February of 1912, Charles Charbonneau began construction on the Hotel Charbon-neau. The Northern Idaho News in Sandpoint described the new building, which was apparently designed and constructed by Charbonneau himself:
C.C. Charbonneau, a prominent business man of Priest River, was in
the city [Sandpoint] Saturday. Mr. Charbonenau [sic] has just started
the work on a new hotel which he will erect in Priest River. The
building [will] be a modern and up-to-date building in every respect.
It will cover a space 50 x 50 feet, and a part of the structure, 30 x 50,
will be three stories in height. It will have steam heat and electric
light and all the conveniences usually found in a first class hotel. Mr.
Charbonneau expects to open the house about the first of May.
(Northern Idaho News 27 February 1912).
Constructed on the west side of Wisconsin Street (between present U.S. Highway No. 2 and the county bridge crossing the Pend Oreille River at the southern terminus of Wisconsin Street), the new hotel occupied a prominent position in Priest River's commercial/business center, as well as being advantageously situated near both the Great Northern Railway Depot and the Pend Oreille River ferry crossing. An unimpeded view of downtown Priest River to the northeast, and a spectacular sweep of river and mountains to the south and east, greeted guests from the hotel's choice second and third-story façade rooms.
Charles Charbonneau served as proprietor of the hotel until 1914 when Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Fischer of Spokane "closed a deal to lease Hotel Charbonneau, one of the best known hostelries in northern Idaho" (Priest River Times 24 September 1914). The Fischer's management of the hotel was, however, short-lived. By May of 1915, Charles Charbonneau's ex-wife Dora, had assumed management of the hotel. (An adventurous and enterprising woman, when only fifteen years of age, the future Dora Charbonneau emigrated alone from Germany to the United States.) Under her direction, the Hotel Charbonneau soon became Priest River's elite hotel. It was reportedly the only hotel in the city which did not allow prostitution. The hotel catered to the wealthy and to a traveling clientele, rather than regular boarders. In 1920 Dora Charbonneau hired local builder P. J. Young to construct an $8,000 three-story, fifteen-room brick addition on the south side of the original hotel. In September of 1920 the Priest River Times commented on the public's reaction to the new addition: "Almost every one that comes to town has some favorable comment to make about the improvement a building of this kind makes in the general appearance of the town" (Priest River Times 2 September 1920).
Dora Charbonneau continued to run the hotel until the mid 1940's, when the hotel was sold to Bob and Lorraine Schafer, who renamed the hotel the "Lorraine Hotel." After selling the hotel, Dora Charbonneau left Priest River for Spokane, where she apparently resided until her death. Over the years, with the emergence of the popularity of motels, improved highway transportation systems, and attendant increased mobility by the driving public, the Hotel Charbonneau's role as a social and commercial center steadily declined, eventually ending with the hotel's abandonment in 1989. In August of 1990, the Hotel Charbonneau was purchased for $50,000.00 by Priest River Restoration and Revitalization Inc. (PRRRC), a citizen's group which plans to rehabilitate the seventy-nine year-old hotel to a combination bed-and-breakfast inn and apartments for senior citizens.
From the NRHP Registration Form