Town of Franklin Accepts Being in Idaho and is Formally Incorporated [otd 01/10]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch. Family Archives.

On January 10, 1873, the Idaho Territorial legislature passed a “special act” to incorporate the village of Franklin. The Act defined the boundaries of the town, specified that it should have a mayoral form of government, and decreed that it should hold its first election “on or before the first Monday in August, A.D. 1873.” At that election, Mormon Bishop Lorenzo Hatch became the first mayor.

Franklin had begun as a normal extension of the Mormon colonies pushing north from Salt Lake and other already-settled areas. Outposts had appeared in Utah’s Cache Valley around 1855 and several towns, including Logan, were established by 1859.

In April 1860, thirteen Mormon families brought their animals and wagons to a spot not quite twenty miles north of Logan. The mountains provided wonderful scenic views, but the plains between interested them most. An abundance of streams flowed onto the flats. They could graze stock on the foothills while raising food and forage crops near the available water.

Franklin plains with mountain backdrop.

The settlers laid out a town and, about two months later, named it Franklin, in honor of LDS Apostle Franklin D. Richards. The village eventually came to be recognized as the first permanent settlement in the state of Idaho. Soon after laying out the town, the settlers dug irrigation ditches to divert water from the Cub River and its tributary creeks. Before the year was out, there would be around sixty families in residence.

The colonists also erected a log schoolhouse and recruited a pioneer’s daughter to start classes in the fall. Except for the missionary schools for Indian children in the Panhandle, the Franklin school thus set another first for Idaho. In 1863, Brigham Young moved Preston Thomas, the first Bishop of Franklin, to a post near Bear Lake and assigned Lorenzo Hatch as Franklin’s second Bishop.

At first, everyone, including the Idaho Territorial government, thought that Franklin and the other Mormon colonies were in Utah. Inhabitants there even voted in Utah elections. In fact, Charles C. Rich, founder of Paris, Idaho, and father of Amasa [blog, Oct 25], served in the Utah Territorial legislature.

Hatch House, Franklin, built in 1872.
Franklin Historic District.

Finally, in early 1872, an official survey defined the correct Idaho-Utah border: it runs about a mile south of Franklin. Despite this, people in the region continued to act like they were in Utah. For example, later that year their representatives attended a Utah constitutional convention, hoping to frame a document that would lead to Utah statehood. (It didn’t. Their memorial never even made it out of committee.)

Within a year or so, however, they reconciled themselves to their “new” status, especially after the legislature granted Franklin’s incorporation. In 1874, a narrow gauge railroad began service between Ogden and Franklin.

But the impact of the financial “Panic of '73” stalled further construction, so the town became a major terminus for stage lines and thousands of freight wagons running back and forth to Montana. That sparked a period of great commercial prosperity. Perhaps because of the local Mormon influence, Franklin apparently avoided the general lawlessness and violence often associated with being the “end of track.”

The tracks continued north in 1878, and Franklin was again simply a commercial center for livestock, dairy, and grain producers in the area. It was estimated to have a population of about 600 in 1918, roughly what it has today.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Jo Ann F. Hatch, Willing Hands: A Biography of Lorenzo Hill Hatch (1826-1910), Kymera Publishing Company, Pinedale, AZ (1996).

JMerlin R. Hovey, "An Early History of Cache County," Logan Journal, Logan, Utah (January 1923).

“Idaho's Boundary Dispute with Utah (1860-1872),” Reference Series No. 1016, Idaho State Historical Society (1993).

Boise Builder, Real Estate Developer, and Mayor Walter E. Pierce [otd 01/09]

Mayor Pierce. City of Boise.

Boise Mayor Walter E. Pierce was born January 9, 1860, in Bell County, Texas, between Waco and Austin. Indian unrest in that area forced the family to move to Kansas, where Walter’s father died that fall. The family spent the period of the Civil War and a couple years afterward near Vicksburg, Mississippi, before returning to Kansas.

With little education beyond “a course in a business college,” Walter found what work he could in Missouri and Kansas: sheep herder, hotel operator, railroad contractor, and, finally, real estate developer. Perseverance and natural talent eventually brought him notable success. However, falling farm prices and other outside factors crippled the Kansas economy in the late 1880s, so Pierce began to look elsewhere.

In Morton County, Kansas, Pierce had met John M. Haines and Lindley H. Cox. The three established the firm of W. E. Pierce & Company and moved to Boise City in 1890, shortly after Idaho became a state. Pierce and the firm would be a driving force in the city’s development for over half a century.

Walter quickly hit his stride as a real estate and business developer. He played a role in the Boise Rapid Transit Company, which built the city’s first electric trolley line in 1891. He soon rose to prominence in the city and was elected Mayor of Boise in 1895. Despite considerable nay-saying, he initiated the first street-paving program as well as other civic improvements that were later lauded as “the right thing to do.”

The Illustrated History, published in 1899, said “He was the most progressive mayor that Boise ever had, and under his management an immense stride was taken toward a more brilliant future.”

Idaho Building, ca 1918. J. H. Hawley.

In 1910, Pierce spearheaded construction of what many would later call Boise’s first skyscraper, the Idaho Building. The Idaho Statesman observed that the six-story structure, tall for its day, “towers above its neighbors like a mountain peak.”

Pierce and his company also expanded the interurban railway system to encompass most of the Boise Valley. They knew well that rail service added significant value to their real estate holdings and allowed them to turn properties over much more quickly. (The interurban system was dismantled in 1928, after automobiles became more common.)

Pierce also became interested in some mining properties along the Gold Fork River, about sixteen miles south of McCall. He and two associates incorporated the Gold Fork Mining Company (Idaho Statesman, January 19, 1916) and planned to dredge in the area. However, the advent of World War I caused manpower shortages and increased costs, so little seems to have come from that investment. 

Still, Pierce’s primary developments continued to be home and building construction. The Hotel Boise, completed in 1930, was among the most important. It’s Historic Place nomination noted that the “reinforced concrete, eleven-story edifice was the tallest commercial structure in Boise for a generation.”

In 1947, Pierce sold a home he had built in 1914 to the state of Idaho for use as a Governor’s Mansion. Four years later, Pierce passed away and was buried in Boise’s Morris Hill Cemetery. The fine house served as the Governor’s home for over forty years until it no longer met the state’s needs and was sold at auction.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Arthur Hart, “Idaho history: 1910 was a big building year for Boise,” Idaho Statesman (April 11, 2010).

Kyle True, “Walter E. Pierce House,” Boise Architecture Project, online (2009).

Outdoorsman, Writer, Photographer, and Game Warden Otto Jones [otd 01/08]

Outdoorsman Otto Jones.
J. H. Hawley photo.

Photographer and journalist Otto M. Jones was born January 8, 1886 on a ranch near Dillon, Montana. Two years later, the family relocated to a sheep ranch about twelve miles northwest of Boise City. They moved into the city about 1892.

Rather than attending high school in Boise, Otto went to a military academy in Virginia for a year and then spent two years in prep school at Washington State College (now University). He traveled around a bit, and then settled for two years in Ashland, Oregon. During this period, Jones began making his living as a writer, publishing articles on hunting, fishing, and other outdoor sports.

In 1909, Otto returned to Boise, where he began to record photographs of outdoor life and scenery to illustrate his articles. By 1902, his stock of photos had “more than twenty-five hundred negatives” on file. The Library of Congress catalog notes that several hundred of his vintage images are archived in their files.

Fisherman and lady photographer on Big Creek. Otto M. Jones photo, Library of Congress.

Jones was an outstanding skeet shooter, winning or placing high in many city and regional matches. He also served as an official for professional boxing and wrestling bouts. (Professional wrestling was then "straight," not a show.) His sports knowledge and credibility were such that the Idaho Statesman reported (April 26, 1916), “One of the best drawing cards for the Friday night wrestling match … will be the referee, Otto Jones.”

Otto’s sporting articles, with photographs, appeared in national publications, such as Field & Stream magazine. He also submitted material to the Idaho Statesman in Boise. For a time, he “owned” a page or two of the Sunday edition. His spread for Sunday, April 21, 1918 was about “Motor Touring” in the West. His text surely invoked nostalgic memories for many still-living pioneers. His comments about the old mining camps ring true today. He said, “These fast disappearing camps fairly teem with sentiments and reveries for the traveler who halts long enough in his whirling pilgrimage to explore and conjecture as to the life of the ghost towns … ”

Shotgun Rapids, Salmon River, Idaho. Otto M. Jones photo, Library of Congress.

In January 1919, Idaho Governor D. W. Davis appointed Jones to be the top state Fish & Game Warden. As game warden, Jones published an appraisal of wild game conservation in the West. Although he had only estimates, the impact of large predators on the game population was a major concern. He did have numbers for predation of domestic livestock, which were often turned loose to graze on mountain and forest rangeland. A kill rate of 4-5% amounted to hundreds of thousands of animals each year. In hindsight, one may conclude that the predator population was kept artificially high by the presence of so much relatively easy prey.

But most ranchers trailed their herds onto fenced lowland pastures to be fed through the winter. At that point, attacks on game animals would increase substantially. Jones recommended a more effective program for predator control, but also had harsh words for ranchers whose herds over-grazed the mountain forage: “It is foolish to expect wild animals to subsist on ranges that have been eaten into the ground by domestic stock during the summer months.”

Jones held the Idaho Game Warden position into 1923. After that, he continued to freelance and also held educational and contract photography positions in Oregon and Washington. He passed away in August 1941 from an apparent heart attack.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley]

“First Idaho Game Law when Buffalo Ran Wild,” Idaho Statesman, Boise (March 11, 1919).

“Otto M. Jones, Photographer, Dies at Home,” The Seattle Times, Washington (August 27, 1941).

Otto M. Jones, “Problems Encountered in Big Game Conservation,” Bulletin of the American Game Protective Association, Vol. 11, No. 2, New York, New York (April 1922).

"Sports Magazine is Planned," Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon (July 24, 1924).

Fur Trader and Pioneer Cattleman Johnny Grant [otd 01/07]

Johnny Grant.
National Park Service photo.

On January 7, 1833, John Francis “Johnny” Grant was born in Alberta, Canada. At the time, his father, Richard, was a clerk working for the British-Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). John’s mother died when he was eighteen months old. Richard took a furlough and escorted Johnny and his siblings to live with a grandmother in Quebec.

The Company soon promoted Richard to a Chief Trader position at a post in central Canada. He moved to the Columbia District in the Pacific Northwest around 1840. Two years earlier, the HBC had bought Idaho’s Old Fort Hall [blog, January 29]. Richard took over management of the Fort in 1842. When traffic increased on the Oregon Trail, he began trading fresh stock for worn-out emigrant cattle.

Around 1845, Richard decided to bring his children west. If his aging mother took sick or died, there would be no one to look after Johnny and the others. Arrangements and their travel took some time, but John Francis arrived at Fort Hall early in the summer of 1847.

For various reasons, Johnny did not get along with his father at first and moved out on his own when he felt able – in about 1850. He took very well to "mountain man" life. Still a teenager, he even acquired an Indian “wife,” a woman who had run away from an abusive Indian husband. And he made many friends among the small remaining community of white fur trappers as well as the various tribes in the area.

Along with that, Johnny supported himself by dealing with Trail emigrants. In his memoir, Grant said, “Every summer we went on the road to trade with these newcomers at Soda Springs. I traded for lame cattle and they were always the best, because somehow the best got lame the quickest.”

As time passed, he reconciled with his father. When Richard’s resignation from the HBC became effective in 1853, they worked together to build up a fair-sized herd. These bands were the first significant cattle holdings in what would become the state of Idaho.

Cattle allowed to drink. Library of Congress.

In 1857, Johnny wintered in the Deer Lodge Valley of Montana, and then returned to Idaho. (By this time Richard’s health had deteriorated and he retired from the business.) For a time, he sold horses and cattle to the U. S. Army forces sent to assert Federal authority in Utah Territory. Grant returned to Montana in 1859 and built a ranch house in the Deer Lodge area.

John generally got along well with the native inhabitants, and one of his Indian wives (he apparently had several) was sister to Tendoy, a powerful chief of the Lemhi Shoshones. However, clashes between whites and Indians had become more common, and it seems likely Johnny moved to Montana to avoid getting caught up in those disputes. Grant continued to build up his cattle and horse herds in Montana.  However, when his wife died in 1866, he sold his holdings to stockman Conrad Kohrs and moved back to Canada. He died there in 1907.

Starting from the herd established by Grant, Kohrs became one of the first Montana “cattle kings.” In 1870, his crews drove two thousand head of cattle across Idaho and then turned east through Wyoming into Nebraska. The Kohrs ranch operated successfully into the next century. Its core facilities form the basis for today’s Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

John N. Albright, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Historic Resource Study, National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/grko/hrs/hrsi.htm (March 6, 1999: last update).

John Francis Grant, Lyndel Meikle (ed.), Very Close To Trouble: The Johnny Grant Memoir, Washington State University Press, Pullman (1996).

“John Grant Biographical Sketch,” Provincial Archives of Alberta, ArchivesCanada.ca (online resource).

Army Scout, Yellowstone Park Protector and Ashton Postmaster Felix Burgess [otd 01/06]

Army scout and Fremont County postmaster Felix Burgess was born January 6, 1847 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father, an immigrant from northern France, moved the family from Reading to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1856. After a brief time there, they moved on to Sauk Rapids, a town about 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

Scout Burgess. [French]

For reasons he never explained, Felix ran away from home when he was about ten years old. He was taken in by an Army captain at Fort Ripley, about 40 miles north of the family home. Thus, Burgess began his long career as an Army scout in the Dakota Indian War of 1862. Captured by a band of Indians, he was rescued just before he could be tortured to death. Despite the close call, he continue as a scout in northern Minnesota and in the Dakotas for about five years.

Burgess was next transferred to Fort Vancouver, in Washington Territory. He almost certainly took part in the Snake War, in western Idaho and eastern Oregon when Lieutenant Colonel George Crook was placed in charge [blog, November 25]. He then followed Crook to Arizona to battle Apache Indians.

He had a brief peaceful period in 1874, scouting for the geographical survey team led by Lieutenant George M. Wheeler. But for the next fifteen years or so, he would take part in conflicts with Indian tribes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Finally, in the summer of 1891, Burgess joined the Army contingent in charge at Yellowstone National Park [blog, March 1]. His main job was to track down poachers, who by this time were having a severe impact on the Park’s elk and buffalo herds. Thus, in 1893, he was featured in a watercolor created by Frederic Remington used as the basis for an illustration for the article “Policing Yellowstone,” published in Harper’s Weekly.

The following year, in March, Felix Burgess made a contribution to the Park’s future that echoes down to the present day. He caught a notorious poacher literally “red handed.” Coincidentally, a staff writer for the magazine Forest and Stream was visiting the Park just then.

Burgess Finding a Ford. Frederic Remington

The resulting publicity sparked legislation that made poaching in the Park a Federal crime. Before that, the Army could only confiscate the poacher’s gear (a legally questionable practice, actually) and expel them from the Park. Penalties under the new law included up to two years in prison and a $1,000 fine (over $29,000 in today’s values).

Besides his Army duties, Burgess also served two years as a Deputy U. S. Marshall for the district of Wyoming. He stayed with the Army until 1899 when, now over fifty years old, he decided it was time to settle down (he had married in 1892). He first tried farming on land northwest of St. Anthony, Idaho, but quickly found that that was not for him. He then opened a store along the main stage route about six miles northeast of St. Anthony.

In early 1905, Felix was appointed postmaster for an office in Squirrel, a tiny settlement about twenty miles northeast of St. Anthony. However, in late 1906, the railroad built a station that quickly became the village of Ashton. Within about a year, Burgess opened a hotel in the new town. Then, in December 1909, he was appointed postmaster for Ashton, a position he held until the spring of 1915.

Burgess operated a grocery store in Ashton until November 1919. He then sold that and he and his wife moved to Ocean Beach, a coastal suburb of San Diego, California. Felix passed away there in January 1921.
                                                                           

References: [French]

“[Felix Burgess News],” Daily Pioneer, Deadwood, South Dakota; Teton Peak-Chronicle, St. Anthony, Idaho; Idaho Statesman, Boise; San Diego Union, San Diego, California (July 1878 – January 1921).

Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (retrieved, December 2018).

Glade Lyon, Ashton, Idaho: The Centennial History, 1906-2006, Waking Lion Press, West Valley, Utah (2006).

Catherine McNicol Stock, Robert D. Johnston (eds.), The Countryside in the Age of the Modern State, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York (2001).

Lewiston Normal School Receives its First Students [otd 01/06]

On Monday, January 6, 1896, Lewiston State Normal School – today’s Lewis-Clark State College – opened its doors to receive its first students. That event was a key milestone on the long path to establishing a teacher’s college in the town.

Young students with teacher, ca 1892. Arizona State University.

The second session of the Territorial Legislature, in 1864, passed a “common” school law, but the system developed slowly at first. In fact, most of the earliest local schools were private ventures, or established by churches. Still, by 1880 the system had grown enough that the legislature created two formal school districts, one in Boise City, the other in Lewiston.

A decade later, schools statewide had grown even further, and many regions began to experience a shortage of qualified teachers. In fact, far too many teachers were hired simply because they would accept the meager salaries offered. Local school boards turned a blind eye to their lack of training.

That pressure continued to build, and received further impetus in 1892 when the University of Idaho greeted its first students [blog, Oct 3]. The public school system failed to provide even one student who was qualified to begin college-level classes. (The University would continue to offer prep-school classes for over twenty years.)

Thus, the 1893 Idaho legislature authorized a Normal school in Lewiston: “Normal” schools taught the “norms and standards” of primary-school teaching. To gain support from the southern counties, that same session authorized a Normal school in Albion. Neither school, however, received any state funding at that time.

Anxious to exploit the opportunity, Lewistonians donated some mostly-vacant land on the hill that overlooked the town itself. Then private citizens dug into their own pockets for some early planning and site preparation. However, not until 1895 did the legislature issue bonds to fund construction, and the building was not completed until May of the following year.

While they waited for their building, school administrators leased the second floor of a store in town and remodeled it into space suitable for Normal school classes. It was here the three faculty members, two men and a woman, greeted 46 students on January 6. Between them, the three taught a basic curriculum: English, Latin, history, civics, physiology, commercial arithmetic, mathematics, elocution, pedagogy, commercial law, and physical education.

Lewiston State Normal School, before 1917. J. H. Hawley Photo.

Soon, the Normal School’s graduates were spread all over the state. They had to be well prepared with a broad and thorough education. Until the 1920s, one-room schools served well over half of Idaho’s primary students. In those districts, the lone Lewiston (or Albion) Normal-trained teacher was often the only person who actually knew how a school should be set up and run.

However, in the late 1920s the “Normal School” concept began to give way to a new “teacher's college” approach. By 1935, only five old-style Normal schools remained in the U. S. … and two of those were in Idaho. But financial and political infighting prevented any change in their status. Finally, in 1943, the legislature granted them four-year status: They were the last two-year teachers’ schools to make the change.

Operating as North Idaho College of Education, the school still faced opposition. It was shut down in 1951, but – plagued by a calamitous shortage of qualified teachers – the state re-opened it four years later as Lewis-Clark Normal School. It finally became Lewis-Clark State College in 1971.
                                                                           

References: [French], [Hawley]

Keith C. Petersen, Educating in the American West: One Hundred Years at Lewis-Clark State College, 1893-1993, Confluence Press, Lewiston, Idaho (© Lewis-Clark State College, 1993).

Silver City Merchant and Postmaster M. M. Getchell [otd 01/05]

Meserve Getchell.
Directory of Owyhee County.

On January 5, 1868, Postmaster Meserve M. Getchell was born in Baring, Maine, on the Canadian border and perhaps 25 miles inland from the Bay of Fundy. Mr. Getchell had a distinguished ancestry: his great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution and his mother was a Mayflower descendant.

He grew up on a farm, then found work in a sawmill as a teenager. Wanting something better, he clerked for a short while, then moved south into New Hampshire. After less than a year of working in a shoe factory, he decided to head west.

Getchell arrived in Silver City during the summer of 1889. By then, both mining and stock raising drove the economy of Owyhee County; Silver City was a thriving community. Meserve landed a job as a clerk in the drug store and also assisted an uncle at the post office. Late that year, the uncle bought the Idaho Hotel and Getchell took a position as clerk there.

Around 1892-1893, Meserve herded sheep on range north of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. (Records don’t say, but it’s possible Getchell’s uncle received a flock in the transaction for the hotel.) He then returned to Silver City and worked in a mill while also helping out at his uncle’s hotel.

In late 1893, Meserve received a temporary appointment to fill the postmaster’s position in Silver City. The following year, President Grover Cleveland made the appointment official for a full term. Meserve had clearly done a fine job: Cleveland, a Democrat, would not ordinarily appoint a staunch Republican to such a position. (Meserve later served as chairman of the Republican Central Committee for Owyhee County.)

Silver City Post Office, Courthouse next door.
Directory of Owyhee County.

Not content with just the postal business, Getchell stocked his shop with candy, tobacco products, stationery, and other notions. He also hired his younger brother Asher to help with the operation. In 1897, President William McKinley, a Republican, appointed Meserve for another term as postmaster

The following year, Meserve also became part owner of the Idaho Hotel. He had to find new help at the post office shop, since Asher went to work in the drug store. In fact, Asher remained in the drugstore business for over thirty years, including stays in Boise City and then Twin Falls.

Meserve married in 1891, but their one child died in 1893 and his wife passed away four years later. He remarried in 1898. Mining around Silver City peaked about 1900 and then began a steady decline. (Most of the mines would be closed by 1912.)

In late 1905, Meserve received a surprise. Another Silver City businessman had politicked behind the scenes to block Getchell’s reappointment as postmaster and get the job for himself. The Idaho Statesman observed that all this had happened “before Mr. Getchell knew any one was after his job.”

After the other man was appointed, Meserve sold his store and residence and shortly thereafter moved to Seattle. There, along with his brother-in-law, he invested in a sand and gravel business. Census records show that by 1910 Merserve was the company President, and that he and his wife had made a home for Getchell’s parents.

Getchell remained as President of the sand and gravel business until his death in April 1923, at the fairly early age of 55.
                                                                                 

References: [Illust-State]

A Historical, Descriptive and Commercial Directory of Owyhee County, Idaho, Owyhee Avalanche Press (January 1898).

“Owyhee County,” Reference Series No. 336, Idaho State Historical Society.