Coeur d'Alene and Fort Grounds History:
The beginnings of Coeur d'Alene can be traced to the establishment of Fort Sherman in 1878 on the property now known as the Fort Grounds neighborhood. This was one of a string of forts built to protect settlers in response to the 1876 Custer massacre. The garrison eventually left to fight in the Spanish American war and the fort was disbanded. The property was auctioned off and subdivided to become one of the early neighborhoods. The Doctors' Inn is approximately 100 years old, having been constructed soon thereafter. The crooked nature of Military Drive is owing to the fact that the original street weaved through a great number of huge ponderosa pines that have either fallen down (some over houses) or were taken down to prevent same. The local Indians were sharp traders so they were referred to by the original French traders as having the 'heart of an awl' or pointed hearts, hence the curious name of the town. The Resort sits where steamboats once met the railroad.
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Activities:
The Fort Grounds location guarantees ease of walking access to the beach, park (with its unique wooden playground modeled on a Fort Sherman theme and also its bandshell), downtown shops, restaurants, and sidewalk cafes, museums, public library, community college (performing arts, art on the green, etc), The Coeur d'Alene Resort (with its several lounges, boardwalk, Fine Dining and family fare), the world famous Hudson's Hamburgers (written up in the Boston Globe, Gourmet Magazine, the front page of USA Today, Sunset Magazine, and named by the food editor of the Wall Street Journal as the best $2.00 hamburger in America), bike rental shops, seaplane rides, dinner cruises, sightseeing cruises, jet ski rental, windsurfing, parasailing, and I think I'll come up for air after the longest sentence you've ever read. A water park is only 3 miles and shopping malls are 20 minutes or less in 2 directions. Interstate 90 is 2 miles. The CDA Visitors Bureau can fill in what I have omitted.
Golf and Ski:
The Coeur d'Alene Resort is home to the famous floating golf green and there is opportunity to play if you enquire early. The Coeur d'Alene Public Golf Course is dramatically cut out of pine forest and is amazingly well maintained, with a wonderful driving range and short game practice area. Near the Spokane airport, Indian Canyon is a well-maintained municipal course with uniquely dramatic terrain and scenery. For many years it regularly made the list of top publinx courses in the USA and is worth the drive.
For skiers, Silver Mountain is some 25 miles east up I-90 to the base of the world's longest gondola. North some 50 miles along highway 95 is Schweitzer Basin, featuring spectacular views of the most impressive body of water you have never heard of--Lake Pend Oreille. The CDA Visitors Bureau can help you find transportation. The CDA Resort also features a heart-warming holiday lighting display and a boat ride to a huge lighted tree and Santa's village across the lake.
Other Activities:
Dinner and sight-seeing cruises, sidewalk cafes, Floating Boardwalk
