Amenities

Public park with playground, parking, bathrooms (sometimes locked off-season), boat ramp, dock.

History

It took hundreds of hours of volunteer labor to develop the land that now encompasses Memorial Field and Lakeview Park. The City of Sandpoint acquired a wooded parcel in the early 1920s, but lacked sufficient funds to clear and level the land. In early July 1924, the newly-formed park board came up with the idea for a community workday, and put out a call to the Sandpoint community for volunteers. Businesses agreed to close at 1 pm on the designated day, and nearly 100 men showed up to work, assisted by two horse teams and two commercial trucks. They cleared fallen timber and brush while women from the Civic Club provided coffee and ice cream to supplement the box lunches that volunteers brought. The city hired a man to blow up the remaining stumps with dynamite, a common practice at the time. Clearing and leveling continued the following summer, followed by seeding grass in the new field. 

Baseball games, always popular in Sandpoint, moved to the new diamond at the south end of Boyer Avenue for the 1934 baseball season. Within a short time the field was fenced and provided with a grandstand, allowing other events such as rodeos to take place there. 

The Sandpoint Athletic Booster Club was formed in 1948 to provide schools and local groups with a good athletic field suitable for baseball, football, and track. The club wanted the facility to be a living war memorial named Memorial Athletic Field. Work on the new field continued well into 1951, when a new concrete and wood grandstand was constructed. The grandstand roof was added in 1964.

In conjunction with the newly redone athletic field, Russell Kotschevar designed a unique memorial to honor Bonner County residents killed in various wars. Tall cedar poles formed a backdrop for a concrete pillar holding plaques with the names of the dead. A large crowd turned out in June 1951 for the formal dedication of the facility.

War Memorial field is still home of many local athletics, including the Sandpoint High School baseball, football and soccer teams. It has hosted one of Sandpoint’s biggest events, the Festival at Sandpoint, since the early 1980s.