Sanders, Idaho — Thirty Homes Are Plenty for a Community

Sanders sits about seven miles east of Tensed in the Coeur d'Alene Reservation country of Benewah County.

For such a small place, we have an unusually concrete modern description. County wildfire planning counts roughly thirty homes and sixty to seventy structures in the community, surrounded primarily by agricultural land with hardwoods and conifers around the edges.

That tells us more than a population estimate alone. Sanders is a cluster of neighbors spread across rural acreage, substantial enough that emergency planners have to think about how wildfire would move through it.

The community also appears in Benewah County's historical accounts alongside other settlements near Tensed and De Smet.

Thirty homes will never produce much of a skyline. In rural Idaho, they can produce a perfectly real community.