A visionary overcoming challenges

Duane Hagadone was a visionary who transformed reluctant Coeur d’Alene.

On May 4, 1986, he unveiled his magnum opus: The Coeur d'Alene: A Resort on the Lake.

But it wasn’t his final great work.

Duane already was planning his next creation 40 years ago as he and wife Lola greeted some 25,000 people who stood in the rain for hours to see the overhauled Resort.

He was dreaming about a waterfront empire that would woo the world to North Idaho.

He wanted to attract the U.S. Open golf tournament.

“If we don’t shoot for it, we don’t have a chance,” Duane told 740 business, government and education leaders at the Inland Northwest Economic Summit in Spokane on April 14, 1986.

He elicited the strongest response among the 11 speakers, according to The Press.

Sandy Emerson, then Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce manager, was there.

“(Duane) certainly put his money where his mouth was,” Sandy told Huckleberries.

In 1983, Sandy was evicted after Duane and partner Jerry Jaeger bought Bob Templin's Western Frontiers hospitality company, including the North Shore Resort. At the time, Sandy operated the chamber from a small log building on North Shore property.

“I was replaced by geraniums,” Sandy quipped.

In the 1980s, downtown Coeur d’Alene was in the doldrums. Half the store fronts were empty. Sandy and the chamber had no trouble finding a new office.

After the city waived its shoreline height restriction, the partners overhauled the North Shore into the $60 million, 18-story Coeur d'Alene Resort. In exchange for a height variance, they added public waterfront access by building the ¾-mile-long resort boardwalk.

Duane was criticized for the project’s expense.

“It’s the most frustrating thing to me,” he told the economic summit, adding: “We’ve got to get out of the negative attitude that exists in this area.” 

Then, he predicted boldly that tourism would be the fountainhead of future economic growth.

Duane didn’t land the U.S. Open. But five years after The Coeur d’Alene Resort opened, he built The Resort Golf Course on an old mill site on the east end of town and the Plaza Shops downtown.

He never stopped dreaming. As a result, he changed Coeur d’Alene forever.

Eager Beaver

Old-timers remember Frank Henderson as an Idaho representative, Kootenai County commissioner, Post Falls mayor and publisher of the Post Falls Tribune.

But few know that he served in the U.S. Army — for three days.

A football injury kept him from serving longer. As captain of his high school football team, Frank suffered a brutal leg injury. As a result, one of his legs was shorter than the other.

In 1940, after he graduated from high school, he tried to enlist but was rejected by every branch.

“I really wanted to get into the military,” Frank, then 59 and serving as mayor, told The Press in April 1981. “Don’t ask me why. But that’s what I wanted to do.”

A co-worker advised him to join the Illinois National Guard. If the unit is called up to active duty, he told Frank, he would be admitted automatically.

Frank signed up.

On March 5, 1941, the Illinois National Guard was activated. Three days later, however, Frank was examined by medics and given an honorable discharge.

He received $2.50 for his service.

Later, his old outfit suffered 78% casualties at the pivotal Battle of Guadalcanal.

Extra! Extra!

Raise your hand if you were one of the 300 locals selected by casting director Tammy Smith to be an extra in the 1997 film “Dante’s Peak.”

And you can put your other hand up if you were an “under five” — an extra who spoke five words or less.

Thanks to reporter John Firehammer, readers of The Press learned several things about Hollywood extras. They work long hours. They get paid poorly. And, if they are hired for a movie filmed outside Hollywood, they might have fun.

“Dante’s Peak” is a $70 million action movie, filmed in Wallace, about a geologist (Pierce Brosnan) who investigates an active volcano near a small Northwest town.

It received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 34%.

Casting for extras began May 5, 1996. Scale for non-speaking parts was $40 for an eight-hour shift and $75 for a 12-hour day. On the plus side, the meals were catered.

Casting director Smith preferred working on location to shoots in Hollywood.

"There you have people who do extra parts for a living,” she said. “It’s cutthroat. In a place like this, people do it for fun, or for the experience if they are trying to get into acting.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: It slowly comes / and slowly goes / four hundred thousand / moving toes — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“The Sound of Bloomsday”).

• Half and Half: In spring 1991, after nearly a month of play, head golf pro Mike DeLong measured the success rate as evenly split. Half the golfers at the new Coeur d’Alene Resort course hit the famous floating green (Hole No. 14). Half ended in water or sand. Said Mike: “What’s really fun is sitting on the deck and watching what happens.”

• Ginormous: On April 30, 1966, The Press printed its biggest publication ever (to that point) — the 1966 North Idaho on the Move progress edition. It contained 104 pages, weighed 2 pounds and took two months to produce. The edition touted progress in North Idaho (aka the “Emerald Empire”). The paper published 10,000 copies.

• Lost Boy: Someone had to be the first child lost at the grand opening of the Montgomery Ward store and the Coeur d’Alene Mall on April 27, 1966. And Greg Mills of Coeur d’Alene did the honors. The boy vanished among the throng at the new store on Appleway. But not to worry. He and grandma K. Mills were soon reunited.

Parting Shot

Paid parking arrived at public lots downtown May 1, 1991.

Motorists could still park for free for two hours in the lots at Third and Fourth streets, Independence Point and near the North Idaho Museum. But then they would be charged $1 for the third hour and 50 cents per hour for anything more up to $10 for the day.

Under a management agreement with AMPCO Parking of Spokane, the city was guaranteed a cut of about $40,000 in parking revenue.

The City Council promised to review the program after the first season and decide whether to continue it. But it’s hard to cut off a revenue stream once it begins running.

Today, parking in downtown lots costs $1 to $3 per hour. But free street parking (for two hours) exists and is available throughout the downtown — until tourists crowd in.

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].

    After assuming control of the Western Frontier hospitality company and the North Shore Resort in June 1983, partners Jerry Jaeger, left, and Duane Hagadone share a dream that transforms Coeur d’Alene.
  

    On May 4, 1986, thousands of curious people wait in the rain for hours to view the overhauled North Shore Resort.
  

    Post Falls Mayor Frank Henderson poses in 1981 with his printing press.
  

    Tammy Smith, extras casting director, right, and her assistant, Leah Pracher, hire hundreds of locals for the 1997 movie “Dante’s Peak.”
  

    Ray Whitney, a former San Jose Sharks hockey player, hits to the floating green during the 2018 Showcase event at The Resort Golf Course.
  

    Key staffers of the Coeur d’Alene Press hold the 1966 progress edition. Pictured are, front, circulation manager Dale Seamons, and, from left behind him, advertising manager Charles Shartzer, Editor Frances Cope and composing room foreman John Montrieul.
  

    Greg Mills reunites with his grandmother, Mrs. K. Wills, after getting lost during the 1966 grand opening of the Montgomery Ward store.
  

    Craig Bagdon, manager for AMPCO Parking, tests a gate for the new toll booths in the parking lots at Third and Fourth streets in 1991.