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The Bates Motel

11/27/2020

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If you’ve seen the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho starring Janet Leigh, you probably think of it every time you step into a motel shower. That stabbing music—and that stabbing—tend to stick in the brain.
 
An entrepreneur in Coeur d’Alene either decided to take advantage of the movie’s fame by naming his lodging site the Bates Motel, after the one in the movie, or he happened to be named Bates (possibly Randy Bates), and simply took advantage of the coincidence. Alert readers in Coeur d’Alene will have opinions.
 
In any case any connection to the movie or the more recent TV series named Bates Motel is tangential at best. There is a rumor, retold endlessly in blurbs such as this one, that Robert Bloch, the man who wrote the book Psycho once stayed at the motel. Good luck chasing that down. Another rumor says that the very Psycho-like sign (photo) that encouraged people to spend the night there for many years was made by a movie production company that used the motel for a movie, or maybe just stayed there.
 
Gosh, what if they stayed in room 1 or room 3? Did the ashtrays move inexplicably? Did they feel a chill in the air?
 
Yes, the other thing the Bates Motel was famous for was that it was allegedly haunted, those rooms holding most of the hauntings. There doesn’t seem to be a death associated with the hauntings, so just random ghosts, I guess.
 
The old motel was originally officer’s quarters at the Farragut Naval Training Station. Maybe. Many old buildings in the area started out there, so that’s not far-fetched.
 
About the only thing we can say for sure about the Bates Motel once at 2018 E. Sherman Ave., is that it is no longer called that. It’s the Lighthouse, now. No word on whether or not the ghosts moved out in disgust when the name changed.

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    Author, Speaker

    Rick Just has been writing about Idaho history since 1989 when he wrote and recorded scripts for the Idaho Centennial Commission’s daily radio program, Idaho Snapshots. His latest book on Idaho history is Images of America, Idaho State Parks. Rick also writes a regular column for the Idaho Press.

    Rick does public presentations on Idaho's state park history and the history of the Morrisite war for the Idaho Humanities Council's Speakers Bureau.
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