How Athol grew: the town that stayed small while Silverwood and US-95 grew around it

Athol is home to Silverwood Theme Park, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, its owner says. But the town itself has stayed small. The 2020 Census counted 709 people, only 33 more than in 2000.

That was no accident. This is how Athol grew, and how it chose not to.

A railroad town

In 1882 the Northern Pacific Railroad built a station here, on its line between Hauser Junction and Sandpoint. The town was first called Colton. A settler from Athol, Massachusetts, gave it its new name. In 1902 the Hackett & Wilson sawmill opened and became the biggest employer, able to cut 25,000 board feet of lumber a day. Athol was incorporated as a village in 1909 and became a city in 1967.

The town had 281 people in 1910 and just 116 by 1930, Census counts show. It finally passed 300 at the 1980 Census, which counted 312.

The airfield that became Silverwood

In 1973 Clayton Henley opened an airfield near town. Gary Norton bought it in 1981, and on June 20, 1988, he opened Silverwood Theme Park on US-95. The Norton family ran it from 1988 until this year. Boulder Beach water park opened next door in 2003, and a $15 million expansion called Emerald Forest added a water coaster and a kids' area in 2024, the Spokesman-Review reported.

The park had about 120 year-round workers in 2023, rising to about 1,600 in the summer season, the Spokane Journal of Business reported. In March 2026, Herschend Family Entertainment, the Atlanta company that runs Dollywood, completed its purchase of the park. Herschend says the park keeps its name and its team.

Staying small on purpose

Athol has no city sewer. Homes and businesses use septic systems, and health officials limit drain fields to protect the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer. In 1998, a developer proposed 400 homes on less than 100 acres just east of town, with a private sewage plant. Town leaders opposed it. The town clerk said it would put more people on that land than lived in all of Athol, the Spokesman-Review reported. Athol had about 500 residents then.

By 2020, slow growth was official policy. The city requires lots of at least five acres, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported, and city leaders had decided years earlier to grow slowly and on purpose. They said they prefer locally owned businesses to chains.

The growth around it

The growth came anyway, just outside the city line. KMPO counts about 319 households inside the city. The county's address file shows 3,181 homes with an Athol address, nearly all on county land around the town. A resident told the Coeur d'Alene Press in 2020 that the Census misses that growth because there are no lots left to build on inside the city.

US-95 brought much of it. The state has widened the highway north of Hayden in phases. A six-mile, $36 million stretch from Garwood to Bunco Road near Athol, bid in 2011, added interchanges at Chilco and Bunco roads, the Spokane Journal of Business reported. The Idaho Transportation Department also began building a nine-mile paved path along the highway from Garwood to Athol, meant to give walkers and riders a route from Coeur d'Alene to Silverwood and Farragut State Park.

Shoppers, not residents

The growth shows up in shopping. In 2018, a 57,000-square-foot Super 1 Foods opened at The Crossings, just off Highway 54 near US-95. Before that, people drove to Hayden for a big grocery store. The store brought 125 jobs to a town that had about 40 to 45 businesses with about 200 jobs, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported.

The homes, and what they cost

The Census Bureau's survey puts the median home value in Athol at $367,700 and the median household income at $70,250, according to Data USA. That is about five years of pay for the typical home, and both numbers are lower than in Rathdrum.

Where it's headed

KMPO, the region's transportation planner, projects the Athol area will grow from about 822 people now to about 1,387 by 2050, with about 219 new homes. That works out to about 2.1% a year, faster than the 1.15% a year it averaged from 2010 to 2025. The city may want slow growth, but the planners expect more of it.

Live in Athol, or near it? Tell us what you're seeing. Every number in this story names its source below.