It’s Historic! The Garden District is Listed in the National Register of Historic Places

The Coeur d’Alene Historic Preservation Commission was recently informed by the U.S. Park Service that the City’s downtown Garden District neighborhood has been officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Letters from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office informing residents of the listing were mailed out Wednesday to all registered property owners in the Garden District. 

The Garden District is one of Coeur d’Alene’s oldest neighborhoods, featuring houses built primarily from 1890 to 1940. Found within its borders are the homes of many of the people who built Coeur d’Alene – the doctors, bankers, lawyers, architects, builders and early mayors — as well as more modest homes originally occupied by everyday citizens and millworkers.

The neighborhood features an array or prewar housing styles, from classic bungalows to elegant Queen Annes; from tudor revivals to striking art deco designs.

The newly designated historic district contains over 500 primary buildings and nearly 400 outbuildings, and stretches roughly from Lakeside Avenue to Montana Avenue, and 5^th Street to 11^th Street.

The effort to recognize the neighborhood’s historic significance began when a group of Garden District neighbors approached historian Robert Singletary, then the Chair of the Kootenai County Historic Preservation Commission, with the idea of placing their neighborhood on the National Register. That commission subsequently applied for and received a grant from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office to conduct a reconnaissance survey of the district.

On completion of that survey, the project was handed over to the newly formed Coeur d’Alene Historic Preservation Commission, which applied for another State grant to officially nominate the Garden District to the National Register of Historic Places.  

A special “Garden District Weekend” has been planned to commemorate the neighborhood’s new status. The Museum of North Idaho will conduct a tour of the Garden District on Saturday, May 31. The following day, Sunday, June 1, the Historic Preservation Commission and the Garden District Board of Directors will host an event in Phippeny Park to officially celebrate the listing of the neighborhood in the National Register of Historic Places. For more information, please contact Historic Preservation Commission Chair Walter Burns at (415) 259-7000. ###