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).

Some Words of Explanation (RE: Shoshone-Bannock Reservation)

The “On This Day” item for June 14 states that the original boundary definition for the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation (now the Fort Hall Indian Reservation) “made no sense.” The hand-drawn map looked impressive, but it did not (could not, in fact) match up with the written description. But officials didn’t know that, and at least some thought the information was based on an actual survey.

The Shoshone-Bannock Reservation was one of two described in an 1867 letter from the U. S. General Land Office (GLO) to the Acting Secretary of the Interior, Judge William T. Otto. That, and a letter from the Office of Indian Affairs, became the basis for the Acting Secretary’s recommendation to President Andrew Johnson. The President’s very brief Executive Order (indirectly) approved the following border description:

Judge William T. Otto,
Acting Secretary of the Interior, 1867.
Library of Congress.

The boundaries as defined by the local Indian agents, as per separate diagrams of the above reservations are:
1st. The Boise and Bruneau Bands of Shoshone and Bannock Reservation: “Commencing on the south bank of Snake River at the junction of the Port Neuf River with said Snake River; thence south 25 miles to the summit of the mountains dividing the waters of Bear River from those of the Snake River; thence easterly along the Summit of said range of mountains 70 miles to a point where Sublette road crosses said divide; thence north about 50 miles to the Blackfoot River; thence down said stream to its junction with the Snake River; thence down Snake River to the place of beginning,” embracing about 1,800,000 acres and comprehending Fort Hall on the Snake River within its limits.

It is unclear how the original authors of this statement arrived at that description. Perhaps it grew from talks with tribesmen and trappers. It was certainly not based on an actual survey. The same has to be said for the “separate diagram” (map). In any case, more and more whites settled in the region over the next few years. And these white ranches and towns were often visited by Indian bands, who tended to wander around despite the treaty. Naturally, the settlers asked: Are we on the reservation, or not? The Indian Agent could not be sure.

Finally, complaints from agency officials induced the GLO to do something. A contract was awarded to surveyor John B. David on April 5, 1873. The initial leg of the survey was straightforward. Based on the river junction at that time, David placed the western boundary at 112º 44.3' West. A run south along that line for 25 miles ended at a point not quite two miles southwest of Bannock Peak.

Survey crew, ca 1873. Library of Congress.

I used a modern topological map (below) to illustrate the border he surveyed. The party would have traced the straight solid line that has been superimposed on the left side of the map. The heavy line on the far right shows the course of the Bear River. The Bear continues south until it empties into the Great Salt Lake

Surveyor David faced a quandary … two quandaries, in fact. First, the line running along 112º 44.3' W does not cross a divide between the Snake and Bear river watersheds. (Nor will it, even if you extend the line further south.) Secondly, the “Sublette road” landmark (about three miles east of today’s Lava Hot Springs) is only about 40 miles, not 70, east of the point near Bannock Peak. It is not quite on a line pointing exactly east either, but that was a lesser problem.

Both the range David was in (the Deep Creek Mountains) and the next to the east (the Bannock Range) run in a north-south direction. Neither has any substantial “summit” (divide) that would take the survey party in an easterly direction, per the Reservation description. David’s field notes are not now readily available, but historian Brigham Madsen accessed them for his 1980 book on the Northern Shoshoni. He offered the following quote from the surveyor’s report: “Believing it to be the meaning of my instructions to follow said divide, rather than an Easterly direction, I did so.”

With that, we can infer what he decided by where he actually ran the survey line. The Bannock Range recedes into a kind of saddle directly to the east of where the straight south line ended, offering no summits that might lead to somewhere useful. But a distinct ridge re-forms to the south of the swale. From there, the survey party could remain in the mountains, needing to cross only two narrow valleys to go east.

So David traced a straight line at about 15º south of due east. A run of 24 miles (dashed line on the map) brought them almost to the ridge. The party then turned in a southerly direction, using the crest as a general guide. The Bannock and Portneuf ranges are quite rugged, so the surveyors would have found it much easier to run straight-line segments over the lower slopes. For the next twenty-five miles or so, they used the high ground to make a loop around the south end of Marsh Valley, “bridging” over to the Portneuf Range at Red Rock Pass (near Zenda).

Deeper into that range, a hogback running in a north-northeasterly direction provided a guide for the surveyors. After eight to nine miles on a straight course, they would have encountered a ridge where they could look out on the Bear River valley. At last they were at an actual Bear River divide. A careful check of their east-west position (longitude) would have told David that they were east of “where Sublette road crosses said divide.” So then the party headed in a north-northwesterly direction until they were directly south of the Sublette landmark.

From there, the surveyors headed north until they hit the northernmost loop of the Blackfoot River. They found that the “about 50 miles” between Sublette road and the river was closer to 36 miles.

The original description appears to have been largely a guess, based on vague notions about the regional geography. Thus, the new southern and eastern borders were quite different from those in the original diagram … the one approved by President Johnson. Still, the 1873 line became the definitive description of the Reservation, and the starting point for what came later.
                                                                                 

References: Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reserves: from May 14, 1855 to July 1, 1912, U. S. Office of Indian Affairs, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. (1912).

Brigham D. Madsen, The Northern Shoshoni, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1980).

Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1874, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. (1874).

Books: Indians, Cowboys, Sheepmen; Gold, Mining, Timber; Prospectors, Bandits, Boom Towns

I received a royalty check from Amazon.com a few days back, which reminded me that it had been awhile since the last one. So, it must be time to plug my books again. I’m sure regular readers of this blog appreciate that fact that I don’t have ads and don’t beat you all over the head about my books. But I do need to sell some books to at least break even on the money we’ve spent of research. Of course, I do also have a blog about the books at Sourdough Publishing, but it does not get much traffic.

So here goes (in alphabetical order):
Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho
Tells the story of how the Idaho stock raising industry developed. It begins with the "first stockmen of Idaho" – Shoshone and Nez Percés horse raisers – and carries forward to about 1910, followed by a brief survey of the state of affairs today.

Governor Shoup. National Archives.

Among the pioneer stories is that of George L. Shoup who, in one routine 1888 transaction, sold a thousand cattle from his Salmon River ranches. Two years later, he became Idaho's first state governor and then one of its first two senators.
In 1897, a jury convicted hired cowboy-gunman "Diamondfield Jack" Davis of murdering two sheepmen south of Twin Falls. Although two other "respectable" cattlemen soon confessed to the killings, Davis twice came within hours of hanging and was not pardoned until 1902.

Excerpt. The Idaho Statesman newspaper, in Boise City, has been lamenting the damage done to Idaho stockmen by the passage of nearly a quarter million cattle across their range in 1880:
Five days later, the Statesman had occasion to repeat this theme. “There is no greater curse to the stock growing interests of a country than the large bands of cattle that have been driven through this country for the past few years.”
The earlier article offered a solution. “The only practicable remedy for this, and the only hope of the afflicted is in the advent of the railroad, which will take the cattle at or near the points where they are purchased and collected.”
Fortunately, the Oregon Short Line (OSL) Railway was incorporated in Wyoming in April 1881. Because of an odd provision in the Union Pacific company charter, the OSL was created ostensibly as an independent company. However, with half its shares held by UP stockholders, its independence was merely a sham.
Track laying began in May at the Union Pacific station in Granger, Wyoming. …

Boise River Gold Country
Tells the story, in words and pictures, of the settlement of the mountainous regions drained by the Forks of the Boise River. In 1862, a party led by Moses Splawn and George Grimes found gold in the Boise Basin, a mountainous area northeast of today’s Boise. Large-scale gold mining continued in Boise River gold country for almost a century. Also, at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, logging began to increase in importance. Large-scale timber harvesting surpassed mining in value after about 1955, peaking around 1980. Today tourism and recreation are the mainstays of the economy, with small-scale mining and timber operations.

Boise Basin Gold/Quartz

Excerpt.
Big companies were not the only people seeking gold during the Depression. Louie LeRoy Packer was born in Ola, Idaho, a tiny hamlet 20-25 miles north of Emmett, Idaho. A skilled carpenter and mechanic, he eventually opened an automobile service and repair station in Middleton. …
By the summer of 1935, Packer had a claim on Spanish Fork, about a mile and a half north of Idaho City. They started with just the tent on the claim, but later built a comfortable cabin. Early on, Louie acquired a partner
to help work his holdings
Soon, Packer began to improve his claim, rebuilding an abandoned flume system to deliver more water. Eventually, he had a large enough flow to work a hydraulic giant. Louie also prospected for quartz claims and after several years had properties the family considered worth $150 thousand dollars.

Idaho: Year One, An Idaho Sesquicentennial History
On March 4, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation that created the Territory of Idaho, a geographical monstrosity roughly the size of Texas and Illinois combined.

President Lincoln. Library of Congress.

Newspapers in the East went a week before they could published details (often erroneous) about the new Territory. One fact stood out: Idaho had Gold! and perhaps a lot of it. But the Civil War raged and the Territorial birth had to share headlines. Interest eventually centered a some crucial questions: Where, exactly, could one find gold? Guidebooks say to be alert and have our guns ready: Are the Indians really that dangerous? Using contemporary published articles and letters from the gold camps, Idaho: Year One, captures the day-by-day excitement and uncertainty as hopeful prospectors poured into the area.

Excerpt.
August 3 [1863]
The Oregonian reported, “Our merchants are constantly receiving letters from their correspondents at Boise and at other trading points in the mines, full of complaints because of the impossibility of safely sending out the immense amounts of dust now accumulated.”
Unfortunately, dangers lurked along every trail. The newspaper said, “On account of the enormous expense of maintaining Expresses of sufficient strength to be prepared to resist the possible attacks of highwaymen and Indians, none now transport treasure, except in very small sums, and parties coming out are always unwilling to bring or have in charge any more than belongs to them.”
One miner braved the trails by himself and managed to slip through. From him, The Oregonian heard that, “If he had taken all that he was begged to bring, he should have had over a million dollars worth, and from others we get similar statements.”

Besides the links at the Sourdough Publishing web site, the books are also available directly from Amazon.com:
Before the Spud
Boise River Gold County
Idaho: Year One

Idaho History: Gold, Cattle, Sheep and More

With Christmas bills coming due soon, I need to sell some books. So bear with me for a small advertisement. You will have noticed that yesterday’s blog featured Truman C. Catlin. One of the earliest pioneers to raise cattle in Idaho, Catlin is featured in my book Before the Spud: Indians, Buckeroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho.

I could have also posted a December 21st item from another of my books, Idaho: Year One – The Territory’s First Year.  That book uses newspapers reports, diaries and letters to describe what was happening in the newly created Idaho Territory. It includes some lead-up to March 4, 1863 – when Abraham Lincoln sign legislation to create the Territory – and continues to the one-year anniversary. An Afterword bridges the span until May 26, 1864, when Congress split Montana Territory from Idaho.

Like my On This Day blog items, Year One uses a day-to-day progression, although it does not try to cover every single day of the year. Thus, on December 21, 1863, the Evening Bulletin in San Francisco, California published a report about the mines in central and southern Idaho Territory. Unlike many another flash in the pan, the Boise Basin mines, he wrote, “show promise of a long-continued yield.” The Boise Basin lies high in the mountains to the east and northeast of Boise City (as it was known then).

On December 23, 1863, The Oregonian in Portland published an opinion piece that advocated the authorization of a Federal mint in their city. Idaho had already produced a lot of gold and it was clear that the region’s output held promise for years to come. A mint in Portland would mitigate the cost and dangers of transporting the treasure to the mint in San Francisco. Portland never did get a mint, of course, but Congress later did authorize an assay office in Boise.

Meanwhile, gold (and later silver) mining in and around the Boise Basin would continue for almost a century. That history is described in another of my books, Boise River Gold Country. Besides the mining story, Boise River shows the growth, and later decline, of the timber industry in the region. Today, the region’s economy largely depends upon tourism and outdoor recreation.

Of course, the discovery of gold in the region led directly to the creation of Idaho Territory. But the presence of all those hungry miners then spurred the formation of a thriving cattle industry. Before the Spud outlines the history of that development, starting with the “first stockmen of Idaho” … the Shoshone and Nez Percés Indians. But stock-raising exploded after the discovery of gold. And, by around 1910, income from livestock (including dairy) had surpassed that from mining and timber. And that was “before the spud” … potatoes were then only a small faction of the agricultural production in the state.

I encourage you to visit my other blog, Sourdough Publishing, where I have posted more information about my books. That includes the full Table of Contents for each. Or you can jump directly to the CreateSpace web pages for the books:
Boise Basin Gold Country
Idaho: Year One
Before the Spud

The books are also available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Boise’s Water Supply, a Local “Taj Mahal,” and Geothermal Development

Hosea Eastman. H. T. French photo.

In the words of the Owyhee Avalanche (August 27, 1881), brothers Benjamin M. and Hosea B. Eastman were “rattlers in the way of enterprise.” Not referring to the deadly snake, the writer meant the two regularly shook up the status quo. Their far-sighted improvements and innovations led Boise development for over forty years.

Both were born in the White Mountains area in north-central New Hampshire. Hosea was born in 1835, while Benjamin was five years older. Before ending up in Idaho, the brothers ran a sawmill and lumber business in New Hampshire, farmed in California, and mined in Oregon.

In late 1863, they moved to Idaho and staked placer claims on Jordan Creek, near where Silver City would soon be founded. They made enough from their claims to invest substantially in a well-paying lode mine. After about five years, they liquidated their mining properties and acquired the Idaho Hotel in Silver City. The brothers, Hosea in particular, proved to have a special talent for hotel work. They turned the Idaho into the premier hostelry in Silver City.

Unfortunately, in 1875, bank failures in California dried up outside capital and led to financial problems for the Silver City mines. So, in 1877 and 1878, the brothers sold the Idaho and purchased the venerable Overland Hotel in Boise City. Although the brothers remained partners in the Overland until 1903, Hosea generally took the lead, and newspaper accounts identified him as such.

They immediately remodeled the property, added more rooms, and upgraded most of the facilities. Hosea was particularly unhappy with the hotel’s water supply. He finally located a reliable source of cold spring water in Hull’s Gulch, about a mile and a half north of Fort Boise. In 1881, workers completed a system to pipe water to the hotel. With a considerable surplus available, they began distributing water to nearby businesses and residences.

Overland Hotel, ca. 1885. Idaho State Historical Society.

In 1891, the company they had formed to handle the water business merged with another firm to create the Artesian Hot and Cold Water Company. Hosea remained General Manager of the company for over a quarter century. (He passed away in 1920, Benjamin having died in 1909.)

Shortly after the merger, the company had deep wells drilled at a known “hot spot” a few miles southeast of downtown. These tapped into a steady flow of hot water, measured at 172ºF. The firm also had a large, opulent natatorium built. A huge “plunge” formed the centerpiece: 120x62 feet in expanse, ranging from 2 to 14 feet in depth. It was fed by a continuous flow of water that had been allowed to cool to a comfortably warm temperature.
Around the big pool, patrons could enjoy steam baths, hot tubs, showers, and massage parlors. Upper floors soon sported a fine bar, ballroom, and an exercise/health pavilion. Historian Hiram T. French, writing in 1914, dubbed the Moorish style structure “the Taj Mahal of the West.”

The Boise Natatorium, ca 1898. [Illust-State]

Soon, the company began selling surplus hot water to heat many buildings in downtown Boise. The city thus lays claim to being the first American town to have geothermal heating. Business at “the Nat” bloomed after the interurban rail line located a station nearby. It became the preferred site for inaugural balls, fancy weddings, and regular dances with big-name bands.

Still, the Idaho Statesman article (May 24, 1922) about the Nat’s thirty year anniversary made it clear that the facility was well past its prime. Finally, a wind blast in the summer of 1934 damaged the structure beyond repair, and it was torn down. After that, and still today, only an open-air pool remained.

Through all those years, Boise continued to benefit from the geothermal resources developed by Eastman and his partners. In the 1980s, developers drilled several more, much deeper geothermal wells, and just recently one system was expanded across the river to the Boise State University campus.
                                                                                 

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

Dick D’Easum, The Idanha: Guests and Ghosts of an Historic Idaho Inn, Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell (1984).

Book on Idaho History

Today’s "On This Day item," along with the “Sheep Queen” biography of yesterday, recall the long and colorful history of stock raising in Idaho. As noted in the blog, that history included the Blackfoot firm of Berryman & Rogers. Their story, along with many others is told in my book Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho.

Rogers’ career is, of course, outlined in the blog. Berryman, the book says, “divided his time among the company’s interests in stock raising, retail trade, and real estate for many years. However, by 1910, he saw himself primarily as a banker, working for one of the largest banks in Blackfoot. By 1920, Berryman was President of the bank.”

He passed away in 1925, a year before Rogers.

For more information on Before the Spud, visit the Sourdough Publishing web site. There, you will also learn more about my other two Idaho history books: Boise Basin Gold Country and Idaho: Year One, an Idaho Sesquicentennial History.

A. C. Gilbert: Connecting Idaho, the Olympics, Erector Sets, Model Trains, and More

Even in these days of “instant on, instant gone” news cycles, people are still talking and writing about the Olympics. So why not here? Specifically, about another Idaho connection to the Games. Coincidentally, the Olympic track & field events began on August 3rd – the same day I posted my blog on historic Idaho Olympian Clarence “Hec” Edmundson. Hec, of course, was born in Moscow and competed in several running events.

A.C. Gilbert, Champion Wrestler.
Autobiography.

That same day, Idaho State Historian Keith Petersen sent me a very kind note about the blog. He also pointed out another historic connection to the Olympics: Alfred Carlton “A.C.” Gilbert, who also started his Olympic journey in Moscow. I knew that Gilbert, the “Erector Set Man,” had spent some time in Idaho, but not about his athletic connection. Alfred was born in Salem, Oregon on February 15, 1884.

Although Alfred did well in school, he preferred physical activities, especially sports. The physical component of stage magic – sleight-of-hand – also attracted him to that hobby. He practiced diligently. In his autobiography, A.C. noted that he finally became good enough to “astound and delight my family and my friends.”

Albert’s father, Frank N. Gilbert, was a small-town banker. The family moved to Moscow in about 1892 or 1893, and lived there for a couple years before returning to Salem. About that time, the University of Idaho greeted its first students [blog, October 3].

A robust sports tradition began almost immediately at the University. Albert was naturally drawn to the athletic fields at the school, although he was rather young during the family’s first stay in Moscow.

Naturally, when they returned to Idaho around 1896, he jumped whole-heartedly into outdoor activities, and sports. Their favorite camping spot was Priest Lake, where, A.C. said, “My mother was the first white woman ever to go up to the head of the lake.”

He and his father also visited the Nez Percés Indian Reservation. There, his father bought him an Indian pony, purported to be “quite gentle.” A.C. tried to hide the fact that the pony was actually a wild bucking bronco, which threw him several times. His father eventually found out, and sent the animal back. Still, these and other experiences fed Albert’s life-long passion for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities.

Albert was now old enough to actually try to of emulate the athletes he saw on the fields at the University in Moscow. Although he pursued many different athletic endeavors, pole vaulting became his particular fascination: “I thought it was wonderful, soaring so high in the air just by using a pole.”

Gilbert Vaulting, 1908. Autobiography.

Still too young to take an active part at the school, Albert put together his own “Moscow Athletic Club.” Club members competed among themselves in various sports, and even initiated a boys’ Field Day in town.

They repeated the event the following year (1899) and, “The town officials, the schools and the university all got behind the Field Day, and it was a big success.”

That support was probably enhanced by the fact that his father had been appointed to the University Board of Regents (Idaho Statesman, Boise, April 28, 1899).

In the fall of 1900, Albert enrolled at the Tualatin Academy, the prep school associated with Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. The family moved to Portland shortly after that and neither Albert nor the family returned to Idaho, except for vacations and business trips.

A.C. excelled at several sports at Pacific University and, after 1904, at Yale University. But it was his ability as a pole vaulter that gave him international recognition: He set several world records in the vault and won a Gold Medal at the 1908 Olympics in London, England. He was the first, or among the first, to use a bamboo pole instead of a heavy, stiff wooden rod. He is also credited with inventing the pole vaulting box. For decades, he served as an advisor to the vaulting team at Yale University.

His later business career and many innovations are far beyond the scope of this blog: Magic kits, the famous Erector Set, model trains, chemistry sets, and other educational “toys” made him a millionaire many times over. For more, visit the A. C. Gilbert Heritage Society and A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Museum.

J. Russell School, ca 1902. University of Idaho Archives.

One wonders, as Historian Petersen has done, whether or not A.C. and Hec Edmundson knew each other. In the fall of 1896, when both families lived in Moscow, Albert would have been twelve years old, Hec ten. Both, therefore, would have attended J. Russell School, the only elementary school in town. Given their mutual interest in sports, it seems highly likely that they did meet. However, neither mentions the other in existing records, so we’ll never really know.
                                                                                                                                         

References:  [Illust-North]

Rafe Gibbs, Beacon for Mountain and Plain: Story of the University of Idaho, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (© The Regents of the University of Idaho, 1962).

A.C. Gilbert with Marshall McClintock, The Man Who Lives in Paradise: The Autobiography of A. C. Gilbert, Rinehart Publishing, New York (1954).

Keith Petersen, “A. C. Gilbert: Millionaire with Moscow Roots,” Latah Legacy, Vol. 8, No. 3, Latah County Historical Society, Moscow, Idaho (Summer 1979).

Stagecoach and Freight Routes in South-Central Idaho

Before railroads entered Idaho, animal-drawn stagecoaches and wagons transported most people and freight. Main routes connected large settlements, while feeder lines came and went as events dictated. One of the more interesting side routes operated in South-Central Idaho in the early 1880s.

Wagons on the Oregon Trail. Utah State Historical Society.

When Congress created Idaho Territory in March 1863, many emigrant wagons, mostly drawn by ox teams, still crossed the region. They followed the Oregon Trail, but there was no stagecoach service along that route. Not until August of 1864 did scheduled stagecoach service arrive in Boise City. From there, the line continued more or less along the old Oregon Trail to The Dalles in Oregon.

That route across southern Idaho from northern Utah became the most traveled road in the Territory. The second most favored track ran across eastern Idaho into Montana. There, coaches and freight wagons took a path that was generally similar to the later railroad route.

Then, in 1869, crews completed the transcontinental railroad. A station at Kelton, Utah, near the northwest tip of the Great Salt Lake, became the preferred link for central Idaho and points west. Except in the winter, passengers and freight followed the so-called Kelton Road through City of Rocks. From there, they turned north and then west to the station at Rock Creek, about 12 miles southeast of today’s Twin Falls.

Stagecoach on Kelton Road. Idaho State Historical Society.

During part of the winter, passengers traversed the City of Rocks segment on horse-drawn sleighs. Meanwhile, freight wagons avoided that area, taking a track through Albion, then the seat of Cassia County, and on to Rock Creek. For nearly a decade, the route crossed the Snake River via a ferry 25-30 road miles from Rock Creek. (Over the years, at least two, and possibly three operators ran a ferry in this general area.) Coaches and wagons then followed the old Oregon Trail into Boise City.

About every twelve miles, stage lines of that day positioned stops where fresh teams replaced jaded ones. So-called “home stations” were located about fifty miles apart. Here, passengers could purchase a rough meal and perhaps accommodations for the night. The town of Rock Creek started as one such home station.

In 1878, John Hailey’s Utah, Idaho, and Oregon Stage Company (UI&O) improved the road along the south side and switched the route to cross via Glenns Ferry. They followed a different track onto the high ground, but rejoined the Oregon Trail further west before continuing into Boise.

The following year, the discovery of fabulous lodes of silver in the Wood River drainage set off a rush into that area. By 1881, the towns of Ketchum, Hailey, and Bellevue were booming. The Idaho Statesman headlined (February 22, 1881), “Stage Line to Wood River.”

The UI&O had work crews out stocking stage stops along two branches. One split off from the old Oregon Trail in an easterly direction, headed for the soon-to-be town of Shoshone. From there, it continued into Bellevue. Stages on this branch carried passengers to and from Boise City.

Stage Station Footprint. Landowner photo.*

The other new branch left the Kelton Road at Goose Creek, about twelve miles west of Albion. This route crossed the Snake via Starrh’s Ferry, which had been granted an operating license in July 1880. From the ferry, the track headed generally northwest. Traces of the first station north of the river on this branch can still be seen.

The track passed through some rugged country, including several miles where sand dunes impeded progress. It finally linked up with the Boise branch to continue into Bellevue. In the spring, the Idaho Statesman reported (April 23, 1881), “Two daily stages are to be run from Kelton to Wood River.”

Stagecoach (green) and Railroad (gray/black) Lines.

The UI&O did not have the field all to themselves, however. They has to contend with a stage line that linked with the Utah & Northern (U&N) Railway at Blackfoot. The competition was not always friendly. Blackfoot boosters claimed (Blackfoot Register, April 16, 1881) “that a report had been circulated in Ogden that the new iron bridge over Snake river had been washed away.” They blamed their competitor for circulating false rumors to scare customers away.

When the Wood River mines first opened up, operators had no way to process their complex lead-silver minerals locally. Thus, for the first few years, they hauled their best ore over the Starrh Ferry route to Kelton. Rails cars then carried the ore to smelters in Salt Lake City, Denver, and as far away as Omaha.

Wagon Ruts in the Lava.
Landowner photo.*

So far as is known, none of the ore went to the railroad station at Blackfoot … for a very good reason. The U&N tracks were then narrow gauge – they would not switch to standard gauge until July 1887. The transcontinental line was all standard gauge, so operators would have faced the added expense of transferring the ore or using special rail cars.

In any case, this lucrative freight business did not last very long. All through 1882, crews for the Oregon Short Line Railroad (OSL) laid tracks west from Pocatello. Early that year, the town of Shoshone came into being, and the tracks reached there in February 1883. Three months later, the OSL completed a branch line from Shoshone into Hailey. By then, long haul traffic – passengers and freight – had stopped using the Kelton Road and its branches.

Nonetheless, most segments continued in use for local traffic. Of course, the railroad caused some rerouting. The Idaho Statesman reported (July 1, 1884) that a new route was “contemplated from Goose Creek, via Starrh’s ferry to Kimama, on the O. S. L.” (Kimama is now a railroad siding a bit over 20 miles north of Burley.)

Starrh’s Ferry manipulated the power of the river current to move back and forth. It thus ceased operation in 1904, when Milner Dam stopped the free flow of the Snake. Even then, well-worn stage and freight tracks served local traffic, and some eventually became major highway routes.

Around 1910-1920, “auto stages” finally replaced horse- or mule-drawn stagecoaches on most passenger routes around the state. These usually employed gasoline-powered touring cars; what we call “buses” arrived a few years later. Although hard evidence is lacking, seasonal stagecoach traffic on some back-country roads may have continued well into the 1930s.

* I am being deliberately vague about specific locations along this route, which was brought to my attention by a landowner in the area. Much of the old line passes through private property. The station remnants are on public land, but need to be preserved for possible future study.
                                                                                 
References: [B&W], [Hawley]
John Bertram, et al, Rock Creek Station and Stricker Homesite: Idaho Historical Site Master Plan, Idaho State Historical Society (2001).
“Ben Holladay’s Overland Stage Line in Idaho,” Reference Series No. 1002, Idaho State Historical Society (January 1993).
Larry R. Jones, “Snake River Ferries,” Reference Series No. 54, Idaho State Historical Society (October 1982).
"Site Report - Wood River," Reference Series No. 206, Idaho State Historical Society (1981).
“Stage Lines – Overland and Kelton,” Reference Series No. 146, Idaho State Historical Society

Projects Progressing

Doing the “On This Day” item, every single day, has been a challenging experience. The difficult days are when (1) I’ve been really busy and (2) the events for a day are a problem.

As to the first, we’re still greeting service people for the condo (enough said), plus I have projects (more in a moment).

Daily events can be a problem in two ways: they’re either not particularly exciting/interesting, they require some “massaging” to have Idaho relevance … or both.

The first problem arises from the fact that I don’t generally post items that have no Idaho connection. After all, there are a bunch of sites out there with a world-wide perspective. Two that I visit are the WorldofQuotes.com Today in History page, and a Wikipedia compilation of Daily Events (I just recently added these to my blog form). Each features a full-year calendar where you can pick out a specific date. (You have to scroll down to see the Wikipedia calendar.)

Like most such sites, the events are presented in a “bulleted” fashion, with very little (or no) context or background. The Wikipedia list does provide additional links for some items, or for sub-topics within an item.

The need to find Idaho relevance can be a challenge, but it’s also interesting. October 15th was a good example. The only Idaho-specific event I had for that day was the marriage of a prominent Idaho pioneer. I could have “spun” that, but he will eventually appear under his birthday, so I went looking for something else.

I found the Edison Electric Light Company incorporation item in 1878 on both of the sites referenced above. Then a thought tickled my memory: Wasn’t there something about the first electric light system in Idaho?

As it turned out, there was, but it was in my master database. There, I found that builders installed an electric light system in a smelter near Ketchum … just three years after the Edison incorporation. The Ketchum event was not in my “daily” database because historical accounts gave only the year, not a specific date.

But: Voila! An Idaho connection.

On-going Projects
  Those of you who follow the blog know that I’m working, sometimes off-and-on, on several projects. Of course, I’m still waiting for a response on my stock-raising book proposal.

Anyway, I need to get ahead on entering and checking events for the On This Day database – I’m still finding days where I’d like to have something more interesting Then there’s the next article for the South Fork Revue – that’s largely been “put on the back burner.”

Coming up, I have a meeting in Twin Falls with the Idaho Academy of Science Executive Committee. I am combining that with a visit to Idaho City. We (Skip Myers and I) have an opportunity to talk about the photographic history of Boise County with the Idaho City Historical Foundation. Supposedly there will be time to peruse the Idaho City/Boise County photo archives to see what they have.


The proposal package Arcadia Publishing sent me is fairly complicated, with many questions about book marketing avenues and other elements of our “platform.” Addressing those issues is fairly straightforward. (Photo: Idaho City, Main and Commercial Street, 1894, Idaho State historical Society.) 

The real problem is determining what the book content will be. Their format specifies 180-240 “vintage” photographs -- which probably means we’ll have to start with twice that many to select a set we can build the history around. We’ll see.

Updates and Tourism Thoughts

As I entered my “On This Day” item, it occurred to me (it should have before this) that the title style was a bit cryptic. I decided to include enough key words so the actual subject of the bit was immediately clear. I liked that so much, I went back and edited all the OTD entries.

Yesterday, I had a pleasant, and productive, interaction with Skip Myers -- creator and keeper of the Idaho City Events site. I had asked him if he had newspaper clippings that gave a specific day for a notorious event in Idaho City history: the shooting of ex-Sheriff Sumner Pinkham by southern-sympathizer Ferd Patterson. Turns out, he did … he had lots of stuff besides the answer to my question. The clippings even included photos of the two protagonists. (Being newspaper stock, the pictures aren’t great, but they do the job.) You’ll be hearing more on this topic in the future.

Skip loves Idaho City history, but the future of his town is also of major concern to him. The mines are long gone, so tourism, recreation, and the Boise County offices pretty much define what the area is about. Skip’s web site lists some of those attractions: hiking, fishing, camping, and seeing the historic sights during warm weather; hunting, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and other winter sports when it gets colder.

But with all of that going for it, Idaho City needs more to maintain itself as a thriving community, and the only area that might be ripe for expansion is more tourism and recreation. (I won’t rehash our discussion of this issue.)

So … during a walk to the store I mulled over some ideas. I’m putting them here in the blog because I know other towns have faced many of the same problems. One can never tell where good ideas might come from.

Anyway, during my stroll, two thoughts surfaced.

The first was based on my correspondence with Skip about that notorious (back then) Pinkham-Patterson shootout. It’s not my “cup of tea,” but Wild West shootout re-enactments are a thriving business. I found a ton of links at “The Gunfighter's Favorite Links” to Discussion Forums, quick-draw exhibitions, Gun Stuff, Western Performance, and more. The “Western Performance” sub-head provides a long list of “Wild West Re-enactors & Performers” -- I counted 55 to 60 links. There are groups in the usual places (Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, NOT Idaho, and more) and some big surprises (New Jersey, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Ukraine).

There’s even an organization called the American Frontier Reenactment Guild. Since the Idaho City gunfight had a July 4th connection, I sense a show coming on. (The photo is from the web site of a reenactment group called Gunfighters Incorporated -- I didn’t ask for permission, but somehow I don’t think they’d mind.)

The second notion had to do with the reason Idaho City was founded: Gold! Google “gold panning events” and you get hits from all over the world (even Switzerland -- Who knew?). There are gold panning competitions, panning instruction exhibits, and endless variations.

I even found a “gold panning” hit at the “Official Idaho Vacation and  travel Planning Guide,” but the only hit-within-a-hit was a terse mention of a gold panning contest as a Roadside Attraction. Some of our neighboring states do much better. (The photo is from a “recreational” site in Nevada County, California.)


I grew up in California gold country, basically a century after the gold rush. In the 1950’s, my dad had a small jar half full of dust and nuggets caught in a riffle box along the Yuba River. No one is likely to get rich, but I’ll bet new color has also washed into the streams in the Boise Basin. Obviously, there are permissions and permits to be checked out, but surely there’s a possible opportunity here. Panning party anyone?

Gold Rush Article

Edited and revised the gold rush article for the South Fork Revue web site on Sunday (Sept 20). It was ready to go, but I couldn’t upload it: Our Internet link failed. After considerable diagnostic work over the phone with an ISP support person, we decided their end and our end were okay, so the problem must be in the DSL service. After two calls by the ISP rep -- the phone company can’t be bothered with ordinary customer calls -- they admitted they did have a regional (apparently) outage. They said it could be a few hours to a whole day before it was corrected. Oh well.

Well, the DSL link was working again this morning (that is, on Monday Sept 21). Naturally, the phone company never told their benighted customers that there was an outage, and we can expect no rebate for the day without service. Anyway, I was able to post the gold rush article on the Revue web site. Now I’ll need to start work on the next segment -- I figure that and one more after it should complete what I want to do.

Added Feature: On This Day

We own the electronic version of the Encyclopedia Britannica and receive daily “On This Day” e-mails from them. A few days back, I started thinking about that feature. Seems like it would be cool to do something along those lines here, but with an Idaho emphasis.

Turns out, the Idaho State Historical Society (ISHS), of which I am a member, has such a feature, but with a weekly basis. They call it “Moments in Idaho History” -- it also includes items from national history. They posted their list with 2003 week dates -- but, of course, the events for a given historic day don’t change. I do see two problems. First, other events happened on those same month-day combinations, but none have been added to the list. Also, most of the items are little more than “bullets” -- one-liners with no real context. I think there’s still a place to supplement what they’re doing. I’ll label my contributions “On This Day” (why try to be cute?).

They have no item for this day, by the way -- but I have two, one from Idaho and one (loosely) related to Idaho.

Leesburg Gold

Another story I had to abbreviate for the article was about the gold finds in the Leesburg region of Idaho. Leesburg is now a Ghost Town, with nothing left but a few worn pioneer structures. Photo: Leesburg Idaho School.

However, in its heyday Leesburg had some of Idaho’s richest gold fields. The town is high in the mountains, ten miles or so west and a bit north of Salmon, Idaho. To get there, you must surmount the ridge that rises some 4,600 feet above Salmon, and then drop 1,800 feet into the Leesburg basin. In pioneer times, pack trains couldn’t even get in during the winter. (They probably still can’t, assuming you tried.)

The “History of Lemhi county,” by  George Elmo Shoup in a series of columns in the Salmon Register-Herald, May 8 – October 23, 1940, had this to say about Leesburg: “The extreme richness ... produced $1000.00 to the wheelbarrow load of gravel on bedrock.” Moreover, “Much coarse gold was found and nuggets of $5.00 to $50.00 were common.”
Not especially impressed? At today’s gold prices, that would be $200 to $2000 per nugget … and they were “common.” Estimates of the gold value taken out of the Leesburg area range from $350 million to $1.6 billion (today's prices).

Magruder -- 1863

The gold-rush article for the South Fork Revue is coming along. However, one of the stories I had to trim concerns the infamous Magruder murders of 1863. Lloyd Magruder, a Marylander who had done poorly in California, prospered in idaho, owning a store and a pack train. Late in the summer of 1863, the packer carried supplies to the Montana gold fields, crossing the Bitterroot Mountains via Nez Percés Pass. On the return trip, four “helpful” conspirators accompanied the train back to Idaho. On the night of October 11, one of the conspirators split Magruder’s skull with an ax, from behind, and then they murdered four other innocents.
Later captured, the four were tried and convicted of the killings and three of them became the first legal hangings in what was then Idaho Territory. (The fourth turned state’s evidence to escape the noose.) A more extensive “suite101.com” article about the murders can be found at The Murder of Lloyd Magruder.

Also, the book The Magruder Murders: Coping with Violence on the Idaho Frontier by Julia Conway Welch (Falcon Press Publishing, Helena, Montana, © Julia Conway Welch, 1991) provides an in-depth look at the murders, the trial, and the event’s aftermath.

Some Article Text

Just to prove that I really am working on an article for the Revue, I’ll quote the opening here:
“The decade of the 1860’s began quietly in Idaho (then part of Washington Territory). Pioneer traffic on the trails to Oregon and California maintained what would be an average year: about 1,500 to Oregon and 9,000 to California. (Of course, not all the California-bound traffic passed through Idaho.) The Utter Massacre, in September, and the Civil War still lay in the future.”
At this point in the text, many rich gold and silver fields have been discovered, Idaho is now a Territory (and separate from Washington and Montana), farmers are exploiting the irrigable lands in the Boise Valley, and stockmen are pushing herds onto most of the promising rangelands across the state.

The need for brevity really slows down the production -- there’s so much I must leave out or super-summarize to stay within my target word limit.

Research Never Ends

So far, I’m only managing every other day, but I suppose that’s okay as a start. When you have a book-size project -- and a strong desire to tie up loose ends -- the research phase never ends. Last month during revision, a point nagged me about historical events in Idaho City, so I checked it out. During the course of that research, I contacted a fellow history buff, Skip Myers, who has a neat web site with a lot of Idaho City history on it. Check it out at Idaho City Events.

I learned much more than I needed to know for the nagging point, so I used it for the “A County Seat Story- Idaho City” article posted on the FEATURES page of the Revue. I’m thinking I’ll probably put future articles of that sort here on the blog.

Just Getting Started

Well, here goes. I designed the South Fork Companion as a complement to my conventional web site, South Fork Revue (follow the link at “Places to Go …” [Later EDIT: "Linked Web Sites"]).

The Revue is mostly about Idaho history (slanted toward the period before about 1910), with sidesteps into other topics I am working on, or just find of interest. Of course, it makes no sense to only focus on Idaho events without explaining where they fit into the context of Western and United States history. As noted on the Revue, the history articles are based on the tremendous body of reference material I have collected over the past few years. [Note to self: Add page listing some of those references.]

THE BOOK (about 100 thousand words) I have written and am currently revising mainly deals with the development of the Idaho stock raising industry before about 1910. I started this blog after I sent my proposal package off to a publisher. In my cover letter for the package I wrote: “Say ‘Idaho’ to most people, even Idahoans, and they think ‘potato.’ Fair enough, considering decades of relentless marketing. What many do not think of are ‘cowboys’ and ‘cattle.’ Yet Idaho was, and is, as much a cowboy state as its more-recognized cattle-state neighbors in the Intermountain West.”

As early as 1910, Idaho ranked 6th in U. S. wool production and 32nd in livestock (cattle and dairy product sales), despite being only 44th in population. Today, Idaho still ranks low in population (39th) but is a significant livestock-products supplier. To quote a book paragraph pertaining to 2008: “Livestock sales and dairy product shipments were valued at over $3.1 billion, placing Idaho in the top ten among all states. Although the state is also in the top ten for U. S. wool production, the total income from that commodity is quite small. (The U.S. now produces less than 1 percent of the world’s wool.)”

With one exception, at present, the Revue contains relatively “static” historical articles, along with background on me and my wife, Caroline. During the summer, I added a FEATURES page to the site which was meant to “include something of timely and/or peripheral interest (historical facts, rants about sports, travel items, etc.).”

Extensive reading finally convinced me that a blog would be a much better approach to highlight the kinds of items slated for the FEATURES page, whether they were history topics or other items of interest. However, my immediate priorities among many projects (see KEEPING BUSY at the Revue) are to (1) finish The Retort, the newsletter I co-edit and desktop-publish for the Idaho Academy of Science and (2) write the next article for the Revue. (When I get bored with those, I generally go back and tweak a book chapter.)

With all that going on, I do not expect to put a lot into the blog right away. Hopefully, however, I can create enough new content to keep it interesting.