Arling Center History
The Conference and meeting facilities of “Arling Center” is named after two communities of Arling and Center which disappeared when Lake Cascade was flooded in 1948. Arling was platted in 1915 as a town with higher density after the arrival of the train in 1914. The town had six buildings including Grange 334 also doubling as a school and a church, a grocery store, a train served warehouse used to export seeds and three homes, one of them being the post office.
Homesteads were first established in the area in the late 1890’s typically on 160 acres of land. One group of Homesteads further to the North was known as Arlington and one group further to the South in the geographic center of Long Valley was known as Center. Both communities were east of present day Sugar Loaf Island and foundations for the town of Arling can still be seen with low water under Lake Cascade. Three of the homesteads on higher ground are still visible East of Highway 55:
Arlington was renamed Arling after the railroad came in to avoid confusion with an Oregon town also named Arlington.
Present Day Tamarack: Arling Center Conference and Meeting Facilities
Tamarack has taken great pride in the history of the area and has named the conference rooms after real families who first homesteaded the area, or people of influence in the Donnelly area.
The Pottenger Room
Cynthia Pottenger was born in Roseberry March 23, 1891, one of the first babies to arrive in the new community formally established with a Post Office in 1888. Cynthia had eight children and became the historian for the town of Roseberry, the largest town in Valley County before the arrival of the railroad in 1914.
The Morgan Room
Barbara Morgan was born in November 1951. She was a teacher at the Donnelly Elementary School from 1975 until 1998. She was selected in 1985 as back-up for the Teacher in Space Program where she trained with Christa McAuliffe who died in the Challenger explosion of 1986. The program was halted until 1998 when Morgan started again to train full time at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. As of the opening of Arling Center in June of 2006 Barbara is intensely preparing for an upcoming flight on the shuttle to the International Space Station.
The Rutledge Room
The Rutledge family arrived in Beaver Meadows during 1888 from Illinois via Baker Valley, Oregon with their household goods and cattle. The area of Beaver Meadows which is adjacent to Tamarack at the South and Arling at the East had six homes at the time. Typical size of these homes was 16’*20’ with a loft and no walls. Richard was born in 1873 and married in 1895 after attending the University of Moscow. He was one of the early teachers in the Center School District. He became a forest guard in 1905 and the supervisor of the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in 1907.
The Downend Room
Ken Downend was born on February 5, 1924. His grandfather Joe settled in the Arlington area in 1900 on the homestead still standing above the Arling Spring east of today’s Highway 55. Ken grew up a short distance on a home built by his father William, east of Highway 55 on what is still known as Downend Lane. Ken attended the Arling School for eight years where the number of students varied from 6 to 16. The School doubled as a Grange known as Grange 334 and a Church. It was one of six buildings standing in Arling before the disappearance of the Town.