Idaho’s public school endowment made $15.65 million on Friday when the state auctioned off 35 lakefront cabin sites on Priest Lake – with every one of them purchased at the appraised price by the cabin owners. There was no competitive bidding on any of the lots at Friday’s auction at the Coeur d’Alene Resort; my full story is online here at spokesman.com.

Three more lots that were up for auction, two of them leased and one unleased, drew no bids. The lots that sold went for an average of just over $447,000; the three unsold ones were appraised at $400,000 $465,000 and $460,000. That’s just for the ground, and doesn’t include the structures that lessees have built on the properties during the decades that Idaho has leased them out as cabin sites. If someone other than the cabin owner had been the high bidder, that person would have had to buy the structure from the cabin owner, in addition to buying the lot from the state. The highest-priced parcel in the auction, on South Hunt Creek Road in Coolin, went for $643,000; the lowest-priced, on Upper Bear Creek Bay Road, also in Coolin, went for $341,000.

Idaho has now auctioned off 161 cabin sites, about a third of its inventory, at Priest Lake and Payette Lake; the auctions have generated more than $67 million.  The move comes as the state gradually moves to get out of the cabin site-renting business, which generated dissent and lawsuits over the years as the state tried to meet its constitutional requirement to get maximum returns from the lands, amid fights over what constituted fair rent for the ground and complaints from lessees when rents shot up.

The proceeds from the Priest Lake auctions all go to the public school endowment, which owned the sites. The proceeds from the Payette Lake auctions go to the public school endowment; the State Hospital South endowment; and the Normal School endowment, which supports teacher education programs at Idaho State University and Lewis-Clark State College, depending on which endowment owned those particular lots.

The Idaho Department of Lands has another auction set for Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. at the Coeur d’Alene Resort for nine unleased cabin sites at Priest Lake; those are sites where the cabin owners didn’t want to or couldn’t afford to continue their leases, and found other buyers interested in bidding on both the cabin and the ground, though anyone can bid. On Nov. 13 in Boise, more than 20 cabin sites at Payette Lake, including both leased and unleased lots, will be auctioned. There’s more information at the Idaho Department of Lands website, www.idl.idaho.gov.