Remember When?

50 YEARS AGO • DECEMBER 25, 1970

During the last months Mrs. Kathryn E. Fessler lived as she rode down Main St. with her daughter, Mrs. Ermel Hanson, she said, "Aren't my trees beautiful?" "Her trees" are the stately conifers gracing the north side of Main Street. When she came to Thompson Falls where her husband, Dr. Fessler, set up his practice, she decided to beautify her home and the then building of the Big Pine Tourist Camp (now Little Bear). Wherever she lived, she planted a tree, so she was ready to begin again here. The trees she desired were too expensive so she bought one to two year seedlings from the University in Missoula for a cent each, stipulation being that she purchase 100 trees. She planted all over, gave away and still had a few left. These she planted on each side of the driveway to the old Courthouse. When the new courthouse was built, the trees were 10-year-old seedlings and they had to be moved or destroyed. By pick and shovel, holes were dug on the north side of Main Street before any grass existed and with care and several hours of labor by Lions Club members, the trees were replanted and they survived in spite of the pessimism of some people. This was one of the Lions Club's major projects with the help of others of the town. Mrs. Fessler looked not only to her lifetime but to many lifetimes to come.

The trees mentioned above were spruce trees. There is one last surviving tree still standing across Main Street from the Rex Theater. The Lions Club would string lights on the trees they moved from the courthouse yard every Christmas until the trees got too big.

Dr. Elmer and Kathryn E. Fessler came to Thompson Falls in 1924 and purchased the Big Pine Motel. The living quarters weren't finished inside, as was no home they ever bought, according to Ermel Fessler Hanson, their daughter. She tells of him setting about to complete a dwelling but before they were finished, they bought something else "that needed some work." Consequently she never remembered living in a completed house when she was young.

Her father's office, where he administered to his patients was in the front of their home. At that time, the present Big Pine Store wasn't built on the living quarters. The solid oak door with the oval glass window was first at their ranch in St. Regis, was opened to friends and patients in their Polson home, then brought here to be hung on their home at the Big Pine where it still is today. It goes from the store to the living quarters in the back. Later his offices were in the vicinity of Thompson Falls Drug Store.

The Fessler family arrived in the Bitterroot valley in a covered wagon in 1902, where he practiced his profession. Mrs. Fessler, transported the first blood samples from a "spotted fever" victim to Dr. Ricketts' laboratory at the Northern Pacific Hospital in Missoula. This trip was by horse and buggy.

After Mr. Fessler passed away, she bought the Black Bear Hotel in 1937. A restaurant was in conjunction with the hotel.

Kathryn Fessler was born in 1878. She was a charter member of the Woman's Club founded October 19, 1921.

The Sanders County Ledger, March 29, 1912 – Looking For A location – Dr. E. Fessler, of Stevensville, was a Thompson Falls visitor Saturday and is considering the proposition of permanently locating somewhere in the county.

For the past three weeks he has been in Noxon, where he was negotiating for some ranch property, but the deal he on hand has failed to materialize, so he now contemplates coming either here or some other town nearby.

Elmer died April 8, 1924 at the age of 50 years of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. He was buried in the Wild Rose Cemetery, Thompson Falls.

Kathryn died in 1957 with burial in the Thompson Falls City Cemetery.

Kathryn Fessler turned the Big Pine into a tourist camp. She had cabins built below, along the river.

RECOLLECTIONS

Years ago, according to Seymour Hurlburt, there used to be a pottery maker in Thompson Falls. There was a species of blue clay by the river about a mile west of town, a little way from the present city dump grounds, that was especially suited for pottery.

The pottery maker did well, but remoteness from markets discouraged operations.

In the same area there used to be a brick yard. The clay was also well adapted for the making of bricks and the bricks for the old school buildings were made there. The writer, as a boy worked in the old brick yard, turning bricks by hand. The brickyard promoters were leasing and wanted to buy, but the price was discouraging. Perhaps if they had located and installed a modern plant now Thompson would be shipping bricks west to Spokane, east to Missoula and Butte.

Sheldon Breedon had located near the spot referred to and has filed a placer claim near the spring there. He has a camp there where he lives and thinks there is enough gold to make it pay.

The present city dump grounds referred to above were where the Rimrock Lodge is today. Back in those days the citizens of Thompson Falls chucked their garbage off the cliffs there and a lot of it ended up in the river.