BOISE -- St. Maries Rep. Dick Harwood cast the only vote Tuesday against a bill updating the list of Idaho's state parks, saying he objected to adding the name of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe to Old Mission State Park at Cataldo.

"We just changed history," said Harwood, who has been critical of the tribe. "Father Cataldo was the priest that built the place, it was named after him for 100 years. ... I think it should stay as it has been in history. I don't agree with it, I just don't agree with it."

Actually, the mission was built by members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe along with Father Anthony Ravalli, a Jesuit priest from Italy who designed the graceful structure in the late 1840s. Later, Father Joseph Cataldo made the mission, then known as the Mission of the Sacred Heart, his headquarters when he was appointed superior of the Rocky Mountain Mission in 1877.

Cataldo's influence on the area was so great that the nearby community of Cataldo was named in his honor, and his name often was associated with the old mission building. Cataldo went on to found Gonzaga University in 1881.

The first mission building was constructed near the current site in 1846, at the direction of Father Pierre DeSmet.

But the reason Old Mission State Park has been renamed Coeur d'Alene's Old Mission State Park has to do with both history and modern-day facts -- like the fact that it's the property of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.

"It's their land and their mission," state Parks and Recreation Director Rick Collingnon said. "I think it's wonderful that the Coeur d'Alenes want to share it."

Tribal officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The mission originally was built on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, but then the reservation borders were moved. The Catholic Church took ownership of the mission property, and 28 years ago leased it to the state of Idaho as Old Mission State Park. Then, more than a decade ago, the church turned the land over to the U.S. Department of Interior to be held in trust for the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.

A local citizens group, headed by Harry Magnuson, has been raising funds for a new $1.8 million visitor center at the park to house the traveling "Sacred Encounters" exhibit, which tells the history of the tribe and the mission. The fund-raising is nearly complete.

As part of that project, the state and the tribe agreed to a new 25-year lease, and the lease added "Coeur d'Alene's" to the existing official state name, Old Mission State Park.

"It seems to be very fitting -- it's on their land," Collingnon said. "We have a great partnership with the tribe."

The bill updating the list of Idaho's state parks, HB 65, which also includes the names of eight parks around the state that have been added since the list was last updated years ago, passed the House late last week on a 66-1 vote and is now pending in the Senate.

Harwood, the only dissenter, said he also objected to inclusion in the list of the "Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes," which runs along abandoned Union Pacific Railroad right of way.

"It's not complete, actually," Harwood said. "A lot of it is private ground which has not been settled in court yet. ... It runs through wetlands."

Collingnon said the trail project has been in the works for a decade. An agreement between Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and Coeur d'Alene Tribal Chairman Ernie Stensgar two years ago formalized the project, and the railroad has reconstructed bridges, built rest stops and parking areas and paved the trail. "The public started to use it," Collingnon said.

The railroad still is completing some certifications and landowner records, Collingnon said, and a bridge remains to be completed at Chatcolet. That work is scheduled to be completed this summer.

"But it's substantially completed and the public is using it, so we've started the process of maintaining it as a trail," he said.

Harwood, whose new legislative district includes the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, has criticized the tribe on a variety of fronts. In the fall of 2001, he sent a letter to the state Department of Commerce protesting the awarding of an economic development grant to the tribe. The previous winter, he cast the deciding vote in committee to kill a bill to remove the derogatory word "squaw" from Idaho place names, after tribal members testified that the word was "very, very offensive."

"I don't think the word is derogatory," Harwood said then.

Last spring, as he campaigned for election in his new district, Harwood said he looked forward to representing the tribe in the Legislature.

"I have some problems with their form of government, but I enjoy the people, I like the people," he said.