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History of the Chambers House


On September 26, 1904, the town of Pinedale was founded when the first plat was drawn from property donated by two local ranchers, Mr. Charles Petersen and Mr. Robert Graham. 
At the same time Mr. Petersen donated four of the new town lots, on the northeast corner of Franklin Avenue and Mill Street, for a school and construction began immediately.

This first schoolhouse would serve the community until 1912 when it was abandoned in order to construct a bigger school for the growing community. The original schoolhouse was moved by Mr. L. H. Hennick to lots on the corner of Magnolia Street and Maybel Avenue. This was the first addition to the town and used as a residence. This first schoolhouse is now the dining room and kitchen in the Chambers House Bed and Breakfast.

Mr. Hennick added two rooms to the house and rented it until the ownership transferred to his daughter, Angeline, and son-in-law, Mr. C. C. Feltner. Mr. Feltner added a garage to the north of the house, and an extension south of the original schoolhouse, creating most of the house as it stands today.


 The south extension was built in 1933, the depths of the Great Depression. Mr. Feltner took advantage of local building materials creating much of the charm in the house today.

From the local forest he pulled the logs which still encase the entire home and river rocks from Pine Creek were used in the Master Bedroom fireplace. The local blacksmith's hand-made window handles are located throughout the house.

The interior was finished with a lime plaster, hung by hand. Mr. Feltner was the architect and the engineer for his home. 
Wayne Felter on Horseback
Felter Family photo
 Around the corner from the Feltner home, in the old log building on 21 North Franklin Street, was the Trails Hotel. When this establishment was full for the night, guests were often sent over to the Feltner home to spend the night in one of the four bedrooms upstairs. In the 1930s, one of these unexpected guests to sleep in what is now the "Red Room" was Mr. William Henry Jackson, the famous early photographer of the American West.

During the Second World War the Feltner home had a large Victory Garden in the yard west of the house. Such gardens were considered patriotic. During the war years, fresh food from commercial farms was sent overseas to our troops and to the citizens in starving war-torn countries. Americans who provided gardens for their own consumption were making commercial food available for shipping overseas.

After the Second World War the Feltner family moved to a ranch on Pole Creek, selling the home to Mr. Paul Ziegler, an attorney. Mr. Ziegler had his law office in the front of the home. He sold the home in 1952 to Bill and Magdeleine "Toots" Bloom, whose parents were both in the hotel business, and therefore in competition. Bill's parents owned the Bloom Hotel while Toots' folks ran the Pinedale Inn. The hotel business was good for matchmaking in the 1940s. Bill and Toot's brother and sister also married.


In 1957, Andy Harrower purchased the house. In the 1960s, an additional room was added above the kitchen, which was the original schoolhouse. The home remained in the Harrower family until the 1980s when Miss Helen Chambers purchased it.

Miss Chambers completely renovated the home, adding bathrooms but maintaining most of the original home in its original plan. 
Jep Richie with first cutter team in Pinedale
After Miss Helen Chambers death in 1994, her niece, Ms. Ann Chambers Noble, took over the home and turned it into a Bed and Breakfast, naming it The Chambers House. In 2003, Ms. Noble added an additional apartment to the second floor of the home on the north end. It continues to operate as a bed and breakfast today.

Photo 1 - Wayne Felter on the horse, Midnight, in front of the house. Note the homemade teeter totter in the yard. 

Photo 2 - C.C. and Angeline Feltner with their six children in the house living room. 

Photo 3 - Jep Richie with his first cutter team, Sis and Lightning Star, in 1954 town cutter races. Photo from Sommers Family Collection.