Drowning in the fairgrounds parking lot
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| By Jack Flinn |
The fairgrounds parking lot wasn't as we now know it; back then it was a low, large bowl. It has been filled with gravel since this story.
Water had seeped into the parking lot back then and created a large pond, irresistible to adventurous youngsters.
Two brothers, I believe their names were Larry and Mike Stemmene, who I played with a lot, had built a small raft.
Well, apparently the raft came apart while they were on it.
My father, Paul Flinn, told me many years later how he and the sheriff at the time pulled the two boys' bodies out of the large "pond" created by the high water of the Kootenai river.
You can still see water standing in that parking lot when the river is up and the snow melts off in the spring, but nothing like it did ... looking back.
JF