Oct 15: Electric Light Bulb – Headed for Idaho

On October 15, 1878, Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Electric Light Company to provide funding for several development projects, including efforts that produced the first practical electric light bulb within about 15 months. He and his backers planned to recoup their investment through licensing fees and direct sales. (Photo: Edison light bulb, National Museum of American History.)

Along with his light bulb work, Edison developed systems to deliver electricity from a central source to illuminate streets, buildings, and residences. These systems and related components were sold or licensed by an array of companies Edison either founded himself or help found. Later these firms would be consolidated into what came to be the General Electric Company.

Idaho benefitted from Edison’s developments within a few short years. In 1879-80, silver and lead discoveries in the Wood River drainage set off a rush into the area. Ketchum and several other towns sprang up.

Then, in 1881, Eastern investors financed the construction of a smelter near Ketchum. Their “Philadelphia Smelter” was designed with all the latest technology available at the time: including its own electric power plant and distribution system. Thus, the smelter featured the first electric light illumination in the state. Before the decade ended, Hailey – just down the valley from Ketchum – would become the first Idaho town to have an electrical lighting system.


Thomas Parke Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930, The Johns Hopkins University Press (1993).

Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series No. 158 and 362.

Oct 14: Idaho Adjutant General Patch

Brigadier General Leroy Vernon Patch, twice Adjutant General for the state of Idaho, was born in Iowa on October 14, 1876.  He received a B.A. degree from the University of Nebraska, where he also played fullback on the football team and received military training. He moved to Payette, Idaho in 1902 and began a very successful career as a stock raiser, fruit farmer, and business executive.


He also took a strong interest in military affairs and in 1916 served with the Second Idaho Regiment along the Mexican border after the raids by Pancho Villa. Then, in 1918, he served with the heavy artillery in France, participating in several major actions, including the Second Battle of the Marne and at Verdun. After the war, he retired from the U. S. Army with the rank of full colonel. (Photo of a young L. V. Patch. Patch genealogy web site.)

Back in Idaho, he returned to service as Idaho’s Adjutant General. (The AG is considered the de facto commander of a state’s militia/National Guard, appointed by and reporting to the Governor.) He also served a term in in the state legislature, and on the Payette city council and board of education. He died in March 1965.

References: [Hawley]
L. V. Patch obituary, Ontario Argus-Observer, Ontario, Oregon (March 29, 1965).

Oct 11: Stock Thieves

On October 11, 1889, a north Idaho newspaper (the Idaho County Free Press in Grangeville or the Lewiston Morning Tribune) printed a report from the Salmon River area: “Armed with warrants, Frank Wyatt, John Hadorn, Wm. Shuck, Louis Sutton, and Fred Williamson rounded up three cattle thieves in Wallowa County and caught them red-handed with 45 head of beef cattle they had stolen from the Salmon-Snake divide. One of the party confessed to having stolen 44 head earlier in the summer, most of which he sold in Walla Walla.”

As an indication of the severity of this problem, earlier that same year the Idaho County Stock Growers' Association began offering a $100 reward for the arrest and conviction of cattle and horse thieves.

References: M. Alfreda Elsensohn, Eugene F. Hoy (ed.), Pioneer Days in Idaho County, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1951).

New Projects

 
While we waited for, and consulted with the visiting worker-bees mentioned in my “Problems & Frustrations” post [much earlier today], I’ve been writing the next installment of Idaho history for the South Fork Revue, and collecting more events for the “On This Day” database.

Also, as I waited for an answer from a publisher for the Idaho livestock history book (see THE BOOK page on the South Fork Revue), I started thinking about a new project. Then I was approached with an idea by Skip Myers -- I’ve mentioned him here on the blog before, and have a link to his “Idaho City Events” web page.

By an odd coincidence, he had heard about a request from a publisher to do a photographic history of Boise County (and therefore Idaho City). The publisher, Arcadia Publishing, has a series called “Images of America,” and this would be part of that.

No one at the Boise Basin Museum, nor people they knew, felt comfortable with the notion of tackling such a project. As you can tell from his web page, Skip is fascinated by the history of Idaho City and that region. However, the idea of creating an actual book rather flustered him … so he thought of me.

I already had a copy of Arcadia’s Idaho Falls title and found the concept very interesting -- particularly since I’ve done a fair amount of photo/text composition work with The Retort, the good-sized (18-22 pages) quarterly newsletter I co-edit and desktop-publish for the Idaho Academy of Science.

The Idaho Falls book basically has a page of background for each of its 10 chapters, and the rest is many pages of photographs with (usually) very detailed captions. Although Arcadia prefers to work with a local author, Skip and I felt we could team up for this project. Skip would do the local leg-work on the photos and anecdotes and I would organize the material and write the caption “glue” that holds everything together. (Of course, I do plan to visit over there and examine the materials myself, hopefully within the next month.)

I didn’t bring this subject up before because I wasn’t sure how things would go. Now, however, the preliminaries have gone very well, so I have started collecting references specific to that topic. The references I already had in hand have some information, but not as much as I’d like. (I was researching the livestock industry, not mining.)

Offhand, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble finding the 180-240 photos they typically want for their books. (Finding ones with good quality might be more of a challenge.) At this point there are no guarantees -- we still have to prepare a detailed proposal and have it accepted -- but I feel it’s definitely worth a shot.

(And I’ll post this as soon as I have my link back. It went down again 10-15 minutes ago. MUCH LATER: After being unconnected all day it’s back. Service man says it could be one of my DSL filters has gotten flakey.)

Problems & Frustrations

 
The past couple weeks have been hectic here at the Revue/Companion. Aside from having our patio deck rebuilt (Ouch$), we’ve also had repair guys tramping through our condo. In fact, I’m waiting right now for a telephone service person. Those who have followed this blog know that we lost our DSL connection back on Sept 20th. That was supposedly a phone-company system problem, and it got fixed. (But only after going through our ISP, the company that buys wire/fiber optic from the local phone company.)

Unfortunately, for the last day or so, the DSL line has been dropping out at random times. To understand the lack of reliability, picture me twisting my neck every so often to check the DSL and Internet lights on the modem box -- right now, they’re okay, a half hour ago … no luck. I posted today’s “On This Day” -- and later added a photo -- while I had a link. But, given recent history, who knows when it’ll go down again?

I started with the phone company, since it was their problem the last time. No go: The service lady said all their equipment was just dandy (?). Here we go again. Hardware and software on our end seemed okay -- the DSL modem itself has been working fine and is maybe 18 months old, practically new. So far as I can tell, the network software hasn’t changed (no “upgrades”) recently.

After much back-and-forth, “they” (whoever “they” are) decided there might be something wrong with the actual phone wires in our place. Not out of the question, I suppose: Terminals can get corroded, etc. after 20-odd years of use. Of course, the voice phone part seems fine, but that range of bandwidth may be more “forgiving” than the region that carries the DSL signal. Oh well, enough of that.

My next post -- depending upon when I finish writing it today and when I can enter it onto the blog -- will focus on opportunities.

Oct 8: First Ada County Fair

 
The Idaho Statesman for October 8, 1872 announced the “First Annual Fair” of the Ada County Agricultural Society, which was to be held in Boise City.

The Live Stock Department of the Fair had Divisions for horses and mules, cattle, sheep, hogs, and chickens. Top awards were offered for “Best full blood Bull,” “Best full-blooded Buck Sheep,” “Best Boar,” and “Best trio of Brahma Fowls.” Another Department had awards for “Products of the Soil” – grains, grass seed, potatoes, onions, fruits, flowers, etc. The Fair’s third Department covered “Domestic Manufacture and Home” – butter, breads, pickles, quilting, needlework, mineral samples, oil painting, blacksmith work, boot and shoe work, and more.
(Early county fair, Library of Congress photo.)

Today, this fair’s successor, the Western Idaho Fair sponsored by Ada County, has a huge number of events and ag-product classifications, and draws something like a quarter-million attendees.

Oct 2: Texas "battle," Idaho Falls fire

On October 2, 1835, a militia force from the region around the town of Gonzales, Texas (50-60 miles east of San Antonio) attacked a contingent of about 100 Mexican dragoons in what came to be called the “Lexington of Texas.” The immediate cause for the confrontation was a demand that the locals return a cannon that had been loaned to them as protection against attacks by Comanche Indians. (Accounts vary, but they all agree that the gun was little more than a showy noisemaker.)

 The broader issue was the increasingly dictatorial policies of Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna. This alienated American colonists as well as native Mexicans – colonists and natives alike expressed loyalty to the liberal Mexican Constitution of 1824. The settlers refused to return the cannon. Partly through fear that the Mexicans were expecting reinforcements, the militia attacked. In the ensuring minor skirmish, one Mexican soldier was killed and two settlers were slightly injured.
Although the “Battle of Gonzales” was of no consequence militarily, news of the clash basically triggered the Texas Revolution, which led to creation of the independent Republic of Texas in 1836. Then, annexation of Texas as the 28th U.S. state in December 1845 led to war with Mexico.

(“Come and take it” referred, of course, to the Gonzales cannon, but the flag illustrated here was almost certainly created after the battle.)


I discussed the two-fold connection between Mexican affairs and Idaho in my post of September 16: First, until the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the area roughly south of the Idaho-Oregon border and west of the Rockies was Mexican territory. Thus, American and British-Canadian fur trappers and later settlers (mostly Mormons) were technically trespassing on Mexican land. Second, when that region became U.S. territory, pioneer traffic through Idaho increased -- and then exploded when gold was discovered in California.

On October 2, 1903, the Idaho Falls Register (later the Time-Register and then today’s Post-Register) reported that the town had suffered a major fire in which most of a row of old frame buildings had been destroyed. This was hardly surprising, since much of the older parts of town consisted mostly of flimsy wood frame buildings and shacks, and old wooden boardwalks.

Of course, it could have been worse. Although Idaho Falls had had a fire department since 1885, it was not particularly well equipped and the town’s water system was generally inadequate. An even worse fire the following year burned more of the business district.

Encyclopedia Britannica from Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite (2008).

William C. Davis, Lone Star Rising: the Revolutionary Birth of the Republic of Texas, Texas A&M University Press (2006).

Mary Jane Fritzen, Idaho Falls, City of Destiny, Bonneville County Historical Society, Idaho Falls (1991).