History of Sandpoint, Idaho
The Flathead Indians of Montana built encampments on the shore of Lake Pend Oreille every summer, fished, made baskets of cedar, and collected huckleberries before returning to Montana in the fall. The encampments ended before 1930.
In the 1880s the Northern Pacific Railroad brought European and Chinese settlement to the area.
In August, 1888, twenty-nine year old author and civil servant Theodore Roosevelt, visited Sandpoint on a caribou hunting trip in the Selkirk Mountains. Roosevelt documented what a rough and tumble environment "Sand Point" was at that time (and for many decades following).
Sandpoint was officially incorporated in 1898. Timber harvesting and railroads drove the economy for nearly a century after as lumberjacks moved in from the over harvested Great Lakes region. Several Lumber companies operated in the region from as early as 1896 to present. The most notable company was the Humbird Lumber Company that operated from 1900 to around 1944. The lumber companies bought land from the Northern Pacific Railroad and built a major mill at Sandpoint and adjacent Kootenai. Lumber company owned railroads extended into many of the local drainages, Grouse Creek, Gold Creek and (Rapid) Lightening Creek. Although the trees were never exhausted in the area, the Humbird Company suffered and finally succumbed to the low timber prices of the great depression. "Stump ranches" were sold by the company to many families who slowly cleared much of the valley land of tree stumps. Farming and ranching became the third business behind lumber and railroads prior to the "discovery" of Lake Pend Oreille as a sports fishery in the 1950's. The economy was given a boost during World War II from Farragut Naval Station, a training center for the US Navy located at the south western end of Lake Pend Oreille.
The opening of Schweitzer Mountain Resort in 1963 turned the area into a year around tourism destination based on its natural beauty. The beauty of the surrounding Selkirk and Cabinet Mountains and Lake Pend Oreille have kept Sandpoint a tourist favorite for water sports, hunting, hiking, horseback riding, fishing and skiing.
In the 1980s and 1990s nearby Coeur d'Alene and Hayden Lake attracted nationwide publicity when white supremacist Neo-Nazi groups (most notably the Aryan Nations) set up headquarters in the area. Many Sandpoint residents reacted negatively to such groups; some formed the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force in opposition. In 2001 the Aryan Nations lost a lawsuit filed against them. The lawsuit bankrupted the organization and forced them to give up their Hayden Lake property and disband.
In August of 2006, Sandpoint and the Panida Theater hosted the first ever International Film Festival in North Idaho - The Idaho Panhandle International Film Festival. IPIFF, as it was known, featured fifty-five films of various genres and lengths, over four days (August 23rd-26th) from nine countries. IPIFF has since been renamed Lakedance International Film Festival and will be held on September 12th-16th. This festival, along with The Festival at Sandpoint, and Lost-in-the-50's, among other events, continue to build Sandpoint's reputation of being an arts and culture capital of North Idaho and the Inland Northwest.