Merchant, Mining Investor, Rancher, and Public Servant Alexander McKinlay [otd 02/20]

Pioneer mining investor, merchant, and rancher Alexander Duncan McKinlay was born February 20, 1853 in Clayton County, Iowa, 20-40 miles northwest of Dubuque. In 1877, a year after he married in Iowa, he took up land on Idaho's northern Camas Prairie and went into farming.

Three-horse plow.
Library of Congress.

Almost immediately, he became involved in the Nez Perce War and the other Indian conflicts in 1878 and 1879 ... and acquitted himself well. The Illustrated History of the State of Idaho described him as "a man of the most desperate courage and of the highest order of patriotism."

Probably bolstered by that repute, he was elected an Idaho County Justice of the Peace in 1880. His farm also prospered: In 1882, and again in 1884, he had sufficient capital to finance and lead cattle drives into the northern mining regions.

In 1885, McKinlay decided to pursue opportunities in the Coeur d’Alene gold and silver mines. He and some partners located three tolerable claims, but prospecting was not his main interest. The Illustrated History of North Idaho said, "The earliest pioneer in Wallace, in a business sense, was Alexander D. McKinlay."

He and a partner first started a general merchandise business. Watching the early, explosive growth of the town, they began to focus more on real estate investment. To reduce their merchandising activities, in 1886 they sold off their grocery business. Their largest single real estate holding was the “Holohan-McKinlay Block,” a substantial two-story brick structure. The ground floor housed premium store space, with the second floor devoted to offices, apartments, and storage rooms.

Wallace, ca. 1888. Lewiston Tribune archive.

Soon, they dealt primarily in real estate. They did continue to operate a shop for cigars and other tobacco products. In the 1890s, McKinlay was twice elected a Justice of the Peace in Wallace, and then Probate Court Judge for Shoshone County. He was also twice elected to the Wallace City Council. In 1905, voters elected him to represent the district in the state House of Representatives.

During his term, McKinlay had occasion to visit the Twin Falls area, where extensive irrigation projects had spurred farming and mixed ranching. Greatly impressed, he moved to Twin Falls Falls after his term ended. There, he invested in real estate, joined the local Mining Exchange, and began raising livestock in the area. Voters around his new home elected him for the 1909 term in the House.

Later that year, he was appointed Executive Commissioner for Idaho’s exhibit at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. All went well until McKinlay objected to the placement of a peanut stand right in front of the Idaho Building. He must have protested with some heat, because it was widely reported that he was “arrested and escorted from the grounds” by guards. But organizers quickly apologized and the booth was moved. In the end, the Idaho Commission’s production was considered a great success [blog, March 29].

During the winter of 1911, McKinlay gathered some of his stock and loaded them on the railroad [blog, Aug 7] for transport to market. He rode in the caboose, since passenger space on a freight train was limited.

The train mounted the Blue Mountains in Oregon on the night of December 14. To assist the freight, a “helper” engine chugged up to the rear. Then, shortly after midnight, the pusher locomotive’s boiler exploded, sending twisted metal slashing through the caboose.

A Pendleton newspaper reported (December 14) that, “A. D. McKinley, a stockman accompanying a shipment to Portland, was instantly killed.”
                                                                                 
References: [Blue], [Illust-North], [Illust-State]
“[A. D. McKinlay News],” Idaho Statesman, Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake Mining Review (March 13, 1905 – February 15, 1910).

Poet, Attorney, and Public Servant Herbert Ferguson [otd 02/19]

Herbert Ferguson.
H. T. French photo.

Colonel Herbert Van Allen Ferguson was born February 19, 1852, in Three Mile Bay, New York state, about 65 miles north of Syracuse. After attending a preparatory institute in Rochester, he taught school in New York and in Michigan.

Clearly a talented and impressive young man, at the age of eighteen he served as a high school principal in New York. Ferguson then enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School, graduating with an LL.B degree in 1878.

After four years practicing law in Carthage, New York, Ferguson moved to Denver, Colorado. He practiced law there for five years, and also served a term in the state legislature. He then lived for two years in Leadville. During his time in Colorado, he served with their National Guard unit and attained the rank of Colonel.

After looking briefly at business prospects in Butte, Montana, Ferguson moved on to Salt Lake City. He worked there from 1889 to 1893 before relocating to Pocatello, Idaho. In his History, Hiram T. French tellingly described Ferguson as "interminably vigorous and intensively industrious."

He developed a reputation as “a most formidable opponent” in legal circles, no doubt aided by his impressive skills as a speaker. In fact, it appears he could have earned a living as a public lecturer, having had engagements all over the state.

For seven years, he worked for the Department of the Interior, at least part of the time as a Special Agent for the General Land Office. During his tenure, the Federal government threw so-called “surplus” lands inside the Fort Hall Indian Reservation open to white settlement.

Eager settlers and speculators await signal to enter Reservation, 1902.
Library of Congress.

Stockmen – especially sheep herders, as it happened – saw this as an opportunity to graze their herds on land not specifically claimed by homesteaders. Such range was, however, still part of the Reservation and not “public land” open for general use. Thus, in 1902, Ferguson had to publish notices in regional newspapers to remind white interlopers that grazing there was forbidden.

Early the following year, Ferguson was sent to Vancouver, Washington to investigate fraudulent claims related to timber and quarrying in that area. His work was part of a broad investigation that uncovered widespread corruption in the handling of timber claims in the Pacific Northwest. Federal prosecutors called him to testify in land fraud cases a number of times over the next few years. Near the end of the decade, a Tacoma newspaper reported that over thirteen hundred such cases were still pending in Washington and Northern Idaho.

Ferguson also served as special attorney for the city of Pocatello as well as one term as Bannock County prosecuting attorney. In 1912, he was elected for a term in the Idaho legislature. While there, he served as the Chairman of the State Affairs committee.

Ferguson took an active role in the bar association, attended the Congregational church, and was a member of several fraternal societies.

On top of all that, he wrote and published poetry that was quite well received. His Rhymes of Eld, published in 1912, got generally good reviews. One reviewer deemed the poems “slight,” but considered them “brightly written with a good feeling for rhyme and rhythm.” “Slight” or not, the poems had staying power. In 2010, Kessinger Publishing re-released the book in hardcover and paperback versions … as part of its “Legacy Reprint Series.”

Ferguson passed away in July 1917.
                                                                                 
References: [Blue], [French]

“Deaths: Herbert Van Allen Ferguson,” The Michigan Alumnus, Volume XXIV, The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan Publishers, Ann Arbor (1918).

“[Ferguson Land Fraud Work],” Idaho Register, Oregon Journal, Evening Statesman, Tacoma Times (January 2, 1903 – January 19, 1909).

Robert E. Ficken, The Forested Land: A History of Lumbering in Western Washington, University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington (1987).

“Reimbursement to H. V. A. Ferguson,” Statues of the United States of America, Passed at the Second Session of the Fifty-Seventh Congress, Government Printing Office, Washington (1903).

Idaho, Other Territories Can Now Get Land Grants for Colleges [otd 02/18]

Congressman Justin Morrill.
Library of Congress.

On February 18, 1881, Congress passed "an act to grant lands to Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming, for university purposes." These lands could then be sold to provide endowment funds for what we now call "land grant" universities; that is: "colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts."

The original "land grant college" law – the Morrill Act of 1862 – gave acreage "to the several states" based on their numbers of Congressmen: two Senators and a population-based slate of Representatives. Iowa was the first state to accept the terms of the Morrill Act. The legislature selected the existing* Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) to receive the benefits of the Act, so that school is generally considered the first land grant college.

Territories were not included and, of course, had no U. S. Senators or Representative anyway. The political entities named in the 1881 Act's title were all Territories. This law explicitly extended a form of the "land grant college" provision to those areas. Dakota Territory quickly took advantage of the new law, establishing Dakota Agriculture College (now South Dakota State University). The 1883 Territorial legislature provided funding for the first college building.

In general, however, territorial economies proved too weak to support such institutions, even with the grants. (Like Idaho, for example, Montana waited to attain statehood before establishing its land grant college.) When delegates gathered to write a constitution for the proposed state of Idaho, they planned to have a land grant college. Thus, they wrote into that document not only that there would be such a university, but that it would be located in Moscow [blog, Oct 3].

Wheat harvest, ca. 1909. Project Gutenberg image.

The 1890 "Organic Act" that established the state of Idaho specifically noted that the lands granted to the Territory under the 1881 law were "hereby vested in the State of Idaho to the extent of the full quantity of seventy-two sections to the said state." The Act also made additional public land grants for a state Normal school, penitentiary, and various charitable and educational public institutions.

On the other hand, the Act also included the provision that “said Act of February 18, 1881, shall be so amended as to provide that none of said lands shall be sold for less than $10.00 per acre.”

Although contemporary records are largely silent on the point, such a stipulation suggests that speculators had been buying up the ceded acreage at bargain prices. That might explain why prior sales had not generated enough income to establish a college.

But even with that stipulation, stingy additional financing from the state kept the new University of Idaho on a tight budget. Construction of the main campus building began in 1891. They started work on just the west wing, but even that was incomplete when the school’s first paid president, Benjamin F. Gault, arrived in September of 1892. He found piles of lumber inside, and what walls were up had neither plaster nor paint. In fact, the full structure was not completed until 1899.

* The Morrill Act and this 1881 follow-up proved quite effective. Perhaps twenty states or territories applied the land grant designation to existing schools. However, many of those institutions were barely holding on financially or were basically moribund. Their new status saved them from dissolution. About thirty states, like Idaho, founded totally new schools under the Act.
                                                                                 
References: [Brit], [French], Hawley]
Rafe Gibbs, Beacon for Mountain and Plain: Story of the University of Idaho, University of Idaho Press, Moscow, Idaho (1962).

Teacher and Newspaper Operator Frances Roberts, and Her Sister Nellie [otd 02/17]

Newspaper owner and publisher Frances Ida Roberts was born February 17, 1860, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her sister Nellie had been born in 1844. Their grandfather and father both ran newspapers, the grandfather in Kentucky and Indiana.

Early printing press.
Library of Congress.

Both girls learned the newspaper business from the ground up. Thus, as a pre-teen, Frances helped set type at her father's print shop. However, toward the end of her high school years, she also studied piano at a music institute in Missouri.

With that as a side speciality, around 1879 she found work as a school teacher. Between school sessions, she helped at her father's newspaper.

About that same time, Nellie married a newspaperman and thereafter stayed in the business as printer, editor, writer, and every other duty that came along. Over the next few years, the couple ran newspapers in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Tennessee. Then, in 1887, they started a newspaper in Harney County, Oregon.

That same year, Frances moved to a teaching position in Oregon. A year later, her father also resettled there. He founded a newspaper in Harney County to serve Burns and the surrounding region.

In 1889, Frances claimed a homestead near Baker City. The next five years were busy ones: She had to build the required dwelling and cultivate a portion of the tract, and build fences to keep stock out of the crops. Meanwhile, she lived on the tiny stipend earned by teaching at a small country school a mile or so from her place.

In fact, for 15-20 years, Frances taught at schools in eastern Oregon and also across the border in western Idaho. Again– for a change of pace from teaching – she worked at her father’s paper, and for others.

Nellie’s husband died in 1900, and the women’s father three years later. Frances went into the newspaper business herself in 1906. Nellie, who was then 62 years old, perhaps did not feel up to running a paper on her own. With Nellie as Associate Editor, they ran a successful newspaper in Oregon for three years, then Frances sold that and invested in a Boise publication.

Roberts held that interest for only a year, probably while she explored investment possibilities in the Boise Valley. She then sold her share of the Boise publication and started the Star Courier newspaper in Star, Idaho. (Star is about fifteen miles west of downtown Boise.)

Star Interurban Depot, ca 1910.
StarIdaho.org photo.

Star was then a "coming town," especially after it became a stop on the Interurban Railway between Boise and Caldwell. Besides serving valley farmers, Star was a junction point for traffic to and from the Payette River settlements north of the Boise Valley.

The weekly Star Courier served Star and the adjacent towns of Eagle and Middleton. Besides the usual news, Roberts made time to tell the story of an aged couple struggling to survive on the charity of family and friends. The husband had fought in the Rogue River War, but his petition for an Army pension was denied on a technicality. Frances sent her write-up to Senator William Borah [blog, June 29], who quickly interceded. The couple got a nice check for back payments and began receiving a handsome monthly pension.

After a few years, she and her sister tired of the business and sold it. They moved to a home near Cove, Oregon (12-14 miles east of LeGrande). Frances died there in March 1929, and Nellie about ten years later.
                                                                                 

References: [French]

Chronicling America: Historic Newspapers, The Library of Congress (online).

"History of Star," City of Star, staridaho.org web site.

“Romance of An Idaho Couple Brings Coin,” Idaho Statesman, Boise, Idaho (May 11, 1913).

Sheepmen John Wilson and Daniel Cummings Found Dead [otd 02/16]

On the morning of February 16, 1896, sheepman Edgar "Ted" Severe settled his flock and then set up camp. Twelve days earlier, a looming snow storm had chased him from the campsite, located about 26 miles south of the near-future town of Twin Falls. Ted was worried. His flock was well over into cattle country, west of the informal “deadline” that was supposed to separate sheep from cattle range.

Sheep wagon. Library of Congress.

He had received thinly-veiled threats, but no one had directly confronted him. Several times, he had heard suspicious sounds around his campsite, and crept into the bushes to hide. However, nothing happened, and no one had bothered his flock.

All seemed quiet since his return, but he needed to stay alert. After awhile, he became even more worried about his two friends, John Wilson and Daniel Cummings. He could see their camp on Deep Creek, and some of their sheep. In all the time since he had trailed his flock into position and laid out his campsite, he’d seen no movement around their wagon.

In fact, their setup hadn't changed at all compared to what he remembered from twelve days before. That seemed odd since they would have been equally exposed to the bad weather. Finally, Severe saddled his horse and clip-clopped over to check out the other camp.

The Wilson-Cummings sheep had been allowed to scatter, and as Severe rode up to the wagon, he saw that their two dogs were still tied to the wagon wheels. Both animals looked weak and thin; one could barely bark. Inside the wagon, the horrified sheepman found the bodies of Wilson and Cummings. They had been shot and were long dead. [The blog for Feb 4 describes the claimed "self-defense" shooting by Jeff Gray.]

As quickly as he could, Severe found another sheepman to ride to Oakley, where they could pass word to the sheriff in Albion, the county seat. The sheriff and county coroner didn't arrived until two days later. In the meantime, other sheepmen avoided the camp, except for one who took the dogs to his own site for food and water.

The coroner estimated that the men had been dead for ten days to two weeks. Sheepman Davis Hunter recalled visiting them on the morning of the 4th, which roughly confirmed the estimate.

John Wilson and Daniel Cummings. Family Archives.

The investigators found plenty of clues. Besides a splash of blood on the ground near the wagon tongue, there was also a bloody handprint on the canvas wall of the wagon. Of course, the sheriff had no knowledge of the barely infant practice of fingerprint identification, so this evidence was useless. They also discovered three empty .44 caliber shells, matching slugs, a scrawled note (hardly readable), and a barely-used corncob pipe. Neither sheepman smoked, so someone else must have dropped the pipe.

Unfortunately, most of this evidence was mishandled. Only one of the shell casings appeared at the trial, and the coroner admitted that the shells had been stored in an unlocked cabinet in his office. At least two sheepmen kept the corncob pipe for a time before it was finally handed over to the sheriff. The note proved difficult to interpret, and then it disappeared between the inquest and the trial. A scrap of paper produced for the trial could not be verified as being the original note.

But that was for the future. At the time, suspicion fell on the notorious cowboy-gunman, “Diamondfield” Jack Davis [blog, December 17]. The hunt for him lasted over a year.
                                                                                 

References: William Pat Rowe, "Diamond-Field Jack" Davis On Trial, thesis: Master of Arts in Education, Idaho State University (1966).

David H. Grover, Diamondfield Jack: A Study in Frontier Justice, University of Nevada Press, Reno (1968).

Edgar Severe, Virginia Estes (Ed.), "The True Story of the Wilson-Cummings Murder," A Pause for Reflection, J. Grant Stevenson, Provo, Utah (© Cassia County Company of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1977).

Wife, Sounding Board, and Philanthropist Lillian Bounds Disney [otd 02/15]

Lillian Marie Bounds, wife of the world-renowned entertainment innovator Walt Disney, was born February 15, 1899, in Spalding, Idaho, about ten miles east of Lewiston. She grew up on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, where her father was a Federal marshal and a blacksmith.

Lewiston, ca. 1918. J. H. Hawley photo.

Around her, the Indians still wore traditional garb and the pioneer environment dominated. While the old “Wild West” was passing, horses were still far more common than cars and trucks. As a teenager, she surely visited the “big city” – Lewiston, with perhaps 6,200 people. At that time, only the downtown area had paved streets; leaders hoped to find money to extend pavement into some residential areas. Sadly, her father died in 1916. By then most of Lillian’s nine older siblings were out making their way on their own.

In 1920, the mother had a small boarding unit in Lewiston. The census recorded no occupation for Lillian, so she was probably helping her mother with the business. Three years later, she joined her sister Hazel in Los Angeles to look for work. As it happened, a friend of her sister had a job with an outfit called Disney Brothers’ Studio (it would become Walt Disney Productions in 1929). The friend was a “cel inker” – she filled in outlined figures with colored ink – and said the brothers had another opening. The job required a good eye and steady hand, and Lillian was hired. She also did some secretarial work.

The studio, owned by Walt and his brother Roy, was Walt’s third attempt at a company to produce animated cartoons. The first two had “gone bust,” and this new venture had its own financial problems. The story is told that Walt sometimes asked Lillian to delay cashing her $15 weekly paycheck. The Disney brothers themselves were “batching it” in a tiny apartment. Lillian later told an interviewer, “I've always teased Walt that the reason he asked me to marry him so soon after Roy married Edna Francis, a Kansas City girl, was that he needed somebody to fix his meals.”

She married the boss in July 1925; the ceremony took place in Lewiston. According to the official studio history, in 1928 Lillian made a crucial contribution to the iconic Disney story: She talked Walt out of the name "Mortimer" for his new creation, who became "Mickey" Mouse instead.

Walt and Lillian Disney, 1935.
Walt Disney Family Foundation photo.

For over forty years, until Walt's death in 1966, Lillian continued to contribute to the Disney empire. Walt valued her insight and honesty as a behind-the-scenes "sounding board." She claimed to be “the original worry wart” about Walt’s creative notions. She thought no one would “go to see a picture about dwarfs!” “Snow White” was, of course, a huge hit.

After Walt’s death, she directed funds to a worthy enterprise: the California Institute of the Arts. Walt had fostered the merger of two struggling creative organizations into "CalArts," the first degree-granting school for students of the visual and performing arts.

Then, in 1987, she contributed a $50 million "down payment" for the construction of a world-class concert hall in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, numerous obstacles delayed the project. She died in December 1997, six years before construction was completed.

A year before her death, Lillian provided a $100 thousand grant that helped the Nez Perce tribe buy back historic tribal artifacts. She generally avoided publicity, but indications are that numerous other donations were known only to the recipients.
                                                                                 

References: [French]

Lillian Disney as told to Isabella Taves, "I Live With a Genius,” McCalls magazine (February 1953).

“Lillian Disney,” Disney Legends, The Walt Disney Company.

“Lillian Disney Dies,” Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington (December 18, 1997).

Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination, Random House, New York (2006).

Bernard Weinraub, “Walt Disney's Widow, Lillian, Dies at 98,” New York Times (December 18, 1997).

Physician and Drug Store Operator William Anderson [otd 02/14]

Dr. William Hopkins Anderson was born February 14, 1835, in Florence, Pennsylvania, 20-25 miles west of Pittsburgh. He had family roots back to Revolutionary War times and his paternal grandfather participated in the War of 1812. His mother, Dorcas Hopkins, had a distant relationship with the founder of Johns Hopkins University.

Country Doctor. National Archives.

Anderson graduated from the Eclectic College of Medicine and Surgery at Cincinnati  in 1855. [See blog, February 12, for a brief discussion of Eclectic Medicine.] He immediately opened a practice in a rural section of Iowa, about seventy miles north of Des Moines. Four years later, he moved to Utah, settling in an area 25-30 miles south of what would soon become Franklin, Idaho. He married in September 1861 and their first child was born about a year later in Wellsville, Utah.

About the time Dr. Anderson arrived in the Cache Valley, Mormon colonists founded Logan. In April of 1860, settlers spread north to establish Franklin. (Of course, as noted elsewhere [blog, Jan 10], they thought they were in Utah.) As a country doctor, Anderson spent nearly forty years treating patients in Utah's Cache and Malad Counties, as well as across the Idaho border in Oneida County.

Dr. Anderson also held the position of Regimental Surgeon for the Cache County unit of the Nauvoo Legion (Utah militia). He served as a Justice of the Peace for over a quarter century, a long period as notary public, and many years as a Trustee on the local school board.

Dr. Anderson. H. T. French photo.

Although Dr. Anderson lived in a sparsely populated and rather isolated locale, his contemporaries often remarked on how carefully and thoroughly he kept up with the latest advances in medical techniques.

In 1897, he moved to Soda Springs, Idaho. Located on the Oregon Short Line railroad, the town was already known as a major shipping point for sheep and cattle. Within a few years, Soda Springs would ship more wool than any other railway station in Idaho.

Dr. Anderson bought an existing mercantile establishment and expanded it to include what was reported to be the first drug store in the town. Besides that, he made other investments in the area, including a share in a rural telephone company incorporated in 1907. The doctor remained fully active in his profession for about a decade before advancing age led him to suspend his general practice. He did remain available for consultations and emergencies.

The Idaho Falls Times reprinted (August 3, 1909) an item from the Soda Springs Chieftain about one such emergency. The little daughter of the local sheep association manager had suffered an attack of ptomaine poisoning. The town’s “practicing physician” was absent, so the manager asked the railroad for a speed run to bring a doctor from Montpelier. However, old Doc Anderson stepped in and “the child was practically out of danger before the train arrived.”

Ironically, the Soda Springs item highlighted the “Record Run” of the special train as much as it did the effective medical intervention. The engine, a passenger car, and caboose had “covered the thirty-one miles between Montpelier and this city in thirty minutes.”

Anderson also continued an active role with the drug store trade. In fact, in 1912, the Idaho State Pharmaceutical Association – an organization pledged "to promote better conditions in retail drugstores” – elected him to be their Vice President. He passed away in December 1914.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley]

"Obituary: Dr. William Anderson," Soda Springs Chieftain (Dec 24, 1914).

Progressive Men of Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Fremont and Oneida Counties, Idaho, A. W. Bowen & Co., Chicago (1904).

“Telephone and Telegraph,” Electrical Review, Vol. 50, No. 14, Electrical Review Publishing Company, New York, New York (April 6, 1907).

“Wellsville, Utah,” Utah History Encyclopedia, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake (1994).