experimental purposes until it was decommissioned in 1964. EBR-1 was not only the world’s first breeder reactor, it was also the first to use plutonium fuel to generate electricity.
We took a self-guided tour which is “Free” and found EBR-1 to be an interesting and educational visit that we really enjoyed. When you first enter the building there is an area where you can sit, like a waiting room. The decor is definitely straight out of the ’50s.
Uranium was the first nuclear fuel that is mined from the earth. Less than 1% of naturally-occurring uranium ore can be used as fuel. Well after World War II, uranium was thought to be a rare element. There did not seem to be enough for both military and civilian needs, and certainly, not for all the reactors, the U.S. government planned to build. The military controlled the uranium supply and planned to use it for weapons. A man named Enrico Fermi developed an idea for a reactor that would “breed” plutonium, another nuclear fuel while consuming uranium by creating more fuel than it used. EBR-1 was built to test Fermi’s concept.
When the fuel rods were removed from the reactor, some radioactive NaK remained on them. The rods were lowered into the basement through holes in the floor covered by the metal plates. the NaK was washed off with acetone and alcohol. When clean and dry, the rods were then stored in the rod farm in evenly spaced storage locations in concrete with individually numbered holes. The chalkboard was used to keep track of the inventory. Past the rod farm is the hot cell, this was used to visually inspect the used fuel rods. Each window consists of 34 layers of lead glass totally 39 inches thick, with mineral oil filling the space between each layer of glass to provide clarity. The walls are also 39 inches thick for radiation protection. The manipulators are some of the first-ever devised for handling radioactive materials. Mechanical “fingers” inside the hot cell duplicated the operator’s motions.
This was the control room where operators started, controlled, and shut down the reactor.
I and the grandkids stopped off at Craters of the Moon National Monument and stayed one night at the campground that is located in the park!
What a unique and interesting place this was………A seven-mile loop road leads you to all the trailheads and the kids had a lot of fun walking the many paved paths and exploring the crooks and crannies. Craters of the Moon is located between the small towns of Arco and Carey, Idaho. The landscape here was created by a handful of lava flows over time. The lava here didn’t erupt out of volcanoes, but rather oozed out of fissures in the earth and occasionally spewed out of vents. Sometimes a flow would partially cover a previous lava bed, other times it would create new ones. The result is 618 square miles of cinder cones, lava tubes, tree molds, lava rivers, spatter cones, and lava beds as far as you can see. Craters of the Moon represents one of the best-preserved flood basalt areas in the United States.
Inferno Cone View Point is a cinder cone that appears to be a volcanoe but is really just accumulations of volcanic cinders from nearby explosions. The hike up Inferno Cone is straightforward, covering 160 feet in elevation gain over the course of 2/10 mile. Hikers will crest an initial hump about halfway up, followed by a brief pause and then another steep incline. The time to reach the summit is only about 10-15 and offers excellent views of various volcanic features.
Inferno Cinder ConeMy grandchildren hiking back down
One of the coolest things to do anywhere there are lava flows is hike through lava tubes. This makes “Caves Trail” an exciting hike in Craters of the Moon National Monument. The 1.6-mile paved trail has four caves that were created by lava tubes that guided molten magma up to the surface, where it bubbled and formed this amazing landscape. When the lava flow stopped, deep tubes were left behind, reaching to the source of the magma. Over the millennia, many of the tubes sealed up and collapsed, but some still remain, extending hundreds of feet below the surface of the park.
Dew Drop CaveBeauty Cave
Pahoehoe (a native hawaiian word) lava tubes that covers about half the area of the Monument, is a billowy, ropy type of lava that is filled with caverns. Its shiny blue glassy crusts make some of the flows very beautiful in the sunlight. The ropy and wrinkled surfaces are due to the hardening from a thin crust or scum on the lava flow while the crust was being pushed forward by the flowing lava below. This motion caused the thin crust or scum to wrinkle and fold like molasses.
Next up was a spatter cone…….. these “miniature” volcanoes form during the final stages of a fissure type eruption. As gases escape and pressure is released, the lava becomes thick and pasty. When these sticky globs of lava plop to the surface, they pile up to form spatter cones.
As we drove along we saw “lava bombs” which are masses of molten rock formed when a vent ejected viscous fragments of lava during an eruption. The lava cooled into a solid mass before it reached the ground.
Lava flows that once destroyed everything in its path has now over time formed a spectacular landscape that protects the sagebrush, plant and animal life that has adapted to the harsh environment that exists in Craters of the Moon.
Over The Hill With Sherry 