John Finney of Coeur d Alene is first man to waterski.
He did this on one the most beautiful lakes in the world lake Coeur d Alene. Here's the rest of the story below.
John Finney of Coeur d Alene is first man to waterski. He did this on one the most beautiful lakes in the world lake Coeur d Alene. Here’s the rest of the story below.
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Some folks around Lake Pepin, Minn., may have spent the holiday weekend smugly celebrating the 75th anniversary of the invention of waterskiing.
According to the Waterskiing Hall of Fame, that’s where Ralph Samuelson first skied behind a motorboat on July 2, 1922.
But in Coeur d’Alene, the anniversary passed with hardly a ripple.
After all, many old-timers claim that waterskiing - and wakeboarding, for that matter - started right here on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
“No doubt about it,” said Jack Finney, the grandson of John E. “Jack” Finney. “The guy who claimed to invent it had seen it done here before.”
Jack Finney Sr. was an inventive and athletic fellow. Bill Finney, his son, recalls clinging to a bicycle with several brothers and sisters, as his father rode it across the lawn and hopped over a garden hose.
After purchasing the Ford dealership in downtown Coeur d’Alene, Jack Finney Sr. took a tractor motor and fashioned it for his 40-foot boat, the Lurline.
Chugging around the lake in the boat lost its novelty and Jack Finney Sr. decided to nail two 12-inch planks together to make a 6-foot surfboard. Thus began years of Finney acrobatics on the lake.
Times have changed since Jack Finney Sr. hopped on the forerunner of the wakeboard, and his son, John, crouched behind the Lurline, skiing across Lake Coeur d’Alene on a pair of floorboards.
Back then, so few motorboats plied the glassy surface of Lake Coeur d’Alene that the Finneys knew every boat on the lake just by the sound of its motor.
Their boards and skis were made of planks, while now they’re made of fiberglass.
Young John slipped his feet into la
Wallace, Idaho
Buildings in Wallace's historic district
Wallace, Idaho is a city in and the county seat of Shoshone County, Idaho, in the Silver Valley mining district of the Idaho Panhandle. Founded in 1884, Wallace .
9 Vintage Scenes of Boise From the 1900-1960s and What They Look Like Today
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>West Down 8th Street
West Down 8th Street
Looking West Down 8th Street
This postcard doesn't have a date on it, so it's tough to say exactly what year it's from. What we do know is that the Idaho State Archives has a photo of a clerk working in that Walgreens store in 1954. It was at 200 N 8th Street. Beyond Walgreens, you can see a sign for Schubach Jewelers. If you want to see what it looked like inside we found this very cool vintage video!
>Idaho est Down 8th Street 2023
To most of us, the most recognizable building in the first photo was the one on the left. The one that all of us know as Fork.
Idaho est Down 8th Street 2023
We’re not sure exactly what year this photograph was from, but it was most definitely before 1988. That’s when Falk’s, the department store on the right hand of the photograph, was torn down to make room for a parking garage. The facade of the building was given a major facelift in the late '50s, so we'd date this photo shortly before then if we had to guess
Idaho 8th Street
The description on this postcard reads “Capitol Park Showing Hotel Boise, Federal Building and State Capitol, Boise, Idaho.” It’s seller on eBay puts a date of 1941 on it. You probably know the Federal building better as the Post Office, which is still there today. According to the Idaho Architecture Project, construction on the post office started in 1902 and it’s older than the Capitol building itself. For a while, Capitol workers used it while the capitol was being built.
The two acre park near the Capitol Building was renamed for former Idaho governor Cecil D. Andrus in 2018, a year after his death. The little plaza you see to the right of the Penske truck has plaques talking about his impact on the state.
Capitol Boulevard Memorial Bridge 1954
It’s not clear exactly what year this photo was taken, but the postmark on the post card is from 1954. The bridge itself was built in 1931. According to the City of Boise’s website, the Art Deco bridge is meant to honor the Oregon Trail pioneers that used to cross the Boise River near this spot. We hope they had better luck than we did when we’d have to ford the river in the video game version.
Idaho 10th Street Looking North from Main
Honestly, short of the the old timey clothes and lack of cars, this view still looks very familiar. The Idanha Hotel opened in 1901 and the person who sent this post card wrote 1909 on the back
Downtown from the Idaho Capitol Dome 1949
This postcard is postmarked 1949, but describes the construction of the Capitol building in 1906. At the time, it’s construction cost $2,290,000. If you adjust that for inflation, that would cost over $69 million today.
Downtown from the Capitol Dome 1949
Idaho Grand Staircase at the Capitol 1910
The inside of the capitol is a gorgeous place for photos because of the what looks like to be a ton of marble columns. However, according to a script for a tour through the Capitol, those pillars aren’t marble all the way through. The inside is actually made of bric and concrete and it’s covered in a mixture of gypsum, glue, marble dust and granite dyed to look like marble. There is a ton of real marble throughout the building though. This is what it looked like in 1910.
Grand Staircase at the Capitol 1910
United States Assay Office 1910
Idaho Longfellow School 1913
Longfellow Elementary School hosted its first classes in on 9th Street in 1906. At the time, students from grades 1-8 went to school and the school’s custodian actually lived there. This photo is dated 1913.
Idaho Longfellow School 1913
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