One of north Idaho’s links to World War II was the Farragut Naval Training Station at the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille. It’s now Farragut State Park and a tourist site for history buffs. One of its main attractions has just reopened.
The Farragut Naval Training Station had a four-year run from 1942 to ’46. Around the end of the 1940s, the Navy gave the site back to the state. And then in the mid-1960s, the legislature gave Farragut an official duty, says its park manager Liz Palfini.
Liz Palfini: It started out as a Fish and Game property, and then in 1965, the Girl Scouts of America decided to do their senior roundup in North Idaho. In order for them to do their event, they needed a parks and recreation destination, and so there was kind of a fund deal that created a state park at that time period on that Fish and Game property. At that time, we became a state park.
Doug Nadvornick: One of the remnants of the Naval Station was its jail, commonly known as the Brig.
LP: The Brig building itself is the last remaining building from the naval training station era. Sometime in the 1990s, the state park system decided to put its collection of memorabilia that had started to become a donation kind of thing into that building and turn that building into a museum.
DN: Liz Palfini says the museum was initially a low-profile site visited mostly by veterans. She says it didn’t really become a tourist attraction until the early 2000s. By then, the Brig’s condition has deteriorated.
LP: It is a flat-roofed cinder block building, which, you know, if anybody who sees it looks at it and goes, who built this thing in North Idaho? I don't think that the Navy ever intended it to be a permanent building, and it has definitely taken, you know, it takes a lot of wear and tear in North Idaho.
DN: Palfini says the damage had been patched over the years. It became so bad that it needed special attention. But the legislature never set aside any money. Finally, she says the state’s Permanent Building Fund Advisory Council allocated what was needed to install a new roof destined to last for 30 years. After a year of work, the Brig building was re-opened to the public last week and Palfini says it’s worth a visit.
LP: Yeah, it's a funky building. It is a square donut, if you can imagine. So, there is a courtyard in the very center. And so, you go around the donut in different directions. And on one side, we have the Naval Training Station Museum portion of the building that focuses just on the history of the Farragut Naval Training Station and the World War II story and why it became a training station, who was there, what their stories were, and a place to display the mementos that they brought back with them from the war. All those kind of fun things are on that side. And then, on the opposite side of the building, we have the Discover History Museum, which is a wing that talks about the rest of the story for, you know, for Farragut State Park. We talk about the Girl Scout era, the Boy Scout era. We talk about the state parks. We also talk about ancient history.
We talk about, you know, the Missoula floods and, you know, what helped build Lake Pend Oreille and the natural history of that space and all those kind of fun stories. And then, next to that is the Junior Ranger Station, which is where we encourage kids to come out and explore nature and do some activities and really get in touch with what state parks are all about. They can rent backpacks to do adventures in the park and all kinds of fun stuff. And then, below that is the newest exhibit that we just opened that we were really highlighting for everybody, and that's the Solitary Confinement exhibit. it's definitely the space that kind of tells the story of what the building was when it was built.
DN: Palfini says, until now, the Brig has not been a featured area. But now that it’s in better physical shape, she says it’s a must-see if you’re planning to visit Farragut State Park.
