Coeur d'Alene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the most populous city in North Idaho with a population of 54,628 at the 2020 census, and now an estimated 58,555 as of 2026. Coeur d'Alene is currently growing at a rate of 1.04% annually and its population has increased by 6.55% since the most recent census, while the Coeur d'Alene metropolitan statistical area has an estimated 188,000 people. Coeur d'Alene is located about east of Spokane, Washington, with which it forms the bi-state Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area. The city is situated on the north shore of the long Lake Coeur d'Alene and to the west of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains. Locally, Coeur d'Alene is known as the "Lake City", or simply called by its initials, "CDA" or "CD'A".
The city is named after the Coeur d'Alene people, a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans who live along the rivers and lakes of the region, in a territory of from eastern Washington to Montana. Historically, the native peoples were hunter-gatherers who located their villages and camps near food gathering or processing sites and followed the seasonal cycles, practicing subsistence hunting, fishing, and foraging.
The city began as a fort town; General William Tecumseh Sherman sited what became known as Fort Sherman on the north shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene in 1878. Peopling of the town came when miners and prospectors came to the region after gold and silver deposits were found in what would become the Silver Valley and after the Northern Pacific Railroad reached the town in 1883. In the 1890s, two significant miners' uprisings over wages took place in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District leading to the declaration of martial law, with the latter providing a motive for the assassination of a former Idaho governor and subsequently a nationally publicized trial. The late 19th century discovery of highly prized white pine in the forests of northern Idaho resulted in a timber boom that peaked in the late 1920s and was accompanied by the rapid population growth which led to the incorporation of the city on September 4, 1906. After the Great Depression, tourism started to become a major source of development in the area. By the 1980s, tourism became the major driver in the local economy, and, after decades of heavy reliance on logging, the city featured a more balanced economy with manufacturing, retail, and service sectors.
Coeur d'Alene has grown significantly since the 1990s, in part because of a substantial increase in tourism, encouraged by resorts and recreational activities in the area and outmigration predominantly from other western states. The Coeur d'Alene Resort and its world-record 3,300-foot floating boardwalk and a natural area called Tubbs Hill take up a prominent portion of the city's downtown. Popular parks such as City Park and Beach and McEuen Park are also fixtures of the downtown waterfront. The city has become somewhat of a destination for golfers; there are five courses in the city, including the Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course and its unique 14th hole floating green. The Coeur d'Alene Casino and its Circling Raven Golf Club is located approximately south and the largest theme park in the Northwestern United States, Silverwood Theme Park, is located approximately north. There are also several ski resorts and other recreation areas nearby. The city is home to the Museum of North Idaho and North Idaho College, and it has become known for having one of the largest holiday light shows in the United States and hosting a popular Ironman Triathlon event. Coeur d'Alene is located on the route of Interstate 90 and is served by the Coeur d'Alene Airport as well as the Brooks Seaplane Base by air. In print media, local issues are covered by the Coeur d'Alene Press daily newspaper.
History
The city was named for the Coeur d'Alene Indians, a Salish people who lived along the rivers and lakes of the region, in a territory of extending from eastern Washington to Montana; these tribes primarily located their villages and camps near food gathering or processing sites.Dahlgren et al. (2009), p. 2 The camps featured conical lodges constructed from poles and mats sewn from tule or animal hides. The Coeur d'Alene people were hunter-gatherers who practiced subsistence hunting of wild game and fishing during the salmon runs, and then foraging for berries and other edibles along the shores of the region's numerous lakes and rivers. The introduction of the horse around 1760 made hunting and transportation more efficient.
1800s The area was extensively explored by fur trader David Thompson of the North West Company starting in 1807, and in 1809 he established the Kullyspell House trading post on Lake Pend Oreille.Singletary (2019), p. VII Thompson, who usually used native names to describe the places and people he came across, ascribed the name of "Pointed Hearts" to one of the tribes he traded with and "Pointed Heart Lake" to the lake they lived near. This term translates the French , literally meaning "heart of an awl", a name apparently bestowed on the tribe by French-speaking Iroquois who viewed them as shrewd traders.
The Oregon boundary dispute (or Oregon question) arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. The British had trading ties extending from Canada and had started settlements at Fort Vancouver and at Fort Astoria on the Pacific coast near the mouth of the Columbia River. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended the disputed joint occupation of the area in present-day Idaho when Britain ceded all rights to land south of the 49th parallel to the United States.Walker (1999), p. 60
In another territorial dispute, the U.S. government through Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens began to negotiate treaties that would begin to move the various tribes of the region onto reservation lands to make way for American settlement.Dahlgren et al. (2009), p. 3 This angered the Coeur d'Alene, as several treaty re-negotiations continually reduced their tribal lands. The tribe also perceived the planned construction a military wagon road as a precursor to a land-grab by the United States.Frey (2001), pp. 79–81 These talks and increasing settler encroachment sparked armed hostilities between the native Coeur d'Alene, Spokane and Palouse and the settler populations that resulted in an initial victory for the tribes at the Battle of Steptoe Butte but were followed up with George Wright's campaign that subdued the natives. The Coeur d'Alene Reservation is located in Benewah and Kootenai counties south of Coeur d'Alene in communities focused around Worley and Plummer.Dahlgren et al. (2009), p. 17 In 1859, with U.S. funding in place, Governor Stevens appointed John Mullan to survey the interior of the Northwestern United States for possible railroad routes and oversee the construction of the Mullan Road that bears his name, from Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River through the Rocky Mountains to Fort Benton on the Missouri River.
With the discovery of gold in the western United States and the establishment of Idaho Territory in 1863, there was an increase in settlers to the region.Singletary (2019), p. 1 When General William Tecumseh Sherman was commander of the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars and following the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn, he erected several forts in the west. During a tour of the Inland Northwest on his way to Fort Walla Walla on the Mullan Road, he was impressed by the scenery of the area and ordered a fort constructed on the lake in 1877 and gave it the name Fort Coeur d'Alene. The fort which gave the city its name was established in 1878 and the name of the fort was later changed to Fort Sherman to honor the general.
Miners and prospectors came to the region after gold and silver deposits were found in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains and the Northern Pacific Railroad came to the village in 1883.Singletary (2019), p. 11 The village became the location where ore from the mining district was ferried and transferred to the rail lines from steamboats that traveled down from the Coeur d'Alene River from the Cataldo Mission.Singletary (2019), p. 13 The township was officially incorporated by petition on August 22, 1887.Singletary (2019), p. 14
In the 1890s, two significant miners' uprisings took place in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District, where the workers struggled with high risk and low pay. In 1892, the union's discovery of a labor spy in their midst, in the person of Charlie Siringo, a sometime cowboy and Pinkerton agent, resulted in a labor strike that developed into a shooting war between miners and the company in Burke Canyon. When the mine owners planned to reduce wages of some workers to offset increased operating costs, the miners declared a strike against the reduction of wages and the increase in work hours and demanded a "living wage"Langdon (1908), p. 12 be paid to every man working underground – the common laborer as well as the skilled in a stand for industrial unionism. To restore order to the state of rebellion in Shoshone County, Governor N. B. Willey declared martial law and sent federal troops to arrest and detain the union miners, but not before dozens of casualties including six deaths and the destruction of the Frisco Mill. Six hundred miners were put into "bullpens" without any hearings or formal charges.Langdon (1908), p. 13
Labor disputes between some company mines and the union continued into the next decade. A similar labor confrontation in 1899 took place after the union was launching an organizing drive of the few mines not yet fully unionized,Lukas (1997), p. 111 where miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners.Langdon (1908), p. 16 With no success in the effort, on April 29, 250 union members seized a train in Burke at gunpoint, according to the engineer, Levi "Al" Hutton.Schwantes (1996), p. 320 At each stop through Burke Canyon, more miners climbed aboard what was dubbed the "Dynamite Express" toward the site of the $250,000 Bunker Hill mine near Wardner; the miners then carried 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) of dynamite into the mill and completely destroyed it.Carlson (1983), pp. 53–54 The crowd also burned down the company office, the boarding house, and the home of the mine manager. Like in the 1892 strike, martial law was declared by Governor Frank Steunenberg and wholesale arrests and mass incarcerations were done to bring back order. Harry Orchard, who owned a share of the Hercules Mine at one point and played a significant role in the Colorado Labor Wars, returned to Idaho to assassinate former governor Steunenberg in 1905.Carlson (1983), pp. 91–92, p. 119 The bombing assassination led to a nationally publicized trial in Boise.
After a U.S. Geological Survey done in the 1890s, it became widely known that there were large quantities of white pine, a highly prized softwood, in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains.Singletary (2019), p. 27 The lumber industry from the eastern US began to inventory the timberlands, acquire land, and invest in facilities across much of northern Idaho. This was welcome relief to the town of Coeur d'Alene, which had been reeling from the Panic of 1893, a flood in 1894, and the closure of Fort Sherman.
1900s