Settlers Surge into Bruneau Valley, Stock Thieves Then and Now [otd 10/24]

The October 24, 1868 issue of the Owyhee Avalanche, published in Silver City, Idaho, commented favorably on the prospects for settlement in the Bruneau Valley. They had been informed that “several parties from Boise have lately been locating ranches in Bruneau Valley, and will move over with their families this fall."

Bruneau landscape. Idaho Tourism, Dept. of Commerce.

The article also quoted positive observations printed in the Idaho Statesman, where the reporter claimed the area was “the best portion of Idaho Territory for stock raising and dairy purposes.” That article also said, “The grass grows luxuriantly and there is more timber that will furnish the valley with firewood if it were all settled.”

The newspapers' timing could hardly have been better. Less than six months later, Arthur Pence – a rancher and future state legislator – filed on land near what is still called Pence Hot Springs [blog, Feb 10]. Within a year or so, he and a brother established a ranch headquarters and began running cattle under the “Spade” brand.

In September, John and Emma Turner arrived. The next spring, they purchased a homestead from one John Baker, who was married to a Paiute Indian woman. Baker, a professional surveyor, moved out of the area, so the Turners claim the honor as the first permanent settlers in the Valley. That same spring, another permanent settler, Benjamin Hawes, moved some stock from the Boise area into the valley, and built a home there. Other settlers and stockmen soon followed, and by 1875 several substantial cattle ranches had headquarters in the Valley.

Bruneau ranchers suffered through the disastrous 1889-90 winter along with other Idaho areas. From that, they learned the same lessons about proper grazing management, and the Bruneau continues to be an important stock raising region today.

On October 24, 1885, the Idaho Register, Eagle Rock, Idaho Territory, ran an article with the lead, “Horse thief caught at Jackson Hole with 17 head of High and Stout’s horses.”

Actually, reports of the time indicate that this capture might have been the exception rather than the rule. For over a decade, well-organized bands of stock thieves operated out of “the forks,” about twenty miles northeast of Eagle Rock (today’s Idaho Falls). There, at the confluence of two Snake River branches, bandits found perfect cover on innumerable densely-thicketed islands.

As the stock industry grew, so did the depredations of cattle rustlers and horse thieves. In fact, such losses were a substantial factor driving the formation of local, regional, and territorial stockmen’s associations. The gravity of the problem is suggested by an Owyhee Avalanche report (Sept 13, 1890) from Elmore County: “It will probably startle many of our readers to learn that over $20,000 worth of horses have been stolen in this county in the last five months.”

Cattle grazing on unfenced range, BLM photo.

One trick was to “persuade” a band of a rancher’s horses to graze on a remote part of his range. Then, while the cowboys were busy at the main spring or fall roundup site, the thieves would make away with the horses.

Sometimes – although far less often than Old West legends would have it – captors meted out immediate and final penalties for rustling and horse theft.

Yet the crime continued then, and has never has never really gone away. Google “cattle rustling” and you’ll get hundreds of hits describing instances just in the last two or three years. Enter “cattle rustling Idaho” and a dozen mentions in the past few months turn up [blog, May 24].
                                                                                                                                     

References: [B&W]

Mildretta Adams, Owyhee Cattlemen, Owyhee Publishing Co., Homedale, Idaho (1979).

“Golden Jubilee Edition,” Idaho Falls Post-Register (September 10, 1934).

Adelaide Hawes, Valley of Tall Grass, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1950).

Colonel Edgar Heigho: Railroad Manager, Businessman, and Military Adviser [otd 10/23]

Edgar Heigho. H. T. French photo.

Railroad manager, business investor, and adviser on military affairs Edgar Maurice Heigho was born October 23, 1867 in Essex, England. He came to the U. S. as a young boy. With no formal schooling beyond his pre-teens, he found work as an office boy at the Detroit Free Press. At age 15, Edgar landed a job with a Detroit-based railroad.

For the next five years, he bounced around among several railways, including the Union Pacific. Heigho became Chief Clerk for the Idaho Central Railway in 1887, the year that company completed the first branch line – “The Stub” – into Boise City [blog, Sept 13].

In 1891, Heigho found other employment. He first worked on a survey crew in central Idaho, then as a freight traffic manager for a railroad based in St. Louis. He filled several positions until about 1895, when he began a four-year period ranching in Wyoming’s Jackson Hole.

Heigho then returned to the railroad business, working for the Oregon Short Line. In 1903, he joined the Pacific & Idaho Northern Railway as an auditor. The P&IN started laying track out of Weiser in 1899 and had extended the line ninety miles north three years later.

The company established a “New Meadows” station about two miles west of the existing village of Meadows. New Meadows quickly drew business to itself. Many homes and a number of stores were physically moved to the new location. Soon, only a few scattered dwellings remained in Meadows.

Heigho rose quickly in the P&IN and, in 1909, he became its President and General Manager. For a number of years, people toyed with the notion of pushing the tracks on to Lewiston, but that never happened.

P&IN Railway depot, New Meadows.
Adams County Historical Society.

Besides his railway position, Heigho was President and General Manager of the Central Idaho Telegraph & Telephone Company, and also for the Coeur d'Or Development Company. The development company owned the New Meadows town site and built a substantial depot, a bank, a school, and the Hotel Heigho. Edgar served as Director of the bank in New Meadows as well as one in Weiser.

Heigho also built a fine mansion for himself in New Meadows. He was described as having been associated with “independent military organizations” for a number of years. He also had a connection with the Idaho National Guard, provided advice on military affairs to the Idaho governor, and wrote on military affairs for a national audience.

During World War I, he and his wife participated in various “home front” war activities, being especially interested in Belgian relief work.  In fact, they even “adopted” a unit of the Belgian Army, which continued fighting throughout the war in a small scrap of their country not occupied by the Germans.

In 1918, Edgar suffered a stroke that forced him to resign as General Manager of the railroad. According to Hawley’s History, he retained the presidency for several years after that. He passed away in 1926. The Heigho mansion in New Meadows is on the National Register of Historic Places. The restored structure now operates as a bed & breakfast.

The old P&IN Depot was stabilized and re-roofed several years ago so the structure could be renovated. It now has several rooms that can be rented for weddings, business or social meetings, dances, and other activities. A museum space is also under construction.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [B&W], French], [Hawley]

“Col. E. M. Heigho Passes Away,” The Payette Independent, Payette, Idaho (September 02, 1926).

National Register of Historic Places: Colonel E. M. Heigho House in New Meadows, Idaho. Listed May 22, 1978.

Sage Community Resources, The Payette River Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan, Idaho Department of Transportation, Boise (September 2001).

Idaho Falls Gets Hydropower, William Jennings Bryan Stumps Idaho [otd 10/22]

Early spillway photo from Idaho Falls Power – History.

On October 22, 1900, Idaho Falls Mayor Joseph A. Clark initiated "official" municipal operation of a 125-horsepower hydroelectric plant. A diversion canal from the Snake River supplemented water from Crow Creek to run the plant: The generator basically ran off an irrigation ditch.

About five years earlier, a number of Idaho Falls businesses and residents had begun to express interest in obtaining electrical  power for the city. After all, Pocatello “went electric” early in 1894 [blog, Feb 22]. Why shouldn’t Idaho Falls? Despite the interest, however, voters twice defeated bond elections to finance a plant.

Finally, in 1899, the town grew large enough to be designated a “city of the second class” and Joseph A. Clark became its first mayor [blog Dec. 26]. Spurred by his strong support, a bond measure passed and construction began.

The generator went into full nighttime operation at the beginning of October. The Idaho Falls Times reported (October 4, 1900), "Over 300 incandescent lights are now in use in the stores and dwellings, and about 200 more are already ordered."

Initially, the only steady load came from the street lights, so the plant operated just during the evening. (Operators started it up a half hour early in the winter and on cloudy days.) Within two years, increased usage by commercial and residential customers led to an expansion of the generating capacity. Although demand continued to rise, a dam-based power plant did not go into operation until 1912.

At its centennial, Idaho Fall’s hydroelectric generators supplied around 40 percent of the city’s electrical needs. Today, with increased demand and limited ability for the City’s system to increase its generator capacity, that fraction has fallen to about 24 percent. Even so, municipal power rates are about 4/5 of the state average.

On October 22, 1902, the Idaho Falls Register (the Post-Register after 1931) noted that nationally famous orator and politician William Jennings Bryan had delivered a speech in town. That morning in Pocatello, Bryan boarded a special train that took him to St. Anthony. He had then spoken at several stations during the return.

He still claimed to see “free silver” – code for the unlimited minting of silver coinage – as a “live issue,” and stumped for Democratic candidates in the Idaho state elections. (To no avail: That year the Republican ticket swept every non-legislative position.)

Candidate Bryan.
Library of Congress.

In earlier years, Idaho voters had been solid Bryan backers, especially in the 1896 Presidential election. His free silver position resonated with Populist Party voters as well as a strong Populist under-current among Democrats. Agrarian voters in particular hoped that putting more money in circulation, in the form of silver coinage, would relieve a severely depressed farm economy.

In Idaho, farmers combined with the large silver mining interests in the Coeur d’Alene region to offer huge support for Bryan. Even more so than nationally, the issue split the Idaho Republican Party: A large “Silver Republican” faction held its own Idaho convention and endorsed the Bryan national ticket. In the end, Bryan electors carried nearly 80% of the 1896 Presidential vote in Idaho.

However, the silver issue had waned in importance by the 1900 election. Bryan was again the Democratic nominee, and he again carried Idaho, but he won with a bare majority (50.8%). And in 1902, an incumbent governor elected by a Silver Republican/Democrat coalition in 1900 failed to win re-election. Nominated for President again in 1908, Bryan lost decisively in Idaho.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Hawley]

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

Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, Oxford University Press, New York (1965).

Staff, Idaho Falls Power – History, Idaho Falls Power Company (2000).

Cattlemen Chided for Missing Opportunities, Railroad Optimism on Camas Prairie [otd 10/21]

The October 21, 1879 issue of the Idaho Statesman (Boise, then the Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman) editorialized about the opportunities being neglected by many Idaho stockmen: “During the present summer several large herds of cattle have been sold in this section of Idaho to Eastern dealers and driven to Cheyenne and other points on the railroad... There is nothing whatever to prevent our cattle raisers from marketing their own stock and pocketing all that can be made in the business … ”

Cattle on the move. National Park Service.

He went on, “Another mistake which stock raisers make in this country is in keeping cattle of marketable age over the winter...  If cattle raisers would adopt the plan of driving and shipping their own stock and disposing each season of all the cattle ready for market they would not only save all that the outside dealer makes by the buying and driving, but they would also save all that is liable to be lost by keeping too many cattle over winter.”

Still, while they might not be maximizing their opportunity (and income), this and other reports made a key point: During the 1870’s, Idaho Territory experienced substantial growth in its stock raising industry. A net importer of cattle in 1870, by 1880 the Territory was exporting 50 to 70 thousand head annually.

Those 1880 numbers were not huge, but they suggested a trend: In the new century, Idaho shipped cattle, and sheep especially, far in excess of what could be expected for its small population. Today, it is ranked in the top ten in livestock sales and dairy products, despite being 39th in population.

On October 21, 1887, the Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville) reported, “The O. R. & N. Co. has filed articles of incorporation for the building of two more railroads from Lewiston to Camas Prairie. One of them is to end here and the other is to go on to Salmon River and up to the mouth of Little Salmon. When all three projected roads are built there won't be room enough for us fellows with big feet to turn around without falling over the rails.”

The article refers to the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company, which locals hoped would soon lay tracks into Grangeville. Of course, Lewiston itself had no railroad connection at the time. However, citizens believed that would come soon. After all, OR&N survey teams were busy checking routes along the Clearwater River and its tributaries. Moreover, one team had penetrated deep into the Bitterroots, searching for a usable pass into Montana.

Train leaving Lewiston, 1898.
“Archive” photo posted by Lewiston High School.

Unfortunately, the report was wildly too optimistic. It’s not clear that the OR&N ever laid any track in Idaho, although it may have run trains there many years later. But “hope springs eternal,” and through the early 1890s, people in Lewiston and on the prairie waited expectantly for construction to begin. But the first passenger train did not arrive in Lewiston until September 1898, over a decade after the hopeful Free Press announcement. 

Another decade would pass before rail lines actually surmounted the Camas Prairie, the first train arriving in Grangeville in December 1908. Only then could the area make a substantial transition from stock raising – products that could “walk to market” – to farming.

Today, the Prairie is a major producer of grain and other farm products.

[To learn more about the history of stock raising in Idaho, check out my book, Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho.]
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Illust-North]

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

J. Orin Oliphant, On the Cattle Ranges of the Oregon Country, University of Washington Press, Seattle (1968).

The Louisiana Purchase, and Oregon Country Compromise [otd 10/20]

An interesting coincidence happened On This Day.

President Jefferson.
National Archives.

On October 20, 1803, the Senate approved a treaty authorizing the acquisition of Louisiana from France. President Thomas Jefferson had originally sent negotiators to France to ensure American access to foreign markets via New Orleans. They were authorized, if necessary, to purchase New Orleans and a limited periphery around it. Instead, Napoleon’s minister offered all of Louisiana, and the Americans quickly agreed [blog, Oct 1].

Actually, Jefferson wasn’t quite sure such an acquisition was allowed by a strict reading of the Constitution. He thought they might need an amendment to make it legal. But, after considerable debate, the Senate decide that was not necessary and gave its approval. (Twenty-five years later, U. S. Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed that the Constitution, under its “War Powers” and “Treaty” clauses, allowed for the acquisition of new territory.)

Thus, for $15 million in direct payments and assumption of debts owed, the Louisiana Purchase practically doubled the area of the United States. Of course, no one knew exactly what we had bought.

The Mississippi River defined the eastern border, but the river’s exact source (in the future state of Minnesota) was unknown. Spain asserted that Louisiana really included only a strip of land along the west bank of the Mississippi north to the general vicinity of St. Louis. The U. S. rejected the “narrow strip” notion, but conceded that further negotiations were needed to determine a specific northern border for Texas. (That issue would not be settled until 1819.)

But for the rest, the U.S. declared that the Territory followed all the Mississippi tributaries, including the Missouri River, as far as the Continental Divide. That carried the American border to the very edge of the region that came to be called “the Oregon Country” – the area west of the Divide comprising British Columbia and our Pacific Northwest.

Without the Purchase, a vast expanse would have separated the U. S. from the region and might have rendered our claims there largely inconsequential.

Fifteen years later, on October 20, 1818, the U. S. and Great Britain signed a treaty to, among other points, settle one more facet of the Canadian boundary question. This issue had been “hanging fire” ever since the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812.

Various protocols and agreements had established a general border as far west as Lake-of-the-Woods, in today’s Minnesota. (Even that line remained vague and disputed until 1842, when fresh negotiations finally settled the matter.) Further west, American claimed – under the Louisiana Purchase – those areas drained by the Missouri-Mississippi river system. But the area from the Great Lakes to the Rockies had never been systematically surveyed. Thus, no one really knew which of the numerous rivers and streams ultimately flowed south.

Oregon Country map from Wikipedia Commons,
specific creator not identified.

The 1818 treaty fixed the border as it is today: After a jog straight south near the west side of Lake-of-the-Woods, the line extended west along the 49th parallel as far as the crest of the Rocky Mountains. The negotiators were unwilling to go beyond that. Both countries had legitimate claims within the Oregon Country, based on prior exploration and trading ties with the native inhabitants. Russian activities further complicated matters.

The negotiators compromised: For the next ten years, the Oregon County would remain open to commercial exploitation and settlement by both Britishers and Americans. After that, diplomats would, perhaps, revisit the question. With this agreement, a regional trade war became inevitable.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Brit]

Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, Simon & Shuster, New York (1996).

Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, Oxford University Press, New York (1965).

Junius P. Rodriguez (ed.), The Louisiana Purchase: A Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, Inc., Santa Barbara, California (2002).

Railroad Developer, Sheep Rancher, and Investor Robert Noble [otd 10/19]

Englishman Robert Noble was born on October 19, 1844 in Cumberland County, a sparsely-populated region on the border with Scotland. The family moved first to Canada when Robert was ten years old. They continued on to New York State three years later. During the Civil War, Robert volunteered as soon as the Army would accept him.  He served in the quartermaster corps until his discharge in the spring of 1865.

Noble worked on a farm in Illinois until 1870, when he headed West and ended in Idaho. For about a year, Robert tended a Snake River ferry. He then worked for four years at a ranch belonging to Thomas J. Davis [blog, Jan 2] in the Boise Valley. Not well educated, but blessed with considerable native intelligence, Noble used those years to built up a stake. He later said he began running sheep himself in 1874. Robert had his own place along Reynolds Creek a year later.

Noble Ranch, ca 1898. Owyhee Directory.

Just seven years later, a list printed in the Owyhee Avalanche newspaper in Silver City identified Noble as the leading sheep stockman in all of Owyhee county. His total of 7,500 sheep was more than double that of the number two man. And a few months later, Noble bought out the rancher who was third on the list.

Noble steadily grew his flocks, and had around fifty thousand head by the latter part of 1890. The Owyhee Avalanche reported a bizarre slashing attack on “Bob” Noble by a disgruntled herder. The article observed that he was “perhaps the wealthiest stock man in Idaho.” The following spring, the DeLamar Nugget reported that “Robert Noble, Owyhee County’s big wool man has just sold ten thousand mutton sheep ...”

In 1893, a considerable group of sheepmen gathered in Mountain Home to found the Idaho Wool Growers’ Association. Robert was one of the driving forces behind the organization and his brother John served on the committee to write its Constitution and Bylaws.

By the end of the Nineties, Noble had around seventy thousand sheep. For a time, he also had a sideline of horse raising. To upgrade those holdings, he imported a top-grade English shire horse. In the summer of 1905, Noble sold his stock and “some 3000 acres” of ranch property. Noble did not quote prices to the reporter for the Idaho Statesman (June 24, 1905), but probably realized $300 or $400 thousand from the sales. (That’s $8-10 million in today’s dollars).

After the sale, Noble moved his family to Boise City. There, he invested heavily in the Idaho Trust & Savings Bank, reportedly one of the largest financial institutions in the Pacific Northwest. With purchases then and over the next few years, he acquired about seven thousands acres of land in the Boise Valley.

Robert Noble. [French]

Noble also provided much of the funding for construction of an interurban electric railroad running from Boise out to Meridian and Nampa. Robert served as manager of the rail company until it was sold into a merged firm in 1911. The following year, Noble was elected President of the IT&S Bank. He held that position until his death in November 1914.

Four years after Robert’s death, the estate settled the title for a parcel of land near the complex intersection a half mile southeast of the capitol building. The executor, Robert’s son Ernest, then deeded the plot to the city for today’s Robert Noble Park.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [French],[Hawley], [Illust-State]

A Historical, Descriptive and Commercial Directory of Owyhee County, Idaho, Owyhee Avalanche Press (January 1898).

“[Robert Noble News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Owyhee Avalanche, Silver City,  DeLamar Nugget, DeLamar, Idaho (August 1882 - Feb 1918).   

Daniel W. Church: Locomotive Engineer, Pocatello Mayor, State Senator, and More [otd 10/18]

Versatile pioneer Daniel W. Church was born October 18, 1858 on a ranch near Mankato, Minnesota. In 1879, after five years as a dry goods clerk, he landed a job as a fireman for the Union Pacific in Wyoming. After three years, he was promoted to locomotive engineer. He then worked in Oregon for a time.

Daniel W. Church [Hawley]

Church first came to Idaho in 1883, as an engineer for the Oregon Short Line Railroad. The OSL was then laying track across Idaho and the story is told that Church ran the first train into Weiser in January 1884. Unfortunately, on the return trip, the rear cars of his train toppled off the rails and were wrecked. Although a mechanical failure was the direct cause of the accident, Church was fired anyway.

Daniel found work in North Dakota for a while, but a couple years later he was again an engineer for the OSL in Idaho. Seeing the potential for growth in Pocatello as a major railroad junction, in 1889 he invested in a clothing store there. He kept his railroad job for several months while a partner ran the store, but then committed full time to the business. After two years in the city, Church, with his partner and another investor, commissioned what was reported to be the first brick building in Pocatello. He soon moved the clothing store into part of the structure.

In 1895, Church sold his part of the clothing business to the partner, but kept his interest in the building. Over the next few years, he developed and sold a meat market, purchased a real estate business, and acted as agent for a loan company. In 1907, he sold his real estate company and became cashier for the Bannock National Bank. He retained several real estate holdings, including a farm on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. He was also treasurer for a petroleum exploration company in Utah. Church became president of the Bannock National Bank in January 1918, but resigned that position when he was appointed to a state office.

Church was active in the city’s Commercial Club, Rotary, and the local Masonic Lodge. In 1901, he was the driving force in establishing an Elks Lodge for Pocatello. A noted raconteur, he was considered “one of the best story tellers and after-dinner speakers in Idaho.”

That ability no doubt served him well in his political career. Church had become active in politics soon after he settled in Pocatello, serving in the county Republican Party organization. He ran for city Treasurer in 1892 and mayor in 1896, but lost both times. Three years later, he was elected to a term in the state Senate. Church also served on the local school board and city council. And, finally, in 1909, he was elected mayor of Pocatello.

Bannock National Bank, ca 1916.
Bannock County Historical Society.

In January 1919, Governor D. W. Davis appointed Church to head the state Insurance Commission, so he moved his family to Boise. At that time, the duties of the Insurance Commissioner included financial oversight that might involve banking institutions. Thus, Church resigned as President of the Bannock National Bank. After serving a second term as Commissioner, Church moved back to Pocatello to manage his business interests.

In 1921, while Church was serving in Boise, the Bannock National Bank had failed, another victim of the postwar agricultural recession. Still, in 1924, he was appointed Receiver to manage the final breakup of the failed First National Bank of American Falls.

About four years later, poor health forced Church to retire and he died in August of 1933.
                                                                                                                                    

References: [Hawley]

“[Dan Church News],” Idaho Statesman, Capital News, Boise, Times-Register, Idaho Falls, Idaho; Standard-Examiner, Ogden, The Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah (April 1892 – August 1933).

Ben Ysursa, Idaho Blue Book, 2003-2004, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (2003).

Supermarket Innovator and Self-Made Millionaire Joe Albertson [otd 10/17]

Joe Albertson, 1985. Albertson’s, Inc.

Supermarket innovator Joseph A. “Joe” Albertson was born October 17, 1906 near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The family moved to a homestead west of Caldwell when Joe was three years old. After graduating from Caldwell High School, Joe began classes at the College of Idaho, a small private school in Caldwell [blog, Oct 7].

While he attended college, Albertson got a job as a clerk at a Safeway store. Meanwhile, in chemistry class, he met a pert, pretty native Idahoan, Kathryn McCurry, from Boise. At the time, students called the College “Dr. Boone’s marriage mill,” affectionately referring to the school’s founder and first President, William Judson Boone [blog, November 5].

Joe and Kathryn only added to the legacy. On New Years Day 1930, the Reverend Boone wrote in his diary, “Marry Katheryn [sic] McCurry to Joseph A. Albertson. 52 present, very fine and very pretty.”

Their wedding came just two months after the stock market crash of October 1929 … not the best time to start married life. Both were soon forced to drop out of college, although they retained their belief in the importance of education and their soft spot for their alma mater.

Hard-working and personable, Joe rose steadily through the ranks at Safeway. He eventually held a district manager position with responsibility for over a dozen stores. However, after over a decade in the business, Albertson had his own ideas about how to organize and run a grocery store.

First store, Boise. Albertson’s, Inc.

By then, the young couple had managed to save about $5 thousand in working capital. With that, $7,500 borrowed from Kathryn’s aunt, and two partners, Albertson went into business for himself. The first Albertson’s Food Center opened in July 1939, at Sixteenth and State streets in Boise.

Joe put his own stamp on food-service trends that had begun at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Before that time, city people bought food from rather small stores that specialized in one part of the menu: produce, meat, and so on. These shops did tend to cluster together, but had separate owner-operators. Then, over the next 20-30 years, corporate-owned chain stores began to replace the independent operators, although the layouts remained relatively small.

By the 1930s, chains were a dominant factor in the food business, and some had begun to offer a wider range of food products.  (A full treatment of this transition is beyond the scope of this article.) Joe’s first layout was much larger  than most competing stores of the time. He didn’t bring everything under one roof right away, but the store had a bakery, made its own ice cream, and featured vending machines for popcorn and nuts. Customers received great variety, bargain prices, and [in Joe’s words] “all the tender, loving care we can give.”

Less than a year later, the partners opened a second store in Nampa. A third followed in November 1940. After World War II, the partnership was dissolved and Albertson's Incorporated was formed. The rest, as they say, is history. They took the company public in 1959 – investors and mutual funds soon made the stock a favorite in their portfolios.

Albertson began easing out of a major management role in about 1976, although he continued as Chairman of the Executive Committee. When he died in January of 1993, the company operated over 560 stores in seventeen states, and annual sales topped the $10 billion mark. After that, the company went through a succession of corporate splits, buy-outs, mergers, and so on … but it still has a presence in Boise.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [Brit]

Albertson’s Inc. – Company History.

“Kathryn Albertson,” Quest, College of Idaho alumni magazine (Summer 2002).

Louie W. Attebury, The College of Idaho, 1891-1991: A Centennial History, © College of Idaho, Caldwell (1991).

Richard J. Beck, Famous Idahoans, Williams Printing, (© Richard J. Beck, 1989).

Merle Wells, Arthur A. Hart, Idaho: Gem of the Mountains, Windsor Publications, Inc., Northridge, California (1985).

George Collister: Boise Physician, Spotted Fever Researcher, and Developer [otd 10/16]

Dr. Collister. H. T. French photo.

Boise physician and developer George Collister, M.D., was born October 16, 1856 in Willoughby, Ohio, just northeast of Cleveland. He graduated from high school there, and attended The Ohio State University. The youngest of eight children, George paid much of the cost of his higher education himself. He attended a medical college in Cleveland and received his M.D. degree in 1880.

Dr. Collister practiced in Ohio for a year. Then, in 1881, his sister Julia recommended that he move to the "coming" town of Boise City. By then Idahoans knew the Oregon Short Line would soon run tracks across the state, but only the most knowledgeable realized that the line would bypass Boise. (Rails would not arrive in Boise until 1887 [blog, Sept 13].)

Collister soon developed a large and prosperous practice. His dedication to his profession was such that historian Hiram French said (1914), “During all the years since beginning practice in Boise, he has had but three months of actual vacation time.”

Besides his private practice, Dr. Collister at various times acted as official Physician for Ada County, Boise City, and the State Penitentiary. For a while he served on the Idaho State Board of Medical Examiners. Collister belonged to the the Idaho State Medical Society, serving a term as its President. He was a member of the Ada County Medical Society as well as the American Medical Association.

Dr. Collister, along with Dr. Warren Springer [blog, Mar 30] and others, contributed data to the first detailed and systematic assessment of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

George also found time to expand into farming, ranching, and general real estate development. To complement winter pasture in the Boise Valley, he owned five thousand acres of summer range in Boise County, running several hundred head of prime cattle.

Fruit Orchard Along Interurban Railway.
Library of Congress.

George, and sister Julia, also had extensive real estate holdings around what came to be called Collister Station on the interurban railway. This station, located about three miles from downtown, was built in the 1890s and made it easy for the doctor to commute to his office in the City.

Dr. Collister had thousands of fruit trees planted on part of his acreage, including some of the first peach orchards in the Valley. Over the years, he and his wife added a greenhouse (which supplied flowers to a shop in the Boise Hotel) and a feedlot.

In 1912, the family moved into a modest (twenty rooms) mansion near Collister Station. When bids were requested for construction, the Idaho Statesman said (March 19,1911), “The palatial home to be constructed for Mr. and Mrs. George Collister … will be one of the best designed and most complete homes ever built in Boise.”

The request included plans for “a large porch with Corinthian columns,” The kitchen would be “fitted up in the most modern and complete manner, having a dumb waiter into the basement and cold storage room, built-in refrigerator, etc.” The full basement would have “a large and well appointed billiard room … and a large den and summer sitting and dining room.”

Although George and his wife had no children themselves, they did have an adoptive daughter: The mother, George’s patient, died of childbed fever a few days after the birth and the couple adopted the baby.

Dr. Collister passed away in October 1935. The mansion was later renovated into a medical rehabilitation center. Even later, that was demolished and the location is now occupied by a Boise fire station. The doctor’s name is preserved as Collister Drive, Collister Elementary School, and the Collister Neighborhood Association.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [French], [Hawley]

Collister Neighborhood Association, Collister Neighborhood Plan, Boise City Council (September 2007).

James F. Hammarsten, “The contributions of Idaho physicians to knowledge of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever,” Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, Vol. 94 (1983) p. 27–43.

Rogerson Stockman, Banker, and Businessman Louis Harrell [otd 10/15]

Louis Harrell. J. H. Hawley photo.

Idaho stock raiser and businessman Louis Harrell was born October 15, 1846 in Forsyth County, Georgia, 30-40 miles northeast of Atlanta. Of course, the Civil War badly ravaged that area, so right after the war Louis sought better prospects in the West. He was just thirteen years old. Louis eventually landed in Denver, and spent several years in Colorado gold and silver camps.

Around 1870, Jasper Harrell, an older cousin, bought a ranch near Elko, Nevada. Jasper had followed the gold rush to California in 1850 and stayed to become a prosperous cattleman, grain producer, and real estate investor. However, cultivated agriculture was now replacing large-scale cattle operations in California. Jasper hired Louis as part of the crew driving a herd of Texas cattle to his new ranch.

Louis apparently remained in the area as a cowboy working at various ranches, including the Jasper Harrell operation. By the early 1870s, Jasper had “claimed” considerable summer range in south-central Idaho and ran cattle on several satellite ranches there.

In the spring of 1880, Louis moved to Cassia County (which then included today’s Twin Falls County) to work full time for the Harrell operation. Then, with major transactions in 1881 and 1883, Jasper sold his holdings to the Sparks-Tinnin outfit (cattlemen John Sparks and John Tinnin). Louis stayed with the ranch, and then, after Tinnin sold his share to Jasper’s son A. J. (Andrew), continued with the Sparks-Harrell operation.

Louis was among those who saw “Diamondfield” Jack Davis on February 4, 1896 … the day when sheepmen John Wilson and Daniel Cummings were shot [blog, Feb 4]. During the time he was not observed by witnesses, Davis would have had to ride all-out to the exact scene of the shooting – and even that might not have been enough. Yet Louis later told his sons that Jack’s horse showed no signs of hard riding – which other witnesses confirmed at the trial. (A jury of sheepman and farmers convicted Jack anyway.)

Cattle brought to water. Library of Congress.

In 1897, Louis started his own small ranch operation not far from today’s Rogerson. An incident the year before might well have played a role in his decision.

According to one of his sons, Louis had been roping wild horses when his riata – woven leather rope – snapped. The backlash flailed his eyes, almost blinding him. It took him over two days, on horseback and then by train to Ogden, to reach medical help. They could save only one of his eyes. He might then have decided it was time to settle down as a ranch manager rather than continue as a working cowboy.

Over the years, Louis expanded his ranch operation. Then, after the Oregon Short Line ran a railroad line south from Twin Falls in 1909, he invested in the town of Rogerson. That included a position as Vice President of the Bank of Rogerson. He also owned stock in a bank in Kimberly.

Louis remained active on the ranch until late in life. He listed his occupation as stock rancher, not “retired,” even as late as the 1930 U. S. Census. He finally retired some time in the Thirties. On October 15, 1946, the Harrell family celebrated Louis’s 100th birthday. He told an interviewer he well remembered “Civil War gun-smoke” and had known people like those portrayed in the hit movie Gone With the Wind. Louis pass away less than two months later.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [French], [Hawley]

Charles S. Walgamott, Six Decades Back, The Caxton Press, Caldwell, Idaho (1936).

James A. Young, B. Abbott Sparks, Cattle in the Cold Desert, University of Nevada Press, Reno (2002).

Cattleman David Shirk Owns Longhorns Driven from Texas [otd 10/14]

“The next day, October 14th, 1871, after all were mounted, we proceeded to divide the cattle,” rancher David L. Shirk said in his memoir.

Ridin' drag. Library of Congress.

Shirk was one of two junior partners with prominent Idaho cattleman George T. Miller. The three of them had purchased 1,500 longhorns in Bell County, Texas and driven them into Idaho.

Born in Indiana in 1844, David Shirk grew up on farms there and later in Illinois. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, he headed west, drawing wages for driving a freight wagon to Denver. From there, he traveled to Silver City, Idaho, arriving in August 1866. He started off well, but then almost died from “mountain fever.” That left him in debt for his care.

Determined to be debt-free, Shirk labored steadily for a farm-ranch operation, and was fortunate … and astute … enough to do well with some small cattle investments. Fifteen months later he found himself ahead by $1,150 – a considerable sum at a time when cow hands made $30 a month.

He spent another year herding cattle for a Silver City butcher. Then the butcher tasked him to drive a flock of sheep south to the gold camps in Nevada. Despite his limited experience, the latter drive was very successful. But Shirk commented, “After getting through with that drive, I could hear a sheep bleat for five years.”

By early 1871, Shirk had accumulated the capital to combine with Miller and the other partner. They bought horses and other equipment in Texas, and then bargained for cattle. The drive finally headed north in mid-April. Their trek was fairly typical: That is, months of punishing work and constant danger – from rustlers, Indian raiders, and the elements.

About a week out of Fort Worth, a severe nighttime storm stampeded the herd and Shirk rode off an embankment into a swollen stream. He struggled onto the dubious safety of a scant island. Still, he said, “All that saved me was the cessation of the storm, otherwise I should not now be relating the venture.”

David Shirk.
University of Oregon Library.

 
The herd-split noted above took place on the rugged plains south of Bruneau, Idaho. Shirk drove his band to a grazing area on the Snake River about five miles north of today’s Murphy. He eventually sold the animals for a net return of over $2,000. Considering that outcome, Shirk observed, “When one considers the risk, dangers of the drive, and the risk of losing every dollar you had in the world, not to mention life itself, the profits were not unreasonable.”

He made another successful drive from Texas in 1873. The Owyhee Avalanche in Silver City, Idaho reported (September 27, 1873) the arrival: “Two drovers, named Dill and Shirk, each with about 1,900 head of cattle, have arrived from Texas, and will hibernate in the northwestern portions of our county … Dill is at present at Salmon Falls, and Shirk has reached Bruneau valley.”

A few weeks after his arrival, Shirk made a deal for his cattle at a nice profit. Within a couple years, Shirk had established his own ranch in Oregon, having concluded that the Owyhee region in Idaho lacked room for the operation he wanted.

Ready to ease off in 1896, he bought a winter home in Berkeley, California. The family eventually moved there permanently. Shirk died there in 1928.
                                                                                                                                     

References: Mike Hanley, with Ellis Lucia, Owyhee Trails: The West's Forgotten Corner, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1973).

Byron DeLos Lusk, Golden Cattle Kingdoms of Idaho, Master’s thesis, Utah State University, Logan (1978).

David L. Shirk, Martin F. Schimdt (ed.), The Cattle Drives of David Shirk, Champoeg Press, Portland, Oregon (1956).

Cattleman Bower Describes “Self-Defense” Shooting of Sheepmen Wilson and Cummings [otd 10/13]

On October 13, 1898, James E. Bower, Superintendent for the Sparks-Harrell Cattle Company, appeared before a Cassia County Justice of the Peace and made a sworn statement about the killings of sheepmen John Wilson and Daniel Cummings.  The two had been found shot to death at a spot about 25-30 miles south of today’s Twin Falls, Idaho. The bodies had been discovered in mid-February 1896 [blog, Feb 16].

Sheep wagon. Library of Congress.

Bower stated that he and cowboy Jeff Gray had ridden into a sheep camp between 11 o’clock and noon on February 4th [blog, Feb 4]. The sheepmen had located their wagon well west of the “dead line,” the boundary established by gentlemen’s agreement between sheep and cattle range.

The cattlemen did not recognize either of the herders, leading them to suspect that they were “tramps” out of Utah. So-called “tramp” stockmen – who could be running sheep or cattle – grazed their herds on range normally used by settled stockmen, but hurried the animals away before a tax assessor showed up.

Bower stated that they were invited into the sheep wagon, where he queried the sheepmen about their status in the area. One herder asserted positively that the flock owners did pay taxes in the county. The cattleman, who felt sure the animals were not on the county rolls, said, “I think you are mistaken about that.”

The sheepman angrily leaped at Bower and grabbed his coat collar near the throat. The older man tried to pull a revolver to protect himself. His opponent wrestled it away from him, although Bower still had his arm. Meanwhile, the sheepman’s rush had dumped Gray out of the wagon. Gray yelled at the attacker to stop. When he persisted and the other man lifted a rifle, Gray fired two shots … frightening the sheepmen and ending the attack on Bower.

Bower claimed that when they left the camp the two strangers seemed all right, except for a superficial scrape on the man who seized Bower’s gun. Both sheepmen had, of course, been fatally wounded. Later, Bower realized that he had left behind a new corncob pipe. That pipe had been found along with the bodies of Wilson and Cummings, but prosecutors never attempted to explain its presence.

Diamondfield Jack Davis.
Denver Public Library, Western Collection.

The deposition, with its self-defense assertion, caused a sensation. Eighteen month earlier, a jury had convicted cowboy-gunhand “Diamondfield” Jack Davis of the killings. His attorneys easily answered the prosecution’s flimsy and deeply flawed circumstantial evidence. Yet, despite “reasonable doubt,” Jack’s reputation and earlier threats against sheepmen led to a quick conviction … by a jury made up of sheepmen, farmers, and one miner.

That verdict was under appeal – but several appeals had already failed and Jack was scheduled to hang on June 4. Incredibly, the confession, supported under oath by Gray, only bought time, it did not win Jack’s freedom. After more legal fireworks, the Idaho Board of Pardons set a new hanging date of December 16, 1898.

In fact, Jack Davis twice came within hours of  being hanged for a crime he had nothing to do with. In July 1901, the Board revisited the physical evidence. Then, totally ignoring the Bower-Gray confessions, they decided Davis could not have done the shooting … so they rescinded the death decree and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment!

Davis was not pardoned and released until late in 1902 [blog, Dec 17].
                                                                                                                                     

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

Mike Hanley, with Ellis Lucia, Owyhee Trails: The West's Forgotten Corner, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1973).

Byron DeLos Lusk, Golden Cattle Kingdoms of Idaho, Master's thesis, Utah State University, Logan (1978).

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

Bishop Tuttle Arrives in Boise, Rancher and Businessman Peter Pence [otd 10/12]

Bishop Tuttle.
Utah State Historical Society.

On October 12, 1867, the Right Reverend Daniel S. Tuttle, missionary bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, arrived in Boise. In the Episcopal Church, a missionary bishop is basically like any other bishop except that his stipend is paid by the parent church, rather than through local or regional collections.

At that time, Tuttle acted as bishop over Idaho, Montana, and part of Utah. He had first visited Virginia City, Montana, returned to “base” in Salt Lake City, and then headed north. It was not a happy experience: “I arrived at Boise Saturday afternoon, October 12, with broken neck, bruised head, aching bones, sore throat and disturbed temper.”

Still, he also said, “As the name implies, the river on which this town is situated is wooded with willows and cottonwoods. It is very pleasant to see these green growths.”

During his visit, Tuttle helped the resident missionary establish a parish school. He actually bought a full city block for the the church, “fencing it at a cost of $325.88.” Over his many years in the region, he endured thousands of miles in jolting, dusty stagecoach rides to cover his territory. Not until 1881 did the church assign a separate bishop for Montana.

Possessed of a “commanding presence” leavened by a practical and unassuming demeanor, Bishop Tuttle won the respect and admiration of even the rough element in his territory. During his 19 years in the mountains, he personally visited, held services, recruited local leaders, and generally grew the church at over 50 sites in Idaho alone. When church leaders moved him to Missouri in 1886, he had organized missions in Boise, Silver City, Idaho City, Lewiston, Blackfoot, Bellevue, Hailey, and Ketchum.

On October 12, 1837, Idaho pioneer Peter Pence was born in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburg. As a young man, he worked for a time in Kansas and freighted into Denver. In the early 1860s, spillovers from the unrest in the states further south persuaded Pence to moved west. The wagon train he joined arrived in Oregon in September 1862, about the time the Boise Basin gold rush had really begun to boom.

Rancher Pence. H. T. French photo.

Pence followed the rush to Placerville and then to Idaho City. He prospected there, but made more money whipsawing lumber. Pence returned to packing for a time, then threshed grain in the Boise Valley.

In early 1867, he invested his grain-threshing returns in a band of fifteen hundred cattle. These were then moved to a spread he purchased where Big Willow Creek joins the Payette River, about twenty miles downriver from today’s Emmett. His was the first substantial herd set grazing on those ranges.

Pence helped organize several irrigation systems that drew water from the Payette River. In 1899 the Illustrated History said he was “President of three ditch incorporations.”

Pence later branched out into real estate, banking, and other investments … and was elected to the state legislature in 1901. He played a significant role in the development of the city of Payette and served as the first chairman of the town Board of Trustees, staying on the Board for several terms. (In a common practice for the times, news reports after that began referring to Pence as "The Honorable," as though he were the mayor of Payette.) The ranch he established in 1867 is on today’s list of “Century Ranches” – properties that are still operated by descendants of the original owners.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Melville Knox Bailey, The Right Reverend Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, Church Missions Publishing Company, Hartford, Connecticut (1923).

Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, Missionary to the Mountain West, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City (1987).

Packer Lloyd Magruder and Others Murdered on Nez Perce Trail [otd 10/11]

On the night of October 11, 1863, conspirators murdered packer Lloyd Magruder and four other men. The killings took place on the South Nez Percé Trail. The Trail – now also called the Magruder Corridor – twists crazily through the deep Central Idaho wilderness to cross a regional divide into Montana at Nez Percé Pass.

Magruder Corridor segment. U. S. Forest Service.

Scion of a prominent Maryland family, Lloyd Magruder had fought in the Mexican War and earned a promotion from private to second lieutenant. He resigned that commission to try his hand in the California gold fields. Bad luck reversed his initial success, so he moved to Lewiston, Idaho in July, 1862.

Within a year, the hard-working and intelligent Magruder owned both a pack train and a store. In August, Magruder’s string of mules headed east from Elk City on the South Nez Percé Trail, which provided the most direct route across the Bitterroot Mountains. Their initial destination might have been Bannack, the first gold camp in the area. But rumors had reached Lewiston of a new, richer strike at Alder Gulch, 40 to 50 miles further east.

So Magruder took his train straight there to a brand new Virginia City, where he soon profitably sold his goods. He returned by way of Bannack, where he bought more mules at bargain prices. Then he headed home, leading a train of six horses and about forty mules. Eight other men accompanied him.

About fifteen trail miles into Idaho from Nez Percés Pass, the party encamped on a side stream at the base of a ridge. They released the stock on a good forage area about a half mile up the slope. Magruder and a man named Christopher Lower drew the sundown-to-midnight watch over the animals.

When they left camp, Lower carried an ax, purportedly to clear some brush intruding on the pasture. Before midnight Lowe, or another conspirator who had joined them, split Magruder’s skull from behind with the ax. Those two and a third conspirator then slaughtered four other innocent bystanders. Hunter and guide William “Billy” Page knew about the plot but kept quiet through fear or greed. He later turned state’s evidence.

The men disposed of the evidence and headed surreptitiously for Lewiston. A few days later, they waited until after dark to enter the town. Page arranged to corral the animals out of sight. With no steamboat scheduled any time soon, they decided to take the early morning stagecoach to Walla Walla.

Luna House, ca. 1868. Illustrated History.

The nearest ticket office happened to be at Luna House, the hotel operated by Hill Beachy, a friend of Lloyd Magruder. Beachy, schooled on Mississippi River steamboats and in California gold camps, knew how to read men, and situations. When a conspirator bought tickets for four men, his furtive manner caught Beachy’s attention: Perhaps they planned a stage robbery.

Beachy passed a warning to the other passengers and watched them leave the next morning. That’s when he realized the strangers had considerable gold themselves. That induced other suspicions: Where had that gold come from? Investigation soon uncovered some of Magruder’s animals and gear that had been stashed with a friend of one of the conspirators.

Beachy's pursuit of the men became the stuff of legend, as he just missed them when they sailed from Portland on a coastal packet. Beachy had to race overland to apprehend the killers in San Francisco. He then returned them to Idaho for trial and execution.
                                                                                                                                     

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

Julia Conway Welch, The Magruder Murders: Coping with Violence on the Idaho Frontier, Falcon Press Publishing, Helena, Montana (© Julia Conway Welch, 1991).

British and American Fur Trapper Bands Have Friendly Meeting in Central Idaho [otd 10/10]

On October 10, 1830, a party of trappers working for the American Fur Company met the bulk of the “Snake Brigade” – trappers and camp keepers of the British-Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company. The encounter apparently took place on the Little Wood River, west of the lava flows and probably not too far from today’s Carey. (One must account for travel time estimates and reconcile different geographical names to locate the probable meeting place.)

HBC Leader John Work.
British Canadian Archives.

Such encounters did not happen every day, but they were not uncommon during the height of the region’s fur trapping era. What made this event unusual was the fact that it was documented by members of both of the respective parties.

Irish-born John Work, a sixteen-year HBC veteran, had been appointed in August to lead the Brigade [blog, Oct 23]. They crossed from Oregon into Idaho in late summer. On September 9th, Work wrote, “Reached the discharge of Payette’s River, up which we proceeded.”

After trapping the Payette and Boise rivers, they moved east to the Camas Prairie, down the Big Wood, and then up the Little Wood.

On October 10th, Work said that a few of his trappers had met the Americans, who had “just arrived from Snake River across the plains.” His daily note ends with the statement: “Americans are encamped within a short distance of us.”

A day or so later he wrote, “Crooks & Co. are the outfitters. A Mr. Fontenelle, who manages this business, is now at Snake River with 50 men.”

American trapper Warren Ferris mentioned “Mr. Fontenelle” several times in his account of Life in the Rocky Mountains. Born in New York state, Ferris joined the American Fur Company and headed west early in 1830. Besides the hope for adventure, he said his motives were economic: “For times are hard, and my best coat has a sort of sheepish hang-dog hesitation to encounter fashionable folk.”

Lava near Craters of the Moon. State of Idaho photo.

Lucien Fontenelle was one of the principals for the AFC. According to Ferris, a band of AFC trappers “travelled north of west, through a barren desert, destitute of every species of vegetation, except a few scattering cedars, and speckled with huge round masses of black basaltic rock. … It was doubtless lava, which had been vomited forth from some volcano, the fires of which are now extinct.”

This is an accurate description of the lava plain that covers great tracts south of the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Almost too late for some of the men, the Americans staggered out of the barrens onto a “pure cool reviving stream, a new river of life.”

Although Ferris himself was not with this particular party, he recorded a detailed account based on talks with several men who were there. A day after escaping the lava, they heard gunshots in the distance and sent a scout to investigate. Ferris then reported that the scout "shortly after returned, accompanied by several trappers who belonged to a party of forty, led by a Mr. Work, a clerk of the Hudson Bay Company.”

After this chance encounter, the Brigade headed north along the Little Wood. Knowing the country, Work then succeeded in ditching the Americans somewhere deep in the mountains. They continued to the prime beaver country along the Salmon River. The AFC party had to settle for stumbling upon the Little Lost River, which disappears into the ground southeast of today’s Arco.
                                                                                                                                     

References: [B&W]

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

William R. Sampson, “John Work,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

John Work, T. C. Elliott (Ed.), “The Journal of John Work,” Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. X, No. 3 (1909).

Kitty Wilkins, Horse Queen of Idaho and North American Supplier [otd 10/09]

On October 9, 1936, the Idaho Statesman announced that “Kittie” Wilkins had died the day before at her home in Glenns Ferry. The Statesman then reminded its readers of her place in Idaho history, when newspapers celebrated Wilkins as the “Horse Queen of Idaho” and the “Queen of Diamonds.”

Kitty Wilkins. Elmore County Historical Research Team.

Katherine “Kitty” Wilkins was born in the Rogue River area of Oregon, in 1857. The family moved around a great deal after about 1861 – with stops in Florence (Idaho), Boise City, and then Tuscarora, Nevada. During those years, Kitty received an excellent education at Roman Catholic schools in Utah and California.

In the 1870s, Kitty’s father John developed an interest in stock raising. An acquaintance pointed out the fine grasslands available in Idaho’s Bruneau Valley, so John grazed a band of horses there as a sideline to their hotel in Tuscarora.

Shortly after the hotel burned down in 1879, he moved the family to the Valley. At that point, Kitty found her true calling: She discovered a special ability and affinity for raising topnotch horses. Her father and brother raised cattle, but in an interview (one of many) she said, “I haven’t got a bit of use for cattle, though I love horses.”

She had an active role in the business by the time she was twenty years old. Thus, the Owyhee Avalanche in Silver City, Idaho, reprinted (June 18, 1887) a Mountain Home item that said, “The Wilkins Bros., and Miss Kitty Wilkins, of Bruneau, come [sic] over to the city Tuesday, and shipped two carloads of horses to the Omaha market.”

Later that year, the Evening News in San Jose, California (December 14, 1887) described Kitty as “one of the most noted women of the West.”

By around 1890, she was basically in total charge of the horse operation. Historian Adelaide Hawes, who knew Kitty personally, wrote, “Contrary to public belief she did not don male attire. … When demonstrating her horses she rode a sidesaddle and wore the usual feminine riding skirt of those days. When riding the range she always rode a sidesaddle.”

Ride the range she did … being very much of a “hands-on” manager. And her personal “marketing” and sales appearances caused a sensation everywhere she went. Well-schooled, attractive, and quietly charismatic, Kitty dazzled reporters who interviewed her.

She sold only the best horses, and her knowledge impressed even professional horse dealers and breeders. In 1891, an article in the St. Louis Republic observed: “Miss Wilkins is a horse trader, and what she does not know about a horse is not worth knowing.”

Kitty Wilkins with carriage horse.
Elville Wilkins photo posted at GlennsFerry.org.

The ranch operated under the Diamond brand, which sparked another colorful nickname: “The Queen of Diamonds.” As early as 1890, the famous King ranch in Texas purchased 750 Diamond Ranch horses. For three decades, Kitty shipped horses all over North America, including train carloads for the U. S. Cavalry.

The ranch did well during World War I, but motorized vehicles had even then begun to depress markets for horses. Not long after the war ended, Kitty retired to a fine home in Glenns Ferry. She spent her later years associating with her closest friends and performing quiet acts of charity.

She last appeared in a public event in 1934, leading a parade for the Fort Boise Centennial Celebration (commemorating the older Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, not the Army fort built in 1863).
                                                                                                                                     

References: L. E. Bragg, More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Idaho Women, The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Connecticut (2001).

Arthur Hart, “Meet Kitty Wilkins, the Horse Queen of Idaho,” Idaho Statesman, February 10, 2009.

Adelaide Hawes, Valley of Tall Grass, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1950).

Sandra Ransel, Charles Durand, Crossroads: A History of the Elmore County Area, Elmore County Historical Research Team, Mountain Home, Idaho (1985).

Queen of Diamonds – blog about Kitty.