Bars and Snow Berms

Photo of men standing in front of a snowbank, one being the Glenn Reed County Commissioner. Photo courtesy of the Bonner County Historical Society & Museum, donated to the collection by Sandpoint News Bulletin.

Warming spirits in Sandpoint Brought to you by the Bonner County Historical Society & Museum

Sandpoint may still have its fair share of bars and breweries, and it has not grown legs and walked to the tropics of the southern hemisphere. It is in fact still a snowy northern mountain town in the winter; and yet things have changed.

Sandpoint used to have many more bars, around 23, and the winter snow situation was handled differently. It is said that the snow plows would pile snow in the middle of the road, and the snow berms would get to be 12- to 14-feet tall! This did not deter the spirits of those trying to access boozy spirits.

In the early 1940s, locals would dig tunnels through the big snow berms on Cedar Street, so they could easily walk from one side of the street to the other and have easy access to all of the bars in town.