How Hayden Lake grew: the resort town that stayed small

The city of Hayden Lake had 649 people at the last census. The Census Bureau's newest estimate is 668. While its neighbor Hayden grew about twelvefold since 1970, Hayden Lake grew from 260 people to under 700.

This is the story of a resort town that stayed small, and of the shared sewer plant that ties it to the fast-growing city next door.

A resort for Spokane

Hayden Lake was built as a getaway. In 1906, the electric railway that already ran from Spokane to Coeur d'Alene was extended out to the lake. That same year a group of Spokane businessmen paid $70,000 for 145 acres on the water, the Spokesman-Review reported. Their resort, the Bozanta Tavern, held its grand opening on July 20, 1907.

The first nine holes of golf opened that year. By 1912 the course had 18 holes, the first 18-hole course in Idaho. The Great Northern Railroad bought the resort in 1919. Coeur d'Alene families bought it in 1928, and it took the name Hayden Lake Country Club in 1985.

Wealth followed. The F. Lewis Clark mansion, built on the lake in 1910, was the most expensive home in Idaho at the time.

The town that stayed small

As cars replaced trains, business moved west to Government Way, and the post office followed to Hayden Village in 1959.

The city of Hayden Lake runs from the lake's west shore to a little west of Strahorn Road, according to Kootenai County. It had just 39 people in 1950. That jumped to 247 by 1960. After that, growth came slowly: 273 people in 1980, 494 in 2000, 649 in 2020, Census counts show. Since 2020, the Census Bureau estimates it has added fewer than 20 people.

What a home costs

Small towns are hard to measure. The Census Bureau's survey puts Hayden Lake's median home value at $792,700 and its median household income at $108,750, but both come with wide margins of error: plus or minus about $79,000 for home value and about $38,000 for income. Taken at face value, the typical home costs about seven years of the typical household's pay.

The pandemic pushed prices up across the county. In January 2021, the county's median home price was $415,000, up a third from a year earlier, and sales of homes over $1 million in the Idaho Panhandle more than doubled in 2020, the Spokesman-Review reported.

The sewer that ties it to Hayden

In 1976, voters created the Hayden Lake Recreational Water and Sewer District to protect the lake and the drinking water under it, according to the district's history. The district shares a website with the city but has its own board and staff.

In 1987, the district, the city of Hayden and Kootenai County built a shared treatment plant, run by the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board. At first, the lake district used about 76% of the system. As Hayden grew, that flipped. Today the lake district's share is 23.8%, Hayden's is 75.2%, and Kootenai County holds the remaining roughly 1%.

The partners have disagreed for years about paying for growth. In 2024, Hayden and the county moved to dissolve the board so Hayden could take full control of the plant, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported. At a heated meeting in January 2025, lake district representatives said they opposed charging for future expansion, and the two sides argued over the board's land on the Rathdrum Prairie. Mediation was set to start in December 2025, county commissioners were told. As of this story, we could not confirm the outcome.

Where it's headed

KMPO, the region's transportation planner, projects Hayden Lake will reach about 870 people by 2050, from about 667 now, and about 378 occupied homes, up from about 290.

A century after the Bozanta Tavern, Hayden Lake is still a lake town of a few hundred people. Live here? Tell us what you're seeing. Every number in this story names its source below.