Coeur d’Alene invites residents to shape courthouse centennial celebration

The east lawn of the Kootenai County Courthouse will become a civic time capsule on July 3, and Coeur d’Alene residents have until June 20 to help decide what should be remembered there.

The celebration is set for 1:30 p.m. Friday, July 3, at 451 Government Way in Coeur d’Alene, on the lawn of a courthouse listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is being framed as a joint America 250 celebration with the City of Coeur d’Alene, and it will bring together several anniversaries at once: America’s 250th birthday, Idaho’s 136th birthday, the courthouse’s 100th anniversary, the 100th anniversary of the Idaho State Bar and the 50th anniversary of the Idaho District 1 Bar.

Organizers say the program will end with the dedication and placement of a new 100-year time capsule, while the original 1926 capsule from the courthouse dedication is unveiled. The idea is bigger than a single afternoon. Planning already includes an oral history program, a lecture series and possible landmark or interpretive signage, all aimed at capturing the people, places and decisions that shaped Kootenai County over the past century.

The city’s Historic Preservation Commission, established in 2019, is also using the run-up to the centennial to pull younger residents into the story. A coloring contest for children 12 and under in Kootenai County runs through June 20, and selected artwork may be placed in the new capsule to be opened in 2126. That makes the courthouse project part history lesson, part public invitation: who gets remembered, what neighborhoods and families are named, and which everyday details of 2026 will matter a century from now.

The July 3 gathering is also meant to feel like a community event, not just a ceremony. Local high school bands and musicians with the Coeur d’Alene Music Conservancy are expected to perform, alongside patriotic music, historical storytelling, children’s activities and an ice cream social. Featured speakers will include Idaho Supreme Court Justice Cynthia K.C. Meyer and local government leaders.

Meyer was appointed to the Idaho Supreme Court by Gov. Brad Little on Nov. 6, 2023, after serving as a district judge in Idaho’s First Judicial District beginning in 2015. Before joining the bench, she practiced law in Coeur d’Alene and taught at North Idaho College. Her role at the courthouse centennial underscores the project’s larger purpose: to connect the city’s present-day public life to the record it is leaving behind for 2126.