h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is a railroad station in our town in Sandpoint Idaho, it is where the town grew from, it is over 100 years old and is really cool, though it is run down and not used much anymore it still has the waiting room, and old style bathrooms. It has writing in the stalls that dates back pre- world war 2, there are many famous hobos who have marked it! It is beautiful in it's own old decrepet way. I wish I could post the pictures my brother and I took of it and the writings. We both added our mark right before I graduated from highschool last year and took many cool pictures of the station and waiting room. Perhaps someday I will post them on my website.

Another beautiful building is the Idaho Capitol Building. It is an exact model of the United States Capitol Building scaled down. It is pretty amazing (although like most North Idahoans I do not like the fact that our capitol is all the way in the south.) they could build it. The pillers inside are not marble as they are in the Capitol, they are a special mixture that looks identical to marble. Sadly the man who painted it died before he could pass on the secret and no one has been able to duplicate the painting job since then. The building is just a beautiful piece of work from the floors to the dome.

The last building that I can think of is the Panada Theatre in Sandpoint, just a few years younger than the railroad station. They have rennovated it but stayed with the original design and in fact made it more like a theatre from that era. It has a huge stage, large, luxurious seating area with a "cuddling" balcony that has plush red velvet love seats in the back. The lobby is true to the time with lion fountians and red carpet. The men and women's lounges are recently redone and they are now much bigger than they were and also have a delightful new style to them. They are more like a Powdering/freshening up room. In the theatre painted on the walls there are birds that look like a cross between a gargoyle and an ostrich. All of them are beautifully done... except for one. The painter was paid the first half in advance and the second half was paid right before he completed the work, however the theatre didnt pay all it had promised and so to get back at them he made it as hideous as possable... there are many more stories about this theatre so I will leave it at that, but if you are ever visiting SANDPOINT IDAHO (look for my article on it) you should also vist these two buildings...

Do you love the rail or just old buildings or maybe you like to travel to places others don't. The road less traveled! Great, I have done a little r&d.

Sandpoint
N. Pacific
Railroad Ave.
P
rr
1916
in use
brick
BNSF
Amtrak stop

Shoshone
Un. Pacific
304 N. Rail St.
C
rr
1929
in use
stucco/brick
UP


Now you know the address of the 2 rail stations in sandusky ID.

I love the fact that thousands of people have gone through the railroad station, people probably used to wait for their steam locomotive to fill up and they would sit on the really cool wooden benches while they waited to board... Also the fact that Sandpoint was designed around the station. I had my first kiss with my girlfriend down below it on Sand Creek.