Summers at the Lake

PHOTO BY APRIL THOMAS WHITNEY

MCCALL’S ALLURE BEGAN 100+ YEARS AGO

BY APRIL THOMAS WHITNEY

The first non-Native people to brave unpredictable weather and rugged terrain in the West Central Mountains were gold prospectors, fur trappers, and fishermen. By the late 19th century, rumors swirled about a remote sparkling lake, packed with fish, lined by tall green grass, and framed in by towering pines and granite-peaked mountains.

Those early tales told by trappers and miners piqued the interest of a man named Thomas McCall, a recent arrival to the Boise Valley. Visions of a magnificent lake and rich agricultural land to the north inspired McCall to take a month-long wagon trip with his wife and children. It was May 1889 and Idaho’s winter was hanging on to the snowy, steep slopes and turning the dirt trail to deep mud. Imagine the pioneering family’s reward when they finally arrived at the shores of the pristine blue waters of Payette Lake.

A squatter who had homesteaded near the lakeshore eagerly traded his substantial cabin and 160 acres of land for McCall’s wagon, team, and harness. McCall then acquired a small sawmill and began transforming giant Ponderosa pines into a sizable homestead not far from where the modern-day Hotel McCall now sits. An early example of the entrepreneurial spirit that shaped the American West, McCall’s settlement soon included a hotel, school, post office, and saloon.

The McCall Family in the woods, circa 1901.

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection c/o Mr. & Mrs. Neal Boystun

For Tom McCall, however, becoming a hotelier was a necessity more than a deliberate business venture. In those days, very few souls braved the wilderness and winters at the north end of Long Valley, but as word spread about rich mining districts, unannounced guests arrived with such frequency that the McCalls found their cupboards bare and their spare beds full. As described in a turnof-the-century railroad publication called The Idaho Magazine, “At last, in pure self-defense, Mr. McCall was forced into the hotel business, and the mansion-like McCall House is the flowering of the evolution of the hotel business around Payette Lake.”

By 1900, the Idaho Statesman was already extolling the vacation virtues of the area. “PAYETTE LAKES, one of the most beautiful spots in Idaho, with magnificent scenery, trout fishing, and game of every description – an ideal outing place – now has a hotel…where all comers can be comfortable while enjoying a summer vacation filled with unalloyed pleasure. The lake, on the banks of which the Hotel McCall stands, is a lovely expanse of water, with its 10 miles of glistening surface. It affords opportunities for boating and fishing such as cannot be secured anywhere in Idaho.”

McCall’s settlement wasn’t the only one on the shores of Payette Lake. By 1902, the Boydstun Hotel in nearby Lardo offered commercial competition. Despite the simple, plain frame construction of the hotel, which some recall as “more suitable for a barn”, the Idaho Statesman noted, “One of the greatest accommodations of all…was the arrangement whereby people going to the lakes are met at Meadows by (wagon) teams from the lake hotel and taken through” to Lardo.

Payette Lakes Inn circa 1915.

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection.

By horse, wagon, or foot, the journey to McCall was long and arduous. In the early 1900s, the 100-plus miles through the Payette River Canyon took a week or more to travel by wagon. According to the Statesman, “The roads were awful, especially in the early spring – mud holes where the wagon wheels sank to the very hubs and even the horses often lost their footing and floundered helplessly in the deep mire.”

Wisely, most visitors from the Boise Valley chose the Oregon Short Line train to Weiser, and then caught the Idaho Northern Pacific Railway to New Meadows. From there, they paid $1.50 apiece for a four-hour stagecoach ride to Lardo and McCall. A skittish six-horse team pulled the coach up a trail a foot deep in dust, requiring passengers to get out and push several times – no easy task in bustles and long skirts.

In spite of, and maybe because of, the challenge, the many charms of Payette Lake beguiled visitors. While the affluent enjoyed hotels, many more were content to set up tents along the lakeshore. Just like today, swimming, boating, fishing, and sunbathing were followed by singing and telling tales around frying fish on evening campfires.

Lardo Bridge early 1900s - c/o Roy Shaw.

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection.

Enterprising locals started to embrace the opportunities offered by the growing influx of summer visitors. One early entrepreneur, a man known as “Jews Harp Jack” Wyatt, ferried visitors around the lake on a steam-powered boat called The Lyda. Starting in 1906, The Lyda served a tented camping area on the west side of Payette Lake known as Sylvan Beach Resort. Clients enjoyed a fine restaurant, a dozen wood-floored duck canvas tents, and rental boats.

The “resort” experience was rustic: no electricity or running water. Coal oil lamps and candles lit the tents at night, and outhouses required a hike. One luxury, stored ice that had been cut from the frozen lake during the winter, was delivered to the tents daily.

Eventually, the enterprising owner, Charles Nelson, added a portable dance hall to the property. In a 1971 interview, longtime McCall summer resident (and eventual Boise mayor) Sam D. Hayes recalled, “It was a big affair and made in three sections, and the reason they had it portable was that he could fold it up, put it away, store it, and the next year bring it out without having a big construction cost.”

Camping Tents in Front of Hotel McCalr. Bottom Left: Clem Blackwell’s Main Street Saloon - early 1900s.

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection

The wagon ride from McCall to Sylvan Beach took two hours, so quicker trips on The Lyda became part of the summer adventure, along with some playful drama on a newer sailing boat, The Winston.

Doug Westwater recalls a story about his mother, who worked on The Winston as a young girl, “partly to assist with the voyage, but primarily to stage a fall overboard at a predetermined spot. On each trip to the resort, Nelson paid her to jump off the ferry, thus giving the opportunity for a dramatic rescue and great excitement and entertainment for the passengers.”

About that time, plans were brewing to bring the Oregon Short Line Railroad straight into McCall, which inspired the construction of the upscale Payette Lakes Club. The 50-room inn was built on a small knoll above the western shore of the lake and fashioned after the great Adirondack “Chautauquas,” a popular and sophisticated East Coast resort. In addition to a casino, the inn boasted bowling alleys, a café, and a 300-foot esplanade that stretched from the inn to a dance hall on the lake shore.

Clem Blackwell's Main Street Saloon - early 1900s.

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection

Dance halls, saloons, casinos, and even a horse racing track became an integral part of the lively summer scene. Locals and vacationers imbibed plenty of whiskey and danced “till sun-up.”

Between 1911 and 1914, Model Ts began braving the dirt road through the Payette River Canyon. It was still a two-day trip, but Boiseans seeking relief from the summer heat were undeterred, especially for the increasingly rowdy and rumored Fourth of July celebrations.

As Grace Edgington Jordan recounts in the 1961 biography, King’s Pines Idaho – A Story of the Browns of McCall, the Fourth of July celebrations lasted a week, “during which the three saloons ran practically dry. At night there was some letting off of firearms as well as fireworks. Sometimes the cowboys riding home after it was all over shot out windows along the way.”

McCall Train Depot circa 1914

Courtesy of the McCall Public Library Collection

Law enforcement was sparse, but it was a friendly town. In Sylvan Beach, McCall, Idaho: Its History, Myths, and Memories, Kathleen Regan Burgy recalled vivid childhood memories of the early 1900s summers. “The dealers in the gambling joints would let us put down a dollar or so, just so we’d feel BIG.” Those were the family-friendly casinos. As Burgy explained, kids weren’t allowed on the “shady side of the street” where the dads drank and gambled.

When the Oregon Short Line arrived in 1914, people could finally travel from the Boise Valley to McCall in a single day. Two decades later, the Rainbow Bridge was built, cutting the drive from Boise to McCall down to just five hours. As McCall attracted larger summer crowds and began to provide more comforts and amenities, the earliest summer visitors looked back on the simpler, less crowded times with fondness and nostalgia.

According to Burgy, “Our Golden Days were the early days…we didn’t have electricity, we used kerosene lamps. We spent our evenings with campfires and marshmallow roasts. We had our canoes and rowboats. Our romances were all in canoes – someone would pass a note saying, “Meet me by the dock, and we would canoe out in the moonlight.”

Special thanks to the City of McCall and the McCall Public Library for sharing their historical collections for this article.