A new State Park at Enders?

After literally years of trying to find the best way to utilize the Maughan family’s gift of the Enders Hotel, a novel solution has already gained a warm reception among those who heard it, and takes the discussion in a completely different direction.

The Enders hotel was given to the city by its previous owner to be used as the city saw fit.  Since that time, it has continued to house a museum’s worth of artifacts related to the Caribou County area, and been leased to a variety of different businesses for retail use.  It has also been subject to numerous repairs, remodels, and updating in the process.  Most recently, the building was leased by Terah Jones as an operating hotel, guest suites, a meeting center, gift shop, and catering concern.  When the next contract term was under discussion, Jones decided that it was not feasible to continue in that way, and the city council was once again faced with a decision about what to do with the building.

The matter has been discussed in nearly every City Council meeting over the last year, at the very least, and the phrase “kicking the problem down the road” has been uttered just as often.

February 12 was scheduled as a special meeting session to provide a definite path forward.  The choices on the table, as they had been discussed beforehand, included selling the building outright to a third party, leasing the building in part to defray operating costs, moving the city administration to the building and leasing space in it, or continue kicking the problem down the road.

The drawbacks to each of those proposals have been hashed out during numerous previous sessions.  The expense of moving city hall to the building, when the current building is sufficient to the city’s needs, is seen as unnecessarily high.  The risk involved in selling the building outright (as well as the question of what would become of the museum materials on the second floor) is that the owner could do whatever they wished with a landmark of Caribou County’s history.  A partial leasing arrangement would bring with it the same instability and lack of permanence already faced by the city vis a viz the Enders.

It turns out, it was a proposal that had not previously been broached at all that gained the most interest.  Councilmember Paul Gritton proposed that the city look into working with the State of Idaho to have Enders, and potentially the geyser facility itself, become an official state park.  That’s right—an actual state park.  The arrangement would relieve the bulk of the financial burden of maintaining and operating the building and the associated assets.  The geyser itself was not a part of the initial discussion, but the concept of a larger park designated area began to intrigue those in the audience, as well as the potential for increased tourism, retail acceleration, and preservation possibilities.

Members of the council seemed both surprised and delighted by the idea, and other stakeholders were also pleasantly surprised, having dreaded the potential of selling the building commercially.  Bill Horsley, of the Caribou Historical Society, though the idea was excellent.  “It’s a win-win!” he noted, echoing a sentiment shared by many.  Horsley and the Historical Society had been willing to do whatever it took to house and preserve the museum artifacts, but if this proposal goes forward, it might obviate that need.

While Councilmember Gritton has been in contact with state officials, there is no official word from those entities about their intentions, although Gritton did take one representative on a tour of the facilities, and the proposal can fairly be said to be making its way through the chain of necessary parties.   

As this is a brand new idea for most of the parties involved, and state government moves notoriously slowly, it will be a while before the status of this project is determined.  At the very least, however, it presents an exciting possibility for resolving the long-running Enders issue.