Home on the Grange

Grangeville grew from the Charity Grange #15, Patrons of Husbandry, organized at Mount Idaho in 1874. John M. Crooks, who owned a 600-acre ranch on Three Mile Creek, donated land for a hall, five additional acres, and a water right for a mill. A flour mill was built in 1875, construction soon began on the Grange Hall, and by 1876 the settlement included a number of frame buildings and a post office on Crooks's donated land. The name Grangeville was chosen at one of the first Grange meetings. In 1890 its growth gained momentum, and A.F. Parker of the Idaho County Free Press called it a quiet, progressive, moral, orderly, and law-abiding town, the commercial center of Idaho County in the fertile and thickly settled Camas Prairie, serving farmers, miners, stockmen, and prospectors, with a high school, a Methodist minister, a brass band, a choir and orchestra, and a Chautauqua circle. The town also endured major disasters and recoveries. Alexander-Freidenrich, the oldest mercantile store in Idaho, was destroyed by fire in 1905 and again in 1976, closed in 1987, and its site is now occupied by U.S. Bank at Hall and Main streets. In 1912 a fire swept downtown, destroying the Idaho County Free Press building and all of its equipment, but publisher Aaron F. Parker bought a hand press in Spokane and did not miss an issue. In 1921 a cloudburst in the mountains sent floodwaters down Dry Creek and into an open ditch along Main Street in the town's worst natural disaster; P.M. Glanville drowned in his basement, and two feet of water covered most of Main Street. In 1944 a fire that began in the Blue Fox Theater basement caused the auditorium roof to collapse and damaged the foyer, apartments, and stores, but the theater was restored and later listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The Imperial Hotel, opened in 1908 as a three-story hotel with marble floors, a lobby fountain, and hot and cold water in each of its 84 sleeping rooms, hosted balls and banquets for years before fire destroyed it in 1966.

Grangeville, Idaho · United States