No Ghosts in Boulder City This Weekend

One of these house frames along the main street of Boulder City, Idaho, could have been where Joe Rantz, main character in New York Times Bestseller The Boys in the Boat lived as a child. 

Bill suggested driving up the Myrtle Creek drainage. I told him I’d been thinking a lot about Boulder City ever since reading The Boys in the Boat a few weeks ago. Thank you, Bill Gee, for the heads up on this wonderful read. 

I kinda had a hunch Bill would go for that suggestion because he read the book after I did.  Our passion for Boulder City and its surroundings had intensified almost equally since reading about childhood days spent there by the main figure in the story about the 1936 Gold Medal Olympic rowing team from the University of Washington.

Joe Rantz, second from left, as part of the 1936 Olympic Gold Medal rowing team from the University of Washington.  Joe spent part of his childhood in Boulder City, Idaho. 
---Stock Photo

Both of us had almost identical thoughts in response to learning that Joe Rantz had returned with his children as an old man to visit Boulder City not long before he died a few years ago.

What an experience that would have been, we both thought, if we had been in Boulder City on one of our weekend jaunts and had run into Joe.  Of course, back then, we probably wouldn’t have viewed him any different from any other “turists,” as Bill calls anyone else invading our general space when we head for the back country.

Now that Joe’s story has turned into a New York Times Bestseller and a movie about his experience is in the works, we would have surely taken note and absolved Joe of the “turist” label.

So, my suggestion for Sunday’s outing won out easily, and we were off to Boulder City to walk around the ruins with a new perspective, thanks to Daniel James Brown who wrote the fabulous book about Joe, his teammates, coaches, family, etc.

Bill remembered a photo in the book with Joe and his father sitting outside a house near a hillside at Boulder City.  He surmised that it could have been one of the series of old structures long since collapsed since Joe lived there in the 1920s while his father worked on a mining crew.

Once we passed the lovely Dirks farm on Katka Road, we climbed upward where we could look across the Kootenai Valley over to the Selkirks.  Then, after a few miles and before proceeding to Boulder City, Bill wanted to turn off side road which heads to Naples along Boulder Creek.

 

When he came to Idaho from Louisiana back in the early '70s and worked for the U.S. Forest Service out of Bonners Ferry, Bill spent one summer in a camp along Boulder Creek.  He plans to return to that spot this year to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of his stay there.

At a fork in the road where the high road goes to Naples, we took a lower road for a short distance.  The road used to cross Boulder Creek, but it’s been washed out, so that’s when I learned that Bill, indeed, had quietly put his fly rod in the pickup.

Out came the rod, and Bill once again promised a short session of fishing while I walked up and down the road with my camera.   Seems to be the new strategy when taking Marianne out to the wilds.

 

She’s catching on! He still sez that if he fishes too long, I have the keys and I can just drive off and leave him there.

 

So far, I’ve been in good moods when he makes these pre-planned but unannounced angling stops.

Nothing was interested in his fly so we headed back to the main road, passing groups of campers enjoying their weekend with their 4-wheelers.  Boulder Creek drainage was alive with 4-wheelers.

And, we learned quickly that if we’re gonna visit a peaceful, quiet ghost town, don’t do so over Memorial Day weekend.

Boulder City’s ghosts probably skipped town when all those rigs showed up and repopulated the place.  Heck, I’ll bet they could have even elected a new mayor among all the temporary residents with their various brands of housing and back road vehicles.  Looked like some good parties occurred too with beer cans dangling from several tree branches.

We were pretty amazed but kept on task and walked slowly through the main street of Boulder City where we met another couple who seemed to be on a similar mission, 'cept they had no idea of The Boys in the Boat connection. Needless to say, they planned to waste no time picking up a couple of copies once back in the modern world. 

The gentleman demonstrated keen observation skills, explaining that the framing left by collapsed houses had to have been milled rather than just rough cut straight from the woods.  He talked about the nails and the age of the trees along the main street of what was once a bustling back-woods community high above the Kootenai River. 

Turns out the couple we met in Boulder City proper travel the back roads like we do and share the same fascination for history of the places where we visit. 

We eventually said good bye and went on our way, completing my second goal for the trip---to head out of Boulder Creek on the Montana route.  That had Bill pretty excited.  

Twasn't 'til we reached a single lane bridge over Starr Creek just inside the Montana border that he stopped again and pulled out his rod.  That's when I learned that he had bought a full year's Montana fishing license. 

So, there we went again----him with his rod and me with my camera.  That's where I spent some time catching the patterns created by a vibrant collection of ferns beside the road. 

Our trip to Boulder Creek lacked the usual charm of walking through an abandoned place of yesteryear.  We hope all the temporary inhabitants set up an unwritten city code and left the place clean and neat following their weekend stay.  And, that includes the beer cans hanging on tree limbs. 

The best-selling book and the movie more than likely will inspire an increased level of attention to Boulder City since its days of the phantom mining claims of J.M. Schnatterly, who attracted investors and workers to the area a hundred years ago.

It would be nice if an area or regional historical preservation group would take the site on as a project and save what's left visually of a truly fascinating story, involving its mining history and one of its now famous residents.