Railroad Touts Plans for Larger Passenger and Freight Terminals in Idaho Falls [otd 04/30]

On April 30, 1909, the Oregon Short Line announced that they would soon begin a substantial upgrade to the railroad facilities in Idaho Falls. This notice followed several years of steadily rising activity at the town.

Train at older Idaho Falls depot, ca. 1905.
Bonneville County Historical Society.

The railroad history of Idaho Falls (then called Eagle Rock) began in 1879, when Utah & Northern Railway tracks arrived in town [blog, Apr 11]. For a time, Eagle Rock was “end of track,” with the usual large, wild tent city. Of course, those throngs moved on with the track-laying. However, new pioneers rode the train into the area and spurred a modest period of growth.

Nor did the freight business over the Eagle Rock toll bridge drop off that much at first. Basically, the wagon freight companies saw no reason to immediately shut down. They simply moved their southern terminus further and further north.

The “tipping point” came more or less when the Utah & Northern established a major station at Dillon in late 1880. After that wagon traffic – and toll revenue – declined sharply.

Fortunately, about then the U&NR decided to build its maintenance and support shops in Eagle Rock. The town’s population rose rapidly after that. With traffic increasing, the railroad also built a rough passenger terminal. However, Eagle Rock suffered a major blow in May, 1886: A huge wind storm wrecked the railroad roundhouse.

By this time, east-west traffic on the Oregon Short Line Railroad had grown substantially. Rather than rebuild in place, the company moved the shops to Pocatello, where they could more easily service both lines. The population of Eagle Rock plummeted immediately.

Long-term, farming and ranching helped soften the blow, and the numbers had almost recovered by 1899. A year later, an independent railway company completed a line north from Idaho Falls to St. Anthony. By then, the OSL had fully absorbed the U&NR. They built a new passenger station, situated near where the spur line tracks met the main OSL rails.

The arrangement puzzled, and annoyed, citizens. The new depot was too far from the old one, which continued to be used for freight … and that made a lot of extra work for patrons as well as railroad personnel. Moreover, the new depot was too small to handle freight business as well as passenger service. In fact, a local newspaper, the Idaho Register, asserted (November 9, 1900) that if a fire broke out in the new structure, “not a person in town would throw a bucket of water on it.”

In any case, crews soon began extending the rails all the way to West Yellowstone, Montana, gateway to Yellowstone Park. Even before the tracks reached “West” in 1909, the Short Line had leased the property; they would later also take over the company. The OSL (rightly) foresaw a major increase in traffic and, as noted above, decided to upgrade several of its Idaho Falls facilities.

Idaho Falls depot, after 1911. Bonneville County Historical Society.

The cornerstone of the project was a new, larger passenger depot. The company also expanded their freight terminal and added trackage to let through traffic bypass the downtown area. They also built a new roundhouse, sized to handle the larger locomotives that were becoming more common.

Although traffic declined after the 1920s, the passenger depot remained in use until 1964. At that point, the company built a new depot at a different location and demolished the old structure. Passenger train service to Idaho Falls ended seven years later.
                                                                                 

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

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

Thornton Waite, Union Pacific: Montana Division, Brueggenjohann/Reese and Thornton Waite Publishers, Idaho Falls (1998).

Angry Union Men Blow Up Wardner Mill, Kill One Non-Union Worker [otd 04/29]

On April 29, 1899, a train packed with perhaps a thousand angry union members rumbled along the tracks leading from Burke and Wallace into the Kellogg-Wardner area. They were headed for the concentrator mill of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan (BH&S) Mining Company in Wardner, Idaho.

Wardner mine before bombing, ca 1899.
Washington State Archives.

Near Wallace, they had loaded up with "giant powder" (an early form of dynamite). The act of violence they planned arose from years of labor-management confrontation, which had reached a “critical mass” in the previous few months.

Few “good guys” appeared in this tragic opera. The companies generally extracted substantial returns from their properties, while paying the miners as little as possible for their dangerous and debilitating labor. For years, many refused to recognize the miners’ union as a legitimate bargaining unit. Plus, they routinely placed spies in the union ranks.

The unions countered with informers of their own. Some were men who understood and sympathized with the workers’ plight. More were persuaded by bribes, or compelled by threats and bullying. In fact, some radical union leaders considered violence and intimidation their preferred weapons … strikes were too slow and ineffective. Union members routinely taunted, threatened, and – when opportunity arose – beat up replacement workers.

On this crucial day in 1899, the union “army” had targeted the Wardner mill because the BH&S still adamantly refused to recognize the union, and persistently suppressed internal union activity. When the union men reached their destination, explosives experts set the charges while the rest stood ready to quell any resistance. In a brief scuffle, a Bunker employee was fatally wounded.

At one point, a small group of union men had become separated from the main body. These may have been a scouting party, or just some men who had gone off on their own – stories varied. When the bands stumbled into one another in the dark, they exchanged volleys of gunfire before the mistake could be sorted out. One union man in the smaller group died instantly in the hail of bullets

After the blasts, the union force ran the train back to Burke, groups of men dispersing along the way.

Wardner mine after 1899 bombing. Washington State Archives.

Alarmed by the flagrant show of force, Governor Frank Steunenberg called in Federal troops to impose martial law. A substantial number of union men were imprisoned in an open-air stockade, dubbed the "bull pen."

In the proceedings that followed, state authorities removed the county commissioners and sheriff from office for gross dereliction of duty. Evidence showed that they had ample warning that the union was planning a violent, illegal demonstration ... and did nothing about it.

Prosecutors secured a second degree murder conviction against the secretary of the Burke union for the killing of the Bunker employee. He was not, apparently, directly involved in the murder. The state based his conviction on the established legal principle that a willing, knowledgeable participant in a crime that leads to murder bears equal responsibility. (The state Supreme Court upheld the decision, but -- the State having made its point -- he was pardoned and released two years later.)

The violence did not end there: In 1905, a union assassin murdered retired Governor Steunenberg with a bomb at his front gate [blog, Dec 30].
                                                                                 
References: [B&W], [Hawley], [lllust-North]

Sportsman and Idaho Dentistry Pioneer Edward Maberly [otd 04/28]

Boise dentist Edward H. Maberly was born April 28, 1853 in England. Apparently his father and part of the family lived for a time in Illinois before 1855-1860. However, Edward did not arrive in the U. S. until about 1869. At that point the family lived in Mount Carroll, a northwest Illinois village near the Iowa border. His father, older brother, and Edward engaged in carriage painting and construction. They all moved to Ellsworth, Kansas, in 1878 – missing the earlier wild times when the town was known as the “Wickedest Cattletown in Kansas."

In the early to mid-1880s, Edward left his father’s carriage business. Then, at some point, he met the daughter of a dentist who had a practice in south-central Nebraska. Liking the prospects better than his old trade, he turned to dentistry after marrying in 1889. Within two years, Maberly was serving as a “circuit dentist,” on a route that took him to towns in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming.

Fully-equipped dental “operatory,” 1900. RitterDental.com

In 1894, Maberly graduated from a dental college located in Kansas City and practiced briefly in Nebraska.  He moved to Boise in 1895. According to the H. T. French History, "Soon after Dr. Maberly opened his offices in Boise, he saw the need of organization among the dentists of the state, and he got into correspondence with the dentists all over the state with the idea of uniting them in some manner, the first dental society in the state being the result of his efforts."

The Idaho State Dental Society – now Association – organized on a temporary basis in 1896. In June 1897, members adopted a Constitution and Bylaws, and established four standing committees. They also selected Maberly to be the first Secretary. After two years in that position, he became President of the organization.

In addition to his practice, Maberly served as Secretary of Idaho's first State Board of Dental Examiners, starting in 1899. The law that created the Board gave practicing dentists three months to register their names and business locations. New dentists had to appear before the Board to have their credentials assessed. In 1904, Maberly served on the Idaho State Conference Committee for the Fourth International Dental Congress, held in St. Louis, Missouri.

Maberly Elk photo. Recreation magazine, 1898.

An "ardent sportsman," Maberly helped organize a state-wide sportmen's organization. Through that body, he urged the passage of laws for wiser fish and game management. He sent a photograph of elk in the Teton foothills to Recreation magazine, with the statement that the herd numbered "some 1,500" and had just been shooed away from stacks of hay in the valley.

He went on, "We rarely see so large a band of elk now; yet there are enough left to stock a vast territory if properly protected and judiciously hunted."

Maberly served several terms as President of the Intermountain Gun Club. He won many awards at shooting contests in Boise and around the Northwest, remaining competitive well into his sixties. In 1919, Edward and his wife acquired a place in Corvallis, Oregon, two of their children being enrolled in college there. Dr. Maberly closed his practice about a year later, but still spent much time in Boise.

On September 1, 1921, Edward was in Buhl, serving as judge for a field trial of hunting dogs – “work” he loved. The first trial had been completed when, according witnesses, he literally dropped dead of a heart attack.
                                                                                 

References: [Brit], [French]

E. H. Maberly, "Elk in the Teton Foot Hills," Recreation, Vol. VIII. No. 2, G. 0. Shields, Publisher, New York (February 1898).

R. Ottolengui (ed), “Idaho State Dental Society,” Items of Interest: A Monthly Magazine of Dental Art, Science and Literature, Vol. 19, Consolidated Dental Manufacturing Company, New York (1897).

Transactions on the Fourth International Dental Congress, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.A. August 29 to September 3, 1904, S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company, Philadelphia (1905).