U. S. Assay Office Added to National Register of Historic Places [otd 05/30]

On May 30, 1961, the old U. S. Assay Office in Boise took its deserved place on the National Register of Historic Places.

After the discoveries of 1862, gold – dust, nuggets, and quartz ore – poured out of the mountainous Boise Basin region (east of Boise City). Large amounts of silver from Owyhee County, and elsewhere, soon followed. Gold dust immediately became a preferred medium of exchange, as it always did in gold country. The metal has intrinsic value, of course, and can be doled out in widely varying amounts.

Gold scales. Oregon Historical Society.

However, the dust also suffers from some serious shortcomings. First, transactions require a set of scales and standard weights to measure the dust. Pioneer Charlie Walgamott noted that Chinese miners in south-central Idaho “invariably” carried their own devices, which were very precise and accurate. (A merchant caught with doctored scales would be in big trouble.)

Such transactions were complicated by the fact that not all gold dust was the same. The nominal value was $16 per ounce. However, dust from one placer area might be worth $12 per ounce while that from another might go $19. The circulation of bogus dust caused further doubt in such dealings.

Private assayers provided a stopgap service by melting dust into gold bars of various sizes. Stamped with the weight, value, and assayer identification, these too could be used as a medium of exchange. However, such “currency” did not travel well … generally only as far as the assayers good name.

Thus, by 1864, miners and businessmen alike were agitating for the establishment of a branch mint within Idaho Territory. Failing that, they wanted at least an official assay office. It simply cost too much to ship the precious metals to the Mint in San Francisco. The 1866 Territorial legislature made a formal request for an assay office, but partisan politics and pressing business at the end of the Civil War delayed action until 1869.

In February of that year, Congress authorized creation of an assay office in Boise City. President Grant then appointed former Idaho Chief Justice John R. McBride [blog, Feb 28] to oversee construction and act as the office’s first superintendent.

U. S. Assay Office, ca. 1898. Illustrated History image.

The structure was designed by Alfred B. Mullet, Supervising Architect for the Treasury Department. Mullet design around forty government buildings, including the original San Francisco Mint, the Carson City Mint, and many post offices and customs buildings. The original structure had offices and a laboratory on the ground floor, with living quarters for the Chief Assayer on the second. Construction began in 1870 and the Office received its first official deposits in March 1872.

The Assay Office operated as part of the Treasury Department for over sixty years. It processed several billion dollars (in today’s values) worth of gold and silver during that period. The Office closed in 1933 and the U.S. Forest Service began using the building for office space.

Although the interior was extensively remodeled, the exterior of what became a National Landmark was largely unchanged from the original. The National Register states, under Significance, that the Office was “One of the earliest monumental structures in the Northwest … and has always symbolized the importance of Idaho's mines.”

In 1972, the Idaho State Historical Society became the owner of record. Today, the building houses the Idaho Historic Preservation Office and the Archaeological Survey of Idaho.
                                                                                 

Reference: [Brit], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

"Assay Office, Boise," National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (1961).

“The Old Assay Office in Boise,” Reference Series No. 359, Idaho State Historical Society (December 1974).

Charles Shirley Walgamott, Six Decades Back, The Caxton Printers, Ltd, Caldwell, Idaho (1936).

Cornerstone Laid for Idaho Soldiers Home in Boise [otd 05/23]

On May 23, 1893, dignitaries gathered in Boise City to lay the cornerstone for the new Idaho Soldiers’ Home. Meant to care for Union Army veterans of the Civil War who were “aged and in want,” the Home was completed the following year.

Union soldiers, ca. 1862. Library of Congress.

Idaho, of course, wasn’t even organized when the War started, and provided no Volunteer units for the conflict. However, by the time Idaho became a state, several thousand veterans had settled there. Not too surprisingly, 70 percent of them came from the midwestern states. (Nearly 85 percent came from the Midwest, Pennsylvania, or New York.)

Thus, the Idaho legislature appropriated funds for a soldiers’ home, and designated acreage from Federal land grants to create an operating endowment fund. The Act also authorized the governor to appoint a Board of Trustees. The appropriation stretched further after Ada County citizens donated the money to buy forty acres of land where the home could be sited. Builders completed the structure in November, 1894.

Officials staged a formal opening in May 1895. By then, the legislature had authorized funds for more buildings, including a hospital. Two years later, the state modified the eligibility requirements to include veterans of the Mexican War and National Guard soldiers who were disabled in the line of duty. That provided a “side door” for some who fought for the losing side of what some still called, in 1901, “the war of the rebellion.”

Idaho Soldiers Home, ca. 1914. H. T. French photo.

Fire damaged the main building in October 1900 and took the life of one resident veteran. The structure was rebuilt, reportedly better than ever. Certainly, it was different. The original Home had been built in the style, more or less, of a French chateau, with numerous gables and conical turrets at the front corners. The new design sported an onion-shaped dome that dominated the center front of the building, and the corner turrets had been reshaped. (The results seem rather akin to a Russian-Orthodox church.)

Another fire in October 1917 caused major damage. The state made arrangements to house the residents at Boise Barracks, which then had only minimal use. The aged veterans found their “temporary” quarters comfortable enough, but commented that they never felt like home. Because the country and the state were on a war footing, it took quite a long time for the old home to be rebuilt: It was not reopened until 1920 (Idaho Statesman, May 10, 1920). Perhaps to reduce costs, the repairs did not include the exotic domes and turrets.

As time, and old soldiers, passed, more and more residents of the Home were veterans of the 1898 Spanish-American War, then World War I, and so on. Age also took its toll on the building and finally, in 1966, officials dedicated a new “Boise Veterans Home” a half mile east of the capitol building.

Statuary in Veterans Memorial Park.

Eventually, city workers leveled the structures at the old site and created Veterans Memorial Park. Besides the usual recreational areas, the park contains monuments to war dead in several conflicts, those Missing in Action, and prisoners of war. It also has commemorative plaques for veterans’ groups and various military activities.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Nancy DeHamer, "Idaho Soldiers Home," Reference Series No. 713, Idaho State Historical Society (1985).

Rod House, Steve Barrett, and Wilma Jager, Civil War Veterans in Idaho, Idaho State Historical Society (2006).

"News of the States: Tuesday, October 9," Colfax Gazette, Colfax, Washington (October 12, 1900).

True Crime: Gang Busters, Luke May … and Research

If you take on a writing project that requires getting the historical facts just right, you better like research ... but.

I already knew that, and just had further proof. My current project is the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. My draft is complete and I have submitted the book proposal, so I’m busy editing the text and tying up loose ends.

May dictating answers for "Luke May's Department."

One loose end was the belief that some of May’s cases became episodes on Gang Busters, the true crime radio show that ran from 1936 to 1957. Even May’s granddaughter Mindi was not quite sure where that notion came from. It made sense, because from 1935 through 1940, May wrote a monthly column called “Luke May’s Department” for True Detective Mysteries, the most popular of the true crime magazines.

But rather than leaving it at that, I started looking for some verification. That soon led me to Phillips H. Lord, the man who created Gang Busters and, as it happened, many other popular radio programs. For various reasons, Lord occasionally found himself involved in legal disputes. Buried in some fourteen hundred pages of testimony for one case, I discovered a nugget that linked to Luke May.

Lord was always on the lookout for ideas he could turn into a new series. In 1936, when Gang Busters began to look like a success, Lord considered using the work of a crime laboratory as the basis for a program. His staff found that “Luke May was reported … to be one of the outstanding laboratory scientists for the solution of crime.”

So Lord arranged a meeting with Luke, in June of 1936 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. They talked about two hours and, naturally, May was quite enthusiastic about the idea. Lord said he would do a trial run on such a program and get back to Luke if the idea was well received. Soon after the meeting, Lord wrote a script for a test run on Gang Busters. But he also tested a more standard episode with a district attorney as the featured law enforcement person. In the end, the DA episode won out and eventually led to the popular radio (and television) show, Mr. District Attorney.

I now knew that May’s work had instigated one Gang Busters episode, but that it had been a (comparative) flop. That’s when I discovered the book Gang Busters: The Crime Fighters of American Broadcasting, by Martin Grams, Jr., published in 2004. Fortunately, used copies are still available at Amazon.com for a reasonable price. As a matter of fact, Mr. Grams has written quite a number of books about “old time” radio and TV programs, like The Green Hornet and The Twilight Zone, which you can learn about at his web site.

In nearly 700 pages of the Gang Busters book, Grams provides a lot of background on the program and at least some information for each of the 1,008 radio episodes. Sadly, for episodes after about 1954, he could only list the broadcast dates. But for hundreds upon hundreds of episodes, he not only has the titles, but also the story lines.

I found, for sure, that three of May’s cases ended up as Gang Buster episodes. One was the kidnapping of nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser, son of the lumber baron, in 1935. Another was the 1934 “Bremerton Massacre,” in which a home invasion/robbery turned into the murder of six victims. There are two or three more episodes that probably have some connection to Luke May, but those will require more research.

And now we come to the “dark side” of needing to like research … you can like it too much. Having gone through the longer story lines, I had the answer to my question: Yes, Luke May cases were turned into Gang Buster episodes. My excuse for what happened next: I was afraid I might miss other Luke May cases that were turned into shows.

So … I spent the best part of the past week exploring episodes where the story line was unknown or given in just one cryptic line. Often the title provided a clue, although some seemed hopeless, like “The Case of the Trail to San Antone” or “The Case of the Monstrous Canary.” I struck out on the first, but actually found something for the second. A newspaper radio listing said the “Canary” episode was about a dope peddler who angered a partner and girlfriend who decided to “sing.”

But the title or brief story line might also have the name(s) of one or more of the criminals. That gave me terms to plug into a full newspaper search. For example, “The Case of Hugo Hedin,” broadcast September 9, 1950, outlined the career of a counterfeiter paroled in 1930. He was not caught again for twenty years because he specialized in small bills and moved just enough to stay ahead of the law. Some titles gave me three or more names, which helped a lot.

All told, I found reasonable to excellent newspaper links for over ninety episodes. The bad news: None of those that I expanded had any solid connection to Luke S. May. Worse yet, I found some of these stories so interesting, I spent more time on them, digging deeper than I really needed to. Sigh. At least now I can be fairly sure I found all the Luke May links I could.
                                                                                 

References: “Alonzo Deen Cole v. Phillips H. Lord, Inc.,” Case on Appeal, New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division – First Department, Corporate Press, Inc., New York City, New York (1942).

Martin Grams, Jr., Gang Busters: The Crime Fighters of American Broadcasting, OTR Publishing, Churchville, Maryland (2004).

Idaho and the U.S. Armored Corps

Idahoans have a long tradition of military service. That history through World War I has been described in over a half-dozen articles here. Sources show that Idahoans served in all branches, including the “aero corp” and even the U.S. Coast Guard. The Idaho National Guard itself generally saw duty as infantry or in the field artillery.

Just recently, however, I learned of yet another historical role played by Idaho servicemen. This information came from an informant whose father, Theodore Thompson Budrow, was a member of the Guard/Army from 1916-1919. A follow-up e-mail also said that his father “drove a tank in France during WWI.” This was the first I had ever heard that Idaho soldiers were involved in the creation of the U. S. armored corps. Turns out, Dr. Budrow had seen combat in a French-built Renault tank. 

Renault Tanks, 1918. U. S. National Archives.

Theodore T. Budrow was born in Wyoming to Gideon and Jennie (Fowler) Budrow, in October of 1897. Around 1905, the family moved to Boise, where Gideon found a job as a clerk. Three years later, they relocated to open a mercantile store near Soda Springs. However, for a time in 1913, Theodore was boarding at the College of Idaho, in Caldwell, where he took preparatory classes. It’s not clear how long he was there, but he reportedly did very well.

Then, in early 1914, the family moved to Twin Falls, where Gideon purchased an interest in a dry-cleaning business. Theodore graduated from Twin Falls High School in May of that year. (Twin Falls Times; May 14, 1915.) On evenings and weekends, the local company of the Idaho National Guard drilled and marched in the streets. Theodore decided he’d like to be a part of that, and joined up in early 1916. They weren’t worried about the fighting in Europe, believing that President Wilson’s hands-off polices would continue.

However, Pancho Villa’s raids across the Mexican border had become more than a minor nuisance. On June 18, 1916, state authorities mobilized the Guard for duty on the Mexican border [blog, June 18]. The Guardsmen were not allowed to cross the border, but they freed up Regular Army troops to chase Villa in Mexico. As noted in the other blog, the Guard encamped near Nogales, Arizona.

Intelligent and observant, Budrow said, “The landscape, flora and fauna of the Arizona desert intrigued me, and I would often climb over the hills, and down into the dry creek beds the Mexicans called ‘arroyos’.” Although Idaho soldiers never saw live action, the expedition definitely toughened them up. Theodore observed, “The tender pale-skinned youngsters who were exhausted by an hour of close-order drill in November were now able to make a 35-mile hike in full packs of fifty pounds each.” 

Nogales Camp, Idaho National Guard, 1916. Budrow Family Archive.

 The Guard returned home just before Christmas. However, some months after they had been mustered out of their special service, they were back. This time around, they were mobilized as the 2nd Idaho Regiment, which was then inducted into the U. S. Army [blog, August 5]. They became part of the 41st Infantry Division, along with national guard units from Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. They were first assembled for training at Camp Greene, near Charlotte, North Carolina. Budrow wrote, “We were now the 146th Field Artillery, United States Army; it was the end of Company ‘D’ of the Idaho National Guard.”

After some preliminary training, elements of the 41st Division departed for Europe. They assembled in the St. Aignan-Noyers area, in central France about 120 miles northwest of Lyon. There, to the disappointment of many, the Division ended up in “depot” duty. That is, they mostly helped train and acclimate the steady stream of reinforcements arriving in France. Now and then, individual units from the 41st Division might be doled out as replacements – mostly at the company level, apparently.

Yet that status also led to a key “course change” in the life of Theodore Budrow. The scope of this blog only allows a brief sketch of the creation of the U.S. Army Tank Corps. The corps was officially authorized in December of 1917. Its commander directed Captain (soon to be Lieutenant Colonel) George S. Patton to establish a training facility for the new force. After two months of instruction at the French tank school, Patton began setting up a U.S. tank base at Langres, located in northeast France about 40 miles north of Dijon. 

Lt. Colonel George S. Patton. U. S. Army Photo.

 Patton had great difficulty obtaining equipment and personnel, especially officers. They would not have any actual tanks until near the end of March, 1918 – ten Renault light tanks, supplied by the French. But even before that, Patton had recruited a cadre of twenty-two junior lieutenants from the coast artillery and sent them off to train at the French tank school. He followed that in early February with a visit to the depot unit, where he brought 125 volunteers on board. Available records do not identify the enlisted men of the Corps, but it is estimated that perhaps a couple dozen were from Idaho. Still, that first contingent was not enough, so they put out calls for more men.

One such notice reached Theodore Budrow, who was then with the Field Artillery Replacement Regiment, which included a number of other men from the old 2nd Idaho Infantry. Budrow liked the notion of serving in the “iron cavalry.” He also observed, “Riding a tank into battle, I thought, would be much preferable to riding a horse-drawn caisson.” He and several other volunteers arrived at Langres on April 5th. Budrow ended up in the 344th Tank Corps Battalion, but a month passed before he even saw a tank. Instead, he helped build structures for the training center, hauled supplies, and stood guard duty.

Finally, they all began to learn about the Renault light tank. (“Light” only by classification; it weighed around 7 tons.) Powered by a gasoline engine in the rear, the vehicle had room for just two men, the driver and a gunner. A lieutenant or sergeant commanded the tank and manned its weapon. The basic model had two configurations: one armed with the 8-mm Hotchkiss machine gun, the other with a 37-mm cannon. They now even got to drive actual tanks, learning the controls … including basic things like shifting gears. Budrow commented, “For those experienced in driving cars, there was little to learn; but most of us had never driven a car.”

As could be expected, the vehicle was quite noisy. Thus, the crew had to learn a set of control codes: A kick in the driver’s back from the tank commander meant move forward; on right shoulder, turn right; and so on. (The crude headphones of the day – invented in 1910 – could never have survived a combat environment.) The Corps spent the summer training with the shared machines.

Meanwhile, General John “Blackjack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, was preparing to attack the Saint-Mihiel Salient. The salient bulged about eighteen miles beyond the main line, hampering communications and the flow of supplies along the front. Eliminating the bulge would also put Allied forces close to Metz, a vital railway junction for the German forces. Pershing’s plan called for the first use of the new Tank Corps in battle. Thus, machines finally began to arrive for the 344th and 345th Tank Battalions. Budrow received his, equipped with a 37-mm cannon, on September 2, 1918.

The two battalions went into battle ten days later. While not a spectacular success, the Tank Corps made several solid contributions, despite deep, thick mud that hampered their efforts. They cut gaps in enemy barbed wire barriers, knocked out a goodly number of machine gun emplacements, wrecked a battalion of artillery, and scattered a battalion of infantry.

Budrow’s tank also helped haul several other tanks and artillery transports out of the mud … before it ran out of gas. They weren’t the only one: The heavy going had caused much higher fuel consumption than expected. Refueled the next day, his tank and several others pushed ahead until they discovered they were about five miles beyond the official front line. They hid in some brush until they were recalled that evening. The two battalions reportedly began the offensive with 144 operational tanks. Only two were lost to enemy shell fire, but 36 had mechanical problems or were hopelessly trapped in the shell holes and mud. Still, personnel casualties were quite light … only 14 wounded or killed.

Within hours of their recall, Budrow’s battalion headed for a train station somewhere to the east. Over a period of days, they were allowed to stop several times to catch up on repairs. At the station, they faced a challenge. The available flatcars were barely suitable for carrying even their small tanks. Two men had to hold extra support posts under the end where a ramp was set up. Otherwise, the weight of the tank would lift the other end of the car off the rails. The process of carefully balancing a load of several tanks was touchy and time-consuming. Their ride lasted about eighteen hours and ended at a station about 45 miles due east of Reims. They had about a week to make final repairs and rest before the massive Meuse-Argonne Offensive was scheduled to open.

On September 25, the tanks moved up to just behind the front. The next morning, Budrow said, “I was awakened by the deafening sound of the barrage.” Within perhaps an hour, the battalion headed into battle. German units defended furiously, but French and American troops made steady progress over the next several days. Budrow wrote, “We cleaned out a lot of machine gun nests, and no doubt saved a lot of lives of the infantry.”

However, after less than ten days of battle, only thirty of the ninety or so tanks that began the offensive were still in action. And many of those were really unfit for combat. The few that could be repaired quickly were assembled into a provisional company, while the rest were sent back to the tank base at Langres.

Budrow’s tank was evidently part of the provisional company because he does not mention returning to Langres at that time. He did not, however, take part in the final Tank Corps action that began on November 1. Some weeks before that (he doesn’t specify when), the starter crank on the tank’s engine kicked back and broke his wrist. (This was a not uncommon mishap before the advent of the starter motor.) Medics sent him to a hospital in Bordeaux, and he did not return to base until the first week of November. He was then tasked with teaching newcomers how to drive a tank. Thus, he was there when the war ended on November 11, 1918.

At this point, Budrow just wanted to get out of the Army and get on with his life. But the Army had other plans. He still found himself “teaching tank driving, peeling potatoes, work details, and other chores.” Finally, Army records listed Budrow aboard the troop transport USS America, which departed Marseilles on April 21, 1919. They disembarked at New York City, and Budrow and a friend were soon headed west on a troop train. They were officially discharged in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Theodore walked away with a ticket to Twin Falls. 

USS America Arriving in New York, 1919. U.S. Navy Photo.

By the end of summer, Theodore was working in Pocatello, where his parents had moved. Gideon and Jennie stayed in Pocatello for over a decade before opening a grocery business in Eugene, Oregon. Due to ill health, they returned to Idaho in the spring of 1947 to live with their daughter Anna (Budrow) McHan. Theodore’s sister had married Virgil F. McHan in 1923 and they settled in Idaho Falls the following year. Sadly, Gideon and Jennie both died within a few months after their move. They, along with Anna and her husband, are buried at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Idaho Falls.

Meanwhile, Theodore Budrow had chosen chemistry as a way to escape menial, boring jobs. A Twin Falls chemist suggested he attend Washington State College (now University) in Pullman. With jobs on the side and a small scholarship, Budrow graduated with his B.S. degree from WSC in 1923. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Minnesota, and found a wife there (they married in January 1927). After completing his degree, he joined a chemical company in upstate New York. That company was soon acquired by the DuPont de Nemours company. Budrow was head of the DuPont patent department when he retired in 1958. He passed away in 1998.

With no available enlisted-men’s roster, it’s difficult to tell just how many soldiers from the 2nd Idaho Regiment served in the fledgling Tank Corps. But Dr. Budrow’s autobiography certainly implies there were others besides him. Also, records show that at least ten other Idahoans enlisted in the Corps. Thus, the state can rightly claim a role in the founding of what is now called the U.S. Army Armor Branch, one of the most formidable military units in the world.
                                                                                

References: [Brit], [Hawley]

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

“[Budrow Family News],” Twin Falls Times, Post-Register, Idaho Falls, Idaho (Jan 1914 – September 1947).

Theodore Budrow, One Time, Carlton Press, New York (January 1, 1992).

Timothy K. Nenninger, “The Development of American Armor, 1917-1940,” Armor, Volume CXIX, No. 2, Department of the Army, Fort Knox, Kentucky (March-May 2010).

Orlan J. Svingen (Ed.), The History of the Idaho National Guard, Idaho National Guard, Boise (1995).