Besides the vacationers were land speculators who came to find homesteads. and the timber cruisers who guided them to the tracts. Also, the lumber company (William Deary and Weyerhaeuser interests) manipulated claims on timber. steering their own agents and envoys and buying off cruisers who were not. Many of these homesteaders were people who wanted no home, but only the timber and a profit. Many prominent families were involved.

And so it happens that many of these used the Bovill Hotel as a place to stay. A reporter for the Daily Idahonian wrote this account after talking to Mrs. Hugh Bovill in 1954.

"The Homestead Act required that the settlers live on their land. But since the community of Bovill lacked government agents to enforce the law, they found it nicer to live in civilization during the hard winters and just come for a few weeks each summer and vacation on their lots. They built cabins on their land, but many of them lived at the Bovill hotel, instead of on their own homesteads."

All of this intrigue enters into a book, "Strangers in the Forest," Its author, Carol H. Brink who also wrote "Buffalo Coat," was a frequent early-day guest of Bovill's, and knew her subject. Another visitor was a young lady, Miss Ione Adair, who took a homestead. She still lives in Moscow.

To help care for the guests. the Bovill's brought a young Japanese named Tamaki.. Tamaki was joined later by a bride. a girl fresh from Japan in her silken kimonos. Another arrival was Forbes Fosberry. an English relative who. with Mr. Bovill's encouragement. entered the country from Canada. Forbes trained himself as a surveyor and is credited with laying out the Bovill town site. He married a girl named Freda Cullen. and settled down at the Bovill place. They had one daughter, Lillian. Later. he took land a half mile north of town, which became the Fosberry Dairy. Several years afterward he moved his family to Grants Pass, Oregon.

Pack animals were essential to bring in supplies from Troy. over the terrible roads. They were also occasionally used by hunting parties. Later Bovill acquired property in Montana. and the horses then served a further purpose With the animals, annual tracks of the entire family were made over the Bitterroots. In these periods. the faithful Tamaki and a number of Swedish hired girls (one of these later became Mrs. Dave Ellison) cared for the hotel and guests.

The snowfall of the early years was very heavy. Also. the spring floods were often larger than today. Melting of the snows. and probably damming of the streams by beaver, were factors. Boats were kept to move about when the water was high, and also for diversion in the summer. The lower end of the meadow. at a location that would eventually be a corner of the cedar yard. was a slough where wild ducks flocked.

Even with the great influx of timber cruisers and people representing the logging interests. Hugh Bovill could hardly have foreseen just what was ahead. Only one who had seen a great logging operation could know.

He did not know it, says Piccadilly. when Bill Deary asked him for a rail-road right-a-way. However, he sadly weighed the molestation of his Eden against an obvious truth: he could not stop it. With his small holdings - a few hundred acres added to an original 580 - he could not block a rich and powerful company. He could salvage his investment. probably with a good return.

So the railroads came, the Washington. Idaho and Montana line completing their track in 1907 and commemorating the event with a special excursion train from Potlatch. The Milwaukee road was completed to Bovill in 1910. Construction was finished to Elk River the same year.

In 1910, the railroad managements celebrated the connection of the two lines (Deary Enterprise. May 27. 1910(. The point of junction was near Camp 8. two miles north of town. Excursion trains brought high officials from both roads, important citizens. and members of the public. Attorney Oversmith of Moscow was there. From the East, in a private car and representing the Weyerhausers. came Mr. and Mrs. Drew and Mr. and Mrs. Musser. Idaho's new Senator, William E. Borah, and Mrs. Borah, were present. After the speeches, a "golden spike" would be driven.

The youngest of the Bovill girls, Gwendolyn. was given the honor of driving the golden spike at the ceremony of joining the two railroads. The spike was set with a light blow or two and wrapped in gold-colored metal foil. Gwen swung as mightly as she was able, and managed contact. The foil fell away, burst into tears. Seeing the self-conscious embarrassment she was mother came to the rescue. "When you are ready," she said to the crowd, "whydon't we go to the hotel where there are some refreshments wait-for you?"

The party that evening - Sunday. May 30, 1910 - was a great one. And in the sky to climax it - Mrs. Bovill's diary was recorded this as does Gwen from her own memory - Halley's comet flared brightly.

The town of Bovill was incorporated on May 23.1907. Its capital stock, valued at $50,000, was owned mainly by Hugh and Charlotte Bovill. Attorney A.H. Oversmith of Moscow prepared the legal papers. It appears that the construction of Main Street and the town began the same year.

The newborn town was. in a sense, a rough one. Logging had begun west and north of town, at camps 7 and 8. even before the W.I.∓mp;M. railway was finished. Camps 3 and 4 started operating about the same time. or only slightly afterward. Men from these camps and the construction crews of two railroads numbered in the hundreds. The men wanted liquor. and they wanted women. So almost as quickly as the stores were built, there rose the frames also of several saloons. These structures, on Pine Street - with back doors along the alley off Main faced south toward an open pasture. And southward in this pasture. along the tracks, were two bawdy houses. It was a Western town in real story-book tradition.

Yet. brawls were for the saloons. Generally in the residential areas and the main street of the town was tranquility.

Handed down from the time is the story of the firecrackers, flung one night into a bedroom by Mrs. Bovill. It was the Fourth of July. and special food was prepared to be served as an outdoor supper. The firecrackers were a joke." says the story. and surely Mrs. Bovill had the capacity for such humor. But as translated from her diary to Gwen's Piccadillythere was another reason.

Staying at the hotel at the time. was a group of about 15 young engineers who were engaged in the construction of the railroads. In charge was a high-spirited young man named Bill Donovan, Most of them had been drinking a bit. Some had begun imbibing even before supper. and had carried it beyond the limit of sobriety. As the evening wore along. these moved away "in a direction of the two houses down along the tracks." If humorous, if a bit subtle, Charlotte's displeasure was also emphatic. She met them with fireworks realones - upon their return.

So although in a few years the town would be reasonably calm and peaceful. it surely was not born that way. At the start, brawls and drunken fights were a nightly occurrence. To match or surpass this was the dangerous work in the woods. which left numerous victims.

Charlotte Bovill. a trained nurse and again at the head of things, was the person who met the needs of the ill and injured. After a dynamite explosion at Camp Eight. where one or two men perished, it was she who treated the survivors. Repeatedly she pleaded with T. P. Jones and Bill Deary about the need for a hospital. This was unavailing. but eventually a good hospital was built by the Milwaukee Railroad.

The Indians understandably saw the growth of the town and onset of logging as a disaster. George Mox Mox, a chief of the band frequenting this area, came to Hugh Bovill in his sadness. To his friend, he wanted to say "Thank you". He would come no more.

"Why?" said Hugh. "What will you do?" "Find new way." said Mox Mox. "You come too. Your way now."

And truly. the meadow where the Indians had camped so often was no longer useful to them, for it now became the town park. When, in the future. they came for camas. berries, and fish, they camped at outlying meadows. Sites at the Horse Ranch, Oviatt and Round Meadows, Blooms. and Cougar Creek served them even through the 1920's.

Things had changed also, just as Mox Mox implied. for Hugh and Charlotte Bovill. Their memories held the pleasant gatherings over homemade rhubarb wine and ginger beer. the pleasant aromas from the kitchen where bear and venison roasted and huckleberry pies baked in the ovens. where plum pudding would soon be ready. The times of these things and the summer guests that consumed them were gone. And already (in 1910 the two daughters had gone to Coeur d'Alene for schooling.

In 1911, Hugh and Charlotte also moved to Coeur d'Alene. Through the years they lived at various parts of the West. They returned to Bovill to visit. but not again to live, except for a brief attempt to reopen the hotel during the CCC activities during the 1930's.

After the Bovill's left, the hotel operated under lease through the boom-days of logging and housed mainly lumbermen. Presently it is owned by Mrs. Henry Wandke. who rents rooms and apartments. The structure, with its rustic interior of hewed beams, would make a worthy museum.

Hugh Bovill died in 1935 at Newport. Oregon. and Mrs. Bovill died 12 years later at Santa Cruz, California. The two daughters survive. However, Dorothy was the victim of a disastrous auto accident a few years ago, and is an invalid. Gwen (Mrs. D. G. L. Lawrence) is a business woman of adventurous nature much like her mother. She has traveled the world. and lived for a number of years in Hong Kong. A widow. she now lives in Lake Mercer, Washington.