Self preservation

Chain saws and bulldozers are about to destroy Kootenai Lodge National Historic site at the confluence of Swan Lake, Swan River and Johnson Creek.

Paul Milhous, a developer from Boca Raton, Fla., has won initial approvals from the Lake County Planning Department and Planning Board to eradicate old-growth timber and destroy historic buildings to make way for homes priced upwards of a million dollars each.

If approved, the Milhous plan will force Kootenai Lodge to lose it's listing on the National Register of Historic Places. If this happens, Kootenai Lodge will disappear, becoming only a few words on a page in some book, perhaps accompanied by a photo or two. Surely we wish to be remembered as the generation who preserved an historic site for the benefit of our children, grandchildren, and generations to come, don't we?

From the 1900s through the 1920s, Kootenai Lodge was a summer retreat by Anaconda Mining Company executives Con Kelly and Orvis Evans and their families. In 1921, Kelly and Evans hired Spokane architect Kirkland Cutter to design and build the luxurious 14,000-square-foot Kootenai Lodge and most of the 22 other structures, in the Adirondack "Camp" style.

Teddy Roosevelt, Will Rogers, John D. Rockefeller and Charles Lindbergh were a few of the notables who visited Kootenai Lodge. Western artist Charles M. Russell was a frequent visitor, as evidenced by cement etchings he left in the courtyard of the main building and by his famous painting, "Kootenai Camp,"

Kootenai Lodge is a unique combination of Montana land and buildings which together create an irreplaceable national treasure. It is also a profoundly spiritual place. Wandering across the property along the banks of Johnson Creek, beneath ancient trees whose roots rise up to form natural pools of water, one hears, in the whispers of water and wind, the reverent voices of other visitors who long ago walked this way, too.

No doubt this land will survive long after the bulldozers and buildings, their operators and occupants, have dissipated into the dust of time. But, isn't it sad that centuries will pass before others will walk upon this hushed land and sense it's antiquity? Sadder still is knowing these historic, buildings, unique symbols of the Machine Age, will be lost, forever.

Help save Kootenai Lodge from destruction. Contact Lake County Commissioners Mike Hutchin, Paddy Tresler, and Chuck Whitson at commissioners@lakecounty-mt.org or phone 406-883-7204. Preserve the past for the future of our children, grandchildren and generations yet to come.

C. Emery Walston,

Bigfork