Pioneer Miner, Merchant, and Stockman Orville P. Johnson [otd 08/10]

Western pioneer and Idaho freighter and stockman Orville Payne Johnson was born August 10, 1832, somewhere in Tennessee. Orphaned young, he knew his parents only by their first names, William and Sarah. Still, he somehow had the wherewithal to become a Forty-Niner, taking the isthmus route to the California gold fields. “O. P.” made a small fortune mining, but the raw teen-ager frittered it away in the dives and gambling dens of San Francisco.

O. P. Johnson. [French]

He almost quit and returned home. But he stuck it out, and did well enough to again celebrate in San Francisco, being much more careful this time around. He was in that city in 1854 when “General” William Walker, a fellow Tennessean, was recruiting men for the conquest – filibuster – of Nicaragua. O.P. was wise enough to stay out of that too. He spent the next decade all over Northern California, the Pacific Northwest, and the northern Rockies. His first entry into Idaho came in 1862, at Lewiston and Elk City.

During the summer of 1864, O.P. bought mules in Oregon and Washington and began a substantial freight operation, running out of The Dalles. He continued that for over a year, mostly taking freight into Boise City and the gold camps of the Boise Basin. Then he sold the freight outfit, bought a herd of cattle, and established a ranch on the Snake River about ten miles below the mouth of the Boise River.

The ranch prospered, but Johnson sold the entire operation in 1873 so he could find a more healthful climate for his ailing wife. (He had married in 1864.) That must have worked, because they were back the following year, living in Boise. For a short time, he ran a meat market in the city, probably while he acquired enough range land for a big ranch. Within a short time, he began trailing herds of surplus cattle into Wyoming for shipment east. His drive to Rawlins in the summer of 1880 included about 4,000 head.

In 1883-1884, the Oregon Short Line completed a railroad across Idaho. Thus, in 1884, Johnson moved his operation to the Hagerman Valley. In addition to his range there, he ran about 2,000 head of cattle on the Camas Prairie, north and east of Fairfield. He continued there for well over a decade, developing a reputation as one of the premier cattlemen in the region.

Cattle Roundup, 1887-1892. Library of Congress.

During his time there, he experienced his only period as a public servant. In 1885, Governor Edward Stevenson [blog April 27] persuaded him to serve a four-year term on the commission for the state Insane Asylum. O. P. found the job “distasteful,” but felt it was his public duty to serve.

In a major turn-around, in the spring of 1897, Johnson sold off a portion of his cattle and began buying sheep. He acquired around 10,000 head in one transaction in October. Although he considered sheep a mere sideline, he noted that they offered a “quicker profit” than cattle. Ironically, the aging stockman ran afoul of the old “Two Mile Limit” law [blog, December 13]. His sheepherders let the flock get too close to a cattle ranch and O. P. ended up paying a fine.

Johnson finally retired in 1906, selling off the Hagerman operation and moving back to Boise. After that, he and his wife spent their winters in San Diego, California. Orville died there in February 1916 and his body was returned to the Hagerman Valley for burial.
                                                                                 

References: [French]

“[OP Johnson News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise (July 1873 – February 1916).

Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (2002).