Railroad Begins Narrow Gauge Track Conversion in Eastern Idaho [otd 07/24]

On Sunday July 24, 1887, multiple crews assembled at intervals along the 262 miles of narrow-gauge track between Pocatello, Idaho and Garrison, Montana. They worked for the Utah & Northern Railroad (U&N RR) Company. This event crowned a lengthy effort to prepare for the moment.

U&N RR train, Beaver Canyon, Idaho, ca 1885.
Idaho Museum of Natural History.

The U&N RR first completed its line across eastern Idaho and into Montana in 1879-1880. The company had made an early decision to run narrow gauge. Narrow gauge railroads are much cheaper to build than standard gauge, especially in mountainous country. Clearly, crews have to move less material to make cuts, fills, and tunnels, and to lay the road bed. Plus, bridges don’t have to be as wide. Less obviously, narrow gauge trains can turn through tighter curves. This allows the tracks to bend around obstacles that would have to be removed for standard gauge.

However, narrow gauge trains carry a smaller payload, and they are (obviously) incompatible with standard gauge systems. Both the Union Pacific and the Oregon Short Line railroads ran standard gauge. Thus, goods moving between the systems had to be bodily transferred from one to the other. Operators had some tricks to improve the process, but it still added time and expense to all their shipments.

The problem became more acute as shipping volume rose. In 1886, the line purchased ten new engines from the Brooks Locomotive Works. These more powerful machines weighed a third more than the U&N's older stock, and over-stressed the lighter narrow gauge rails, particularly on some curves.

Brooks-built steam locomotive, ca. 1890.
Grant County [Oregon] Historical Museum.

To prepare for the conversion to standard gauge, management dispatched crews to widen the roadbed, including all the cuts, fills, and bridges. In some areas, new bed had to be laid to straighten out curves too tight for standard-gauge trains. Workers performed most of these tasks while regular train service continued. Work to widen and strengthen the bridges began in September 1885. By the spring of 1887, it was reported that standard gauge ties had been distributed along most of the route to be changed.

The next step had to be completed in small stages. One team moved along a segment of old line, tearing up the light narrow-gauge rails and short ties. Behind them, another group laid full-length ties and the new, heavier rails. They would fully anchor one rail, while the other got just enough spikes for short-term operation. This had to be completed before the next scheduled train came through.

Next, however, they had to complete the actual switch from narrow to standard width all at once, to avoid a major interruption in service. Hence, on July 24, the U&N gathered enough crews to change the entire line after the last scheduled train passed over the narrow gauge track. One report said that the company had recruited around a thousand men for the final push.

Records indicate that the conversion began at 2:00 o'clock the next morning: pull spikes, move rail over, drive new spikes, then on to the next rail. The whole job was done by the early afternoon of July 25, with no break in service.

As soon as reports reached Pocatello that the first section was done, the Superintendent of the Idaho Division started north with a short special train. The changeover was then celebrated with stops at each station along the way.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

Merrill D. Beal, Intermountain Railroads: Standard and Narrow Gauge, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho

George Woodman Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, Stanford University Press (1990).

“[Gauge Conversion News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Idaho Register, Idaho Falls; Great Falls Tribune; Salt Lake Herald (September 1885 – July 1887).

Gambler Patterson Shoots and Kills Ex-Sheriff Pinkham [otd 07/23]

Sumner Pinkham.
Idaho City Historical Foundation.

On Sunday, July 23, 1865, businessman and ex-sheriff Sumner Pinkham took a hired carriage from Idaho City to a resort about two miles west of town. Locals often enjoyed a relaxing dip in the pool fed by the warm springs out back. According to some, Pinkham and a few friends were soon in the bar singing raucous anti-Secesh songs. Yet others would dispute even that apparently simple fact.

A native of Maine, Pinkham had joined the rush to California gold in 1849 and then knocked around the towns there and possibly in Oregon for the next decade. He moved to the Idaho gold camps in 1862. When Idaho became a Territory, Pinkham’s Radical Republican politics – he was an ardent Abolitionist –won him appointment as Boise County’s first sheriff.

However, a massive influx of Southerners had aligned the voter roles to favor Democrats, and the next election turned Pinkham out. Ferdinand “Ferd” Patterson was among those Southerners.

From Tennessee, apparently, he too had tried his hand in California, then in Oregon, and finally in Idaho. Records indicate that by the time Patterson reached Idaho, he had killed at least two men in gun fights, but got off on “self-defense” pleas. Moreover, charged for assault on a disreputable female companion in Oregon, he had simply skipped bail. Although he had done some prospecting, Patterson was primarily a professional gambler.

As the Civil War neared its end, Ferd complained bitterly about the South’s impending defeat. He and Pinkham had already exchanged hot words. Then, with the war over, the ex-sheriff rubbed salt in Southern wounds by staging a 4th of July parade in which pro-Union men marched through the streets, singing patriotic and anti-Secesh songs.

Ferd Patterson.
Idaho City Historical Foundation.

On July 23, Patterson entered the resort bar while Pinkham was paying his bill. At this point, Ferd apparently ignored the ex-sheriff and went on to the warm pools. Then, witnesses concurred, Patterson exited the resort while Pinkham stood outside waiting for a carriage back into Idaho City. Here, witnesses agreed on only two points: Patterson said the word “draw” in some (disputed) context, then taunted Pinkham as an “Abolitionist son-of-a-bitch.”

Who drew first was also in dispute. Patterson certainly shot quicker, before Pinkham got off one inaccurate response and then took a second bullet. Ferd fled to avoid any immediate retaliation, but quickly surrendered when officers caught up with him about fourteen miles away, on the road to Boise.

As usual in such affrays, witnesses gave muddled and contradictory testimony, and friend and foe alike expected an acquittal. After being freed by reason of “self-defense,” Patterson left the region for Walla Walla, fearing he wasn’t safe in Idaho City.

He did not, however, go far enough.  The following February, a man shot Patterson full of holes while he visited a barbershop. Most in the region saw the shooting as vengeance for the Pinkham killing. The shooter claimed that Patterson had threatened him, and the first trial ended in a hung jury.

During the wait for a new trial, the man walked away from jail. Authorities arrested him a few months later in San Francisco, but he was released before he could be extradited (Idaho Statesman, November 1, 1866). He then disappeared from history.
                                                                               

References: [B&W]

Boise County, Idaho.

Bill Gulick, Outlaws of the Pacific Northwest, Caxton Press, Caldwell Idaho (2000).

Arthur A. Hart, Basin of Gold: Life in Boise Basin, 1862-1890, Idaho City Historical Foundation (© 1986, Fourth printing 2002).

N. P. Langford, Vigilante Days and Ways, Montana State University (1957). Original publication in 1890.

Rexburg Banker, Business Investor, and Landowner Ross J. Comstock [otd 07/22]

Long-time Rexburg pioneer Ross J. Comstock was born on July 22, 1875 in a remote part of northeast Missouri. The Comstocks had been among the earliest emigrants to New England, settling in Connecticut around 1637. Thus, several of Ross’s forebears fought for the Colonies during the American Revolution. His line moved to Missouri about the time of the Civil War.

Ross J. Comstock. [Hawley]

He said little about his early life, other than that he was on his own as a teenager. Thus, he married young, in 1893. Comstock also developed an interest in banking. He was perhaps drawn to Rexburg after rail service reached there in late 1899 [blog, November 22].

Comstock arrived some time in 1900 and began making business contacts. In 1903 he invested in a mining company and an electric power plant. Then, in December, he and some of the same investors established the First National Bank of Rexburg. Comstock was the cashier. Two years later, he helped form the Idaho State Bankers’ Association. During this time, he also served as a Director for the Fremont County Bank in Sugar City.

But he also continued his interest in mining investments, and, in 1907, added a share in a Rexburg implement company to his portfolio. That same year, he helped arrange a consolidation between a hydroelectric power company in Sugar City and a Rexburg outfit that used coal-fired generation.

In keeping with all his other interests, in the summer of 1910 Comstock led the formation of  a “League of Commercial Clubs,” encompassing town clubs from Blackfoot to Ashton. The intent was to spur joint efforts to promote all of the Upper Snake River Valley. Ross became the League’s first president. About six week later, he became president of the First National Bank of Rexburg.

First National Bank of Rexburg. Rexburg Historical Society.

Comstock did not slow down in the new decade. He helped organize a Fremont County Fair Association, and ran the Crystal Lake Irrigated Lands Company on the side. Besides other customers, the company provided water to farmland that Ross owned. Plus, in 1915, he helped found the First National Bank of Ririe. By 1919, he would be president of that bank.

During World War I, Comstock served on the county committee organized for broad-based support of the war effort. Even that wasn’t quite enough. He also chaired the Building Committee for the Rexburg Presbyterian Church. A new building was dedicated in the spring of 1918, at which time Ross was recognized as an Elder of the church.

After the war, as mentioned in several other blog items, the farm sector suffered a severe, and long-lasting recession. Thus, Comstock played a major role in creating two companies to funnel Federal loans to hard-pressed farmers and ranchers. In 1922, Ross was elected president of the Idaho State Bankers’ Association. He then presided over the 1923 Annual Meeting, which was held in Idaho Falls.

But in August 1924, the Idaho Statesman announced the closure of three eastern Idaho banks: one in Montpelier, plus the First National Bank of Rexburg and the First National Bank of Ririe. Comstock was, of course, then president of those two banks.

The three joined a host of banks nation-wide that failed because their business depended almost entirely upon farming and ranching. Ross encountered some short-term hostility for his part in the disaster, but people eventually understood that the banks had been crippled by forces beyond anyone’s control.

Still, Comstock left banking and never went back. He turned to dealing in real estate and insurance, plus management of his other investments. Ross J. Comstock passed away from pancreatic cancer in July 1947.
                                                                               

References: [Hawley]

“Comstock Heads Idaho Bankers,” Coastal Banker, Coastal Banker Publishing Company, San Francisco, California (June 1922).

“[Comstock News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Idaho Falls Times, Times-Register, Daily Post, Post-Register, Idaho Falls; Deseret News, Salt Lake Herald, Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City; Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah (October 1900 – July 1947).

David L. Crowder, Rexburg, Idaho: The First One Hundred Years, The Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho (1983).

Ammunition Innovator and Manufacturer Richard, "Dick," Speer [otd 07/21]

Dick Speer.
Beal & Wells photo.

Lewiston industrialist Richard A. "Dick" Speer was born July 21, 1915 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. His father, who started out as a farmer and nurseryman, took up "manufacturing and engineering pursuits" before Richard's birth. Thus, after a year at a teachers' college, Richard landed a job in the engineering department of the Maytag Corporation.

In 1939, he began taking courses at the University of Washington in Seattle while working nights as a tool and die maker for the Boeing Aircraft Company. He would have been exempt from military service as a skilled craftsman, and also as a student. His employers and teachers would have surely discouraged Speer from enlisting for World War II.

In 1947, he moved to Lewiston, Idaho, to work with his brother, Vernon, who had founded the Speer Products Company there. The company manufactured jacketed bullets and sportmen's gun supplies, including devices to aid those who wanted to load their own ammunition. The company also produced handbooks to guide such “reloaders.” Some consider those manuals to be a “Bible” for reloading. They have been revised over the years to reflect greater knowledge of the parameters and technology involved.

Two years later, Richard left to establish his own firm, the Speer Cartridge Company. Histories of the company suggest that Dick already had the idea for a new venture when he left Boeing. At the time, hunters often could only find standard mass-production lines of ammunition. Competition shooters, and other who wanted to load their own, had few reliable sources.

Speer decided he could be that producer. The processes he designed did make high-quality cartridges, but only if the raw materials were up to standard. Unfortunately, he could not find any consistently reliable source for the most important component – brass for the cartridge case itself. Too often, much of a production run failed to meet specifications and had to be rejected.

So Speer refined his niche, noting that the big manufacturers avoided selling primers to reload dealers – ammunition reloaded by hobbyists cut into their sales. To help design a better primer, Speer hired Dr. Victor Jasaitis, a chemist who specialized in explosives. Jasaitis was a Lithuanian refugee, driven to the U. S. by the Soviet occupation of his homeland.

In a somewhat fortuitous coincidence, the escalation of the Korean War created a demand for military-grade primers just as Speer turned his attention to that line. After the war, the company continued to manufacture primers for both governmental and civilian use.

Modern CCI ammunition.
Cabelas catalog image.

Early on, some confusion developed about the difference between Speer bullets (made by brother Vernon's company) and Speer cartridges. Thus, in 1956, Dick established Cascade Cartridge, Incorporated, or CCI®.

To stay ahead of the competition, Speer pushed innovative designs for all the company's products. As usual for a small company in this day and age, it eventually became a subsidiary of a large manufacturing conglomerate.

In 1968, Speer and his wife “retired” to a place in Virginia near Chesapeake Bay. Less than ten years later, Dick filed for the first of a series of patents for the “Apollo Wizard” tennis ball serving machine. In late 1982, he received the patent for a version that imparted “spin” to the ball. Dick eventually sold the company he established to make the machines. He passed away in May 1994.

Today, CCI still makes products in Lewiston, and new plants have been built elsewhere. They are still considered one of the most innovative companies in the ammunition business.
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

CCI Ammunition.

Ashby Koss, "The Making of Cascade Cartridge Incorporated (CCI): Dick Speer Filling the Industry Gap," Associated Content, Yahoo! Incorporated (January 08, 2008).

Nelda Knemeyer, "Obituary: Richard A. Speer, Ammunition Maker," Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia (May 12, 1994).

Richard A. Speer, “Ball Projecting Device Capable of Providing Spin,” U. S. Patent No. 4,345,578, United States Patent Office, Washington, D. C. (August 24, 1982).

Poor Roads and Blistering Weather Hobble Traffic to the Idaho Gold Camps [otd 07/20]

On July 20, 1863, The Oregonian reported, “Increased facilities are offering daily for transportation to the Boise mines. We are informed that John Slavin & Co. have established a stage line to run from the Dalles to Bannock City.”

Mining around Bannock City, soon to be re-named Idaho City, was then on the upswing compared to placer fields over the ridge along Grimes Creek. Where Grimes had little water, streams around Idaho City still provided a good flow.

However, the stage line announcement was, at best, premature. Of course, emigrants on the Oregon Trail did get wagons across Idaho and then the Blue Mountains in Oregon. However, the trip took a horrific toll on their draft animals. Even freighters, who knew the road and its dangers, lost stock.

Stagecoach on Steep Grade. U. S. Forest Service photo.

The Oregonian published (August 8, 1863) a letter from the gold country that said, “There is a terrible mortality existing among the teams on the Boise road, and the dead cattle line the road from Burnt river to the Boise basin, so that more than two weeks since I was told by a gentleman returned from there that he was not out of sight of them the whole distance.”

Steep grades and the rutted track were not the worst problem, the correspondent went on: “The alkali dust on the Burnt and Snake rivers is deadly in its effects on the heated and toiling oxen, and sometimes they fall down dead when the yoke is taken off them.”

No transport company could afford to lose stock at those rates. So, for much of 1863, pack trains – horses and mules – carried substantial amounts of supplies to the Idaho mines. But when weather conditions were favorable, teamsters brought freight wagons from depots in Umatilla and Walla Walla. They were very careful, however, to husband the strength of their animals.

As one might expect, the slow pace of these freight trains did not suit eager prospectors. So-called “saddle trains” catered to that impatience. John Hailey, who would play a prominent role in Idaho history [blog,  August 29], is credited with the first saddle train operation, in 1863. Hailey later wrote, “On the 18th day of April, I left Walla Walla with a saddle train of sixteen passengers and four pack animals for Placerville in the Boise Basin. This was the beginning of the saddle train business in the Boise Basin mines.”

Hailey and his partner, William Ish, ran a profitable passenger operation through the summer, although they did have to reduce their fare as competitors appeared. And, he said, “By September, the travel to the Basin was almost over for the season, so we engaged in packing.”

John Hailey. Library of Congress.

Ish & Hailey did not attempt even a partial stagecoach run until spring of the following year. They first ran the stage about fifty miles, from Umatilla to the west side of the Blue Mountains. That early in the season, the road beyond that would not support the stage, so the company’s saddle trains took over. They did build (future) stage stations, which allowed saddle passengers to eat, rest, and change to fresh horses.

They had the stage route from Umatilla to Placerville “ready for passengers about the 1st of June, 1864.” It does not appear the Slavin & Company operation, mentioned above, ever materialized. The Ish-Hailey outfit did  have one competitor on routes over the Blues, but traffic over the next few years remained high enough to support both.
                                                                                 

References: John Hailey, History of Idaho, Syms-York Company, Boise, Idaho (1910).

“To the Mines,” The Oregonian, Portland (July 20, 1863).

Oscar O. Winther, The Old Oregon Country: a History of Frontier Trade, Transportation and Travel, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California (1950).

Shoemaker, Contractor, and Probate Judge Thomas A. Johnston [otd 07/19]

Versatile pioneer and Probate Judge Thomas A. Johnston was born July 19, 1848 in Ontario, Canada. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. Around 1868, he crossed over into the U. S. to work in a shoe store in northern New York. He was then briefly attracted to the oil boom in western Pennsylvania, but moved on to Nebraska in the summer of 1869.

Thomas A. Johnston. [French]

Besides operating a shoe shop, he tried his hand at farming near a small town about 23 miles northeast of Grand Island. Of the next seven years or so, he spent one as a “drummer” (traveling salesman) for a wholesale shoe company. Around 1876, he decided that Rawlins, Wyoming, offered better prospects for his shoe business.

Rawlins held him until early 1882, when he went to work for the Oregon Short Line Railroad. The OSL was then laying track westward into Idaho, crossing the border during the summer. Johnston helped build the needed railway stations and shops. Finally, in November 1884, OSL tracks reached Huntington, Oregon, and connected with a line from Portland. The major work done, Johnston returned to Rawlins and his shoe store.

However, during his stint with the OSL, Thomas became acquainted with Pocatello station. As the point where the OSL and the Utah & Northern rails crossed, a thriving town was bound to grow there. The fact that the spot was inside the Fort Hall Indian Reservation complicated matters, however. The railroads had paid the tribes for a track right-of-way, but that allowed little room for a station, much less a town.

So they had bought enough additional land to build a small depot. Later, they squeezed a hotel onto the plot. But that wasn’t enough and squatter cabins soon spread beyond the company land. Finally, in the spring of 1888, a new agreement provided enough land for more growth. At that point, Johnston closed his shoe store in Rawlins and moved to the new town.

Actually, he left the shoe business for good and ran a cigar shop. Meanwhile, a town was incorporated and, by 1890, had an estimated population of about 3,000. Surely sensing that the area would continue to grow, Johnston closed his cigar store and engaged in carpentry and general building construction. Two years later, the legislature acknowledged the town’s growth from a village to a city “of the first class” and authorized city elections.

In 1895, Johnston won a close election for Police Judge, an office charged with enforcing city ordinances. Thomas continued his construction business, perhaps because the judgeship did not pay that well. Voters re-elected him to the position for the next five years, although the 1899 election was again close (he won by less than 50 votes out of about eleven hundred).

Pocatello, 1895. Bannock County Historical Society.

The election in late 1900 saw Johnston move up to the position of Probate Judge, although he won by only 10 votes. Thomas, of course, had only a “common school” education and had never studied law. An Idaho Legal History Society article noted that such men were “schooled in life” and got elected because they were highly respected in the community.

The Probate Judge position offered enough income so Johnston could close his construction sideline. And he was, indeed, respected enough to be re-elected for the next twelve years. He chose to retire voluntarily at the end of 1912. Such was his influence by then that he essentially hand-picked his successor.

Johnston passed away on the last day of 1914.
                                                                               

References: [B&W], [French]

“Early Probate Judges Schooled in Life,” Idaho Legal History Society, Boise, Idaho (Fall 2010).

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

“[TA Johnston News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Idaho Falls Times, Idaho Falls; Deseret News, Salt Lake City; The Journal, Logan, Utah (April 1895 – January 1915).

Trappers Clash with Indians at the Battle of Pierre’s Hole [otd 07/18]

On July 18, the great mountain man rendezvous of 1832, at Pierre's Hole, was breaking up. The only Idaho location where the fur companies held their annual conclave, Pierre's Hole is known to us today as the Teton Valley.

Teton Valley – view of the three Tetons from the west.

While they were preparing to hit the trail, one trapper party noticed a column of Indians approaching. The band consisted of 150-200 individuals, including many women and children. Perhaps fifty to sixty qualified as warriors. The Gros Ventre, which these were, were allies of the notoriously hostile Blackfeet tribe. Although the Gros Ventre shared neither lineage nor language with the Blackfeet, Americans almost invariably lumped the two together.

The presence of entire family groups meant this was not a war party, and a chief rode out to parley under signs of peace. Two men, both of whom harbored virulent hatred for "the Blackfeet," went out to meet him. One, a Flathead Indian, had lost many relatives and friends to incessant Blackfeet attacks. A Blackfeet war party had also killed the father of the other intermediary, Métis Antoine Godin.

The two met the chief with all the usual signs of accommodation, and Godin accepted the other's proffered handshake. Then, in what was clearly a pre-planned moved, the Flathead shot the chief dead. One of them then grabbed the chief's bright red blanket and they raced triumphantly back to the trappers' camp.

It's not clear if the Gros Ventres knew how many whites they were up against. There is general agreement that the families began throwing up a crude palisades of soil and deadfall timbers.

By some accounts – and many were recorded – warriors began organizing an attack on the small band that had instigated the treacherous killing. Other witnesses said the Gros Ventres only formed a skirmish line to delay any further attack by the whites.

Soon however, the distinction became moot. More trappers and their Indian allies (Nez Percés and Flatheads) arrived to reinforce the first group and a hot exchange of fire ensued. Captain William L. Sublette tried to organize a general attack on the Gros Ventre's position.

Most held back, so the Captain pushed ahead with a smaller party. They retreated after several men, including Sublette himself, were wounded, and another was killed. Zenas Leonard, one of those who gave an account of the battle, helped carry one wounded man out of danger. This, he said “met my approbation precisely, for I was glad to get out of this unpleasant situation under any pretext.”

Mountain Man. Frederic Remington.

Without overall leadership or proper discipline, the trappers and their allies could not mount a tight, organized siege. Someone suggested fires to burn the crude fort. Although Indian allies objected to destroying all the possible loot, the whites began to gather fuel. Then a (false) rumor spread that more Blackfeet were attacking the main trapper encampment. Many trappers rushed off, allowing the Gros Ventre to flee during the night.

Four whites were killed during the battle, along with seven of their allies. They found nine slain warriors inside the fort, along with a couple dozen dead horses, and most of the Gros Ventres baggage. Writer Washington Irving said, "The Blackfeet afterward reported that they had lost twenty-six warriors in this battle."
                                                                               

References: [B&W]

H. M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1986).

W. A. Ferris, Leroy R. Hafen (ed), Life in the Rocky Mountains, Old West Publishing Company, Denver (1983).

Washington Irving, Edgeley W. Todd (ed.), The Adventures of Captain Bonneville U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. Digested from his journal. University of Oklahoma Press (1961).

Zenas Leonard, Milo Milton Quaife (ed.), Narrative of the Adventures of Zenas Leonard, written by himself, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1978).

“Pierre’s Hole Battleground," Reference Series No. 745, Idaho State Historical Society.