South Fork Companion

Boone statue on College of Idaho campus.

William Judson Boone, D.D., first and long-time president of the College of Idaho, was born November 5, 1860, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, 15-20 miles southwest of Pittsburg.

After high school, he studied at the College of Wooster (Ohio), from which he received A.B. and M.A. degrees. Study at the Western Theological Seminary (Pittsburgh) further prepared him for the ministry (they awarded him a D.D. degree in 1903).

In 1887, Boone took up the Presbyterian ministry in Caldwell, Idaho. Three years later, the Wood River Presbytery founded the private College of Idaho there. Classes began in October 1891 [blog, Oct 7]. Two years later, Boone left his church ministry to assume the presidency of the College, a position he held for the rest of his life.

Initially, Boone taught Latin, Greek, and the natural sciences. In 1902, he was finally able to hire someone else to teach languages. By around 1910, the college could afford professors for all the natural sciences.

However, Dr. Boone’s special expertise, and love, was botany … and he never gave that up. To enrich his teaching, he led students on numerous field expeditions. In the process, he essentially “wrote the book” on the flora of southwest Idaho. His personal garden included a wide variety of plants, including flowers – the “President Boone” rose is named for him.

Dr. Boone passed away in July, 1936. However, his enthusiasm for natural science put a special stamp on the school he founded and led for so long: A liberal arts college with a strong conviction that a fully-educated person must know something about science and its processes.

The school still takes that mission, with its special flavor, very seriously. The core curricula for most smaller liberal arts colleges require just one “hard science” class. Moreover, a substantial minority allows students to fill that requirement with a watered-down, “science survey” class. (A few schools allow students to avoid the subjects altogether.)

College of Idaho requires 7 credit-hours of science, generally meaning that one of the two classes must include a lab. Oddly enough, the College also requires two courses in the “Fine Arts” – music, painting, dance, drama, etc. Most liberal arts schools require only one for their non-majors.

Activities Center, College of Idaho.

Without apology, the school sees itself as “uncompromisingly Christian,” but welcomes all denominations and leads by strictly voluntary example. Given its small size and community environment, many young people meet their spouses there. Students affectionately referred to the school as “Dr. Boone’s marriage mill.”

As usual for most private liberal arts colleges, College of Idaho has always struggled with finances, yet they have survived. Like any college, success is measured by the achievements of its graduates – and those are outstanding. For Example, H. Corwin Hinshaw, a 1923 graduate, later earned a Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley and pioneered the use of streptomycin to treat tuberculosis.

Today, many graduates have jobs before they leave school and most (98%) are employed within six months after graduation. Moreover, their scholars enjoy a 75% acceptance rate for postgraduate work at many fine institutions.

References: [French], [Hawley]

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

Herbert Harry Hayman, That Man Boone: Frontiersman of Idaho, College of Idaho, Caldwell (1948).

President Lincoln.
National Archives, Matthew Brady.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. In March 1863, while leading the nation through the Civil War, Lincoln signed legislation that created Idaho Territory.

Lincoln profoundly impacted the new Territory throughout his time in office. A week after the Territory was created, he appointed William Wallace as the first governor.

Lincoln also appointed a Territorial Secretary, three justices for a Territorial court system, and a U. S. Marshal. The Marshal, Dolphus S. Payne, would be condemned as the perpetrator of the infamous “Laramie Fraud” in the Territory’s first elections later that year [blog, Oct 31].

Almost a year passed before he finally appointed the Territorial Attorney. (Territorial residents voted for a legislature – Representatives and Councilors – but the Federal government controlled everything else.)

When Wallace resigned to become Idaho’s elected Delegate to the U. S. Congress, Lincoln appointed New York politician Caleb Lyon as governor. Intelligent, well-educated, but rather bombastic in speech and manner, Lyon received more derision than respect during his stay in Idaho. Worse by far, however, was simply his status as a Republican appointee. He was thus bound to clash with a legislature dominated by Democrats, many of whom were Southern sympathizers.

Lincoln again impacted Idaho history when, in 1864, he signed legislation that split off Montana Territory [blog, May 26] and gave Idaho something like its present boundaries. Finally, less than two months before his assassination, Lincoln made his last significant Idaho appointment: He selected John McBride as Chief Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court [blog, Feb 28].

Levi Ankeny. Library of Congress.

On November 6, 1871, voters elected Levi Ankeny mayor of Lewiston. This had two interesting consequences. First, under his administration an important “loose end” was tied up with regard to the Lewiston town site.

According to the Illustrated History of North Idaho, “the government had granted the city a tract of land one square mile in extent at the junction of the Clearwater and Snake rivers, but the land office had as yet failed to act in granting a patent and the matter was held in abeyance.”

That, of course, meant that title to every tract of land within the city could be disputed. Ankeny followed through to insure that the grant was properly executed, “though not without litigation.”

Ankeny was a long-time pioneer in the area. In 1862, Captain Ankeny and some partners operated a steamboat, The Spray, on the Snake. Their steamer, with a purposely shallow draft, could navigate the Clearwater during its late-season low water. The partners sold out at nearly a 100% profit after a year. Later, Ankeny owned a Lewiston general store and ran cattle on land southeast of town.

The second result from the mayoral election was to give Ankeny a taste of success in politics. He later moved to the state of Washington and took up banking. Then, from 1903 to 1909, he represented that state in the U.S. Senate, serving on several important committees. He died in March 1921.

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

“Levi Ankeny,” Biographical Directory of the United State Congress (online)

On November 7, 1853, physician and medical pioneer Edwin F. Guyon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. By one account, his father was among the nearly 13 thousand yellow fever deaths (ten percent of the population) in New Orleans during the period 1853-1855. In 1855, his mother relocated the family to California, where she remarried.

They soon moved to Oregon and, when Edwin was about twelve, his stepfather went into cattle ranching. As a young man, Guyon became a successful small rancher himself, but also nurtured a desire to become a physician. After schooling at Walla Walla College (now University), he attended the University of Cincinnati. He attained his M.D. there in 1891, spent a year in post-doctoral studies, and then started practicing in Pendleton, Oregon.

Montpelier, ca. 1910. Personal Collection.

In 1896, he moved to Montpelier, Idaho and opened a practice there. Four years later, he took a position with a coal company in Wyoming, where he stayed until 1903. During the period from 1897 through 1903, he also served as a surgeon for the Oregon Short Line Railroad. He then returned to Montpelier.

Aside from his practice, Guyon served as chairman of the Montpelier city council in 1910-1911, and also became involved in statewide medical matters. He served on the state Board of Medical Examiners and authored the Idaho law that prohibited "illegal" (presumably, unlicensed) medical practice. He co-authored a similar law in Oregon.

One of Dr. Guyon’s primary interests was the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. At that time, the disease was “the leading cause of death for all age groups” in the United States. The most common treatment was isolation in a sanitarium, where the patients exercised mildly in the fresh air, rested, and were fed a balanced, nutritious diet.

President Taft. Library of Congress.

In 1912, Dr. Guyon was selected as one of just five Idaho representatives at the International Congress on Hygiene and Demography. That meeting was then the preeminent research conference in the area of public health: The New York Times noted that the Congress was meeting “on American soil for the first time in the three-quarters of a century of its existence.” U. S. President William Howard Taft, serving as honorary chairman, delivered the opening address.

As part of its lead, The Times noted that one Dr. Peyton Rous of New York’s Rockefeller Institute had discovered a cancerous agent that “rapidly transmitted the growth of malignant tumors in chickens.” This was one of the earliest reports on the research that won Dr. Rous the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966.

Guyon served on several national and international physicians’ committees while continuing his practice in Montpelier. His own medical research accomplishments, while more modest, earned him, in historian French’s words, a “state-wide, even national, reputation for his interest and his labors in the direction of checking and stamping out tuberculosis.”

In 1920, the Montpelier school district began requiring physical exams for children entering school that year. Dr. Guyon chaired the committee of physicians who had volunteered to do the exams. Guyon continued to practice in Montpelier until the early Thirties, when he moved to Pocatello. He passed away there in January of 1934.

References: [French], [Illustrated-State]

Albert Hassell (ed.), Transactions of the Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and Demography (September 23-28, 1912).

“Reveal New Means of Fighting Disease,” The New York Times (September 24, 1912).

“Yellow Fever Deaths in New Orleans, 1817-1905,” New Orleans Public Library (online).

Dean Eldridge.
University of Idaho Archives.

University of Idaho Dean of the Faculty Jay Glover Eldridge was born November 8, 1875, in Janesville, Wisconsin (about 60 miles southwest of Milwaukee).

After much moving around the country, the family ended up in New York state where the young man received his early education. He then graduated with highest honors from Yale University in 1896. (He received a Ph.D. from the school ten years later.)

He then studied modern languages at Yale while also serving as a German instructor. After receiving his Master’s degree in 1899, he spent several months in Germany. That trip surely sparked his production of a textbook version of Die Braut von Messina (The Bride of Messina), a famous play – a tragedy – written by German philosopher Friedrich Schiller. Eldridge’s text remained in academic use for over thirty years.

In 1901, he accepted a position as Professor and Chairman of the Modern Languages Department at the University of Idaho. Two years later, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty, the first Dean created at the institution.

Starting in 1905 and continuing for around fifteen years, Eldridge performed the duties normally assigned to a college Registrar. Early on the morning of March 30, 1906, Jay and his family – they lived just off campus – awoke to a great stir. To his horror, he learned that flames were attacking the school’s Administration Building.

Administration Building on fire. University of Idaho Archives.

Eldridge raced to the building, where his office lay on the first floor, but high above a half-buried basement. Finding a ladder, he scrambled up and in. A cherished bookcase took second place to the student records stored in the desk’s file drawers: Those went out the window to safety. Some were reportedly “scorched,” but they remain in University storage to this day.

During World War I, Eldridge served in France with the Young Men’s Christian Association, providing support services for soldiers, sailors, and airman. At the time, military organizations had almost no programs or facilities for off-duty personnel: no R&R (rest and recreation) centers, no PX (post exchange) stores, no canteens, no traveling entertainment. Beginning formally during the Civil War and extending beyond WW-I, the YMCA provided these and other related services.

Their work was not without risk: “Y” volunteers suffered nearly 300 casualties, including 8 killed, and received an impressive collection of American, French, and British medals and awards.

Dr. Eldridge resumed his position at the University after the war. In addition to his teaching and administrative duties, he found time to play an active role in many social and religious activities. Himself selected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society as a junior at Yale, Dean Eldridge helped secure a Society Chapter at the University of idaho, in 1923. He later served as Chapter President.

An accomplished and experienced singer, Dr. Eldridge acted as President of the Moscow Choral Society in 1930-1931. He also held leadership roles in the regional Presbyterian Church organization, and rose to be Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge in Idaho. He served various roles in the Masons until poor health curtained his activities in 1955. He passed away in August 1962.

References: [Defen], [Hawley]

Captain Ralph Blanchard, “The History of the YMCA in World War I,” Relevance, The Quarterly Journal of the Great War Society, Stanford, California (Spring 1997).

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).

“Idaho: 1955,” Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, Vol XXXVI. Part IV (1956).

Mayor Pence. CityofBoise.com

On November 9, 1869, Boise Mayor Joseph Thomas Pence was born in Ottuma, Iowa. He graduated from Parsons College (Fairfield, Iowa) in 1892. Pence then taught at another small Iowa college, serving four years as Chair of its Department of Classical Languages.

After studying law for a year at Georgetown University, he transferred to Drake University Law School. He received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1900.

Pence moved to Boise immediately after graduation and opened a practice there. His experience in educational matters was soon recognized: The governor appointed Joseph as one of the Trustees of the Albion State Normal School. He held that position for over a decade. Throughout that period, his reputation grew, both as a public-spirited citizen and as an intelligent, hardworking, and resourceful attorney.

At one point, he got his name in the newspapers for an usual reason. The Idaho Statesman reported (November 12, 1905) that a slight earthquake had hit Boise the day before. The quake struck in the afternoon, and ground-level pedestrians hardly noticed it. The motion did, however, startle people working on the higher floors of the downtown buildings. Attorney Pence felt his desk lurch and watched a hanging overcoat swing back and forth. The newspaper report went on, “ A sectional bookcase full of books was noticed by him to sway fully three or four inches, as did also a hanging electric light globe.”

Pence took an active interest in politics, working diligently for the Democratic Party. Still, only once could supporters persuade him to run for office himself: Boise voters handily elected him as Mayor in 1909. His administration completed or initiated “many excellent public improvements,” including substantial developments at Julia Davis Park.

Boise, ca. 1918. J. H. Hawley photo.

However, during his term he found himself the lead defendant – along with the city council – in a suit brought by a firm that applied for a liquor license. Judging them to be “not suitable” proprietors of such a business, the council had denied the license. In the end, the suit went all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court, which upheld the council’s position.

Reports from the period indicate that his performance pleased most Boiseans, who might well have elected him for another term. Possibly the liquor store litigation reinforced his reluctance to pursue public office; he never ran again. He did stay active in the Democratic Party, serving as a Delegate to the 1916 National Convention that nominated Woodrow Wilson for the U. S. Presidency.

During World War I, Pence held several positions on the Idaho Council of Defense, a “home front” support organization. The Council helped sell war bonds, addressed critical manpower shortages, and advanced “other matters calculated to bring the war to a successful conclusion.”

A few years after the war, the Salt Lake Telegram announced (May 26, 1922) that Pence had formed a partnership with a Salt Lake lawyer. They opened an office in the three-year-old Clift Building in Salt Lake City. (The Clift Building is now on the National Register of Historic Places.) Pence lived in Utah until his death in 1941.

References: [French], [Hawley]

I. W. Hart (ex officio reporter), “Darby et. al. vs Pence, Mayor, et. al.,” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Idaho, Bancroft-Whitney Company, San Francisco (1910).

Alexander Toponce, energetic immigrant entrepreneur, was born November 10, 1839 in Belfort, France … about thirty miles west of Basel, Switzerland. The family came to the U. S. in June 1846. As a younger son, Alex labored hard on the farm but received no education and had no prospects of any kind. He spurned the family farm at age ten, and headed west at fifteen. Alex recalled, “I found lots of French people in St. Louis.”

For almost a decade, Toponce “whacked bulls” for a freight line, rode express mail, drove a stagecoach, and prospected for gold in Colorado.

Freight Wagon. Reminiscences.

In 1863, Alex sold what little he owned to finance a freight venture. He joined a band of like-minded men (and one woman) for a trip to the Montana gold fields. Alex said, “I had the honor of being elected captain of the train.”

Except for various short trips out of the area, Toponce spent the rest of his life in Idaho, southern Montana, and northern Utah.

Alex did much better prospecting in Montana than he had in Colorado and used the proceeds to go into the freight business full time. Over the next twenty-odd years, his freight line grew to be “one of the largest … in the Northwest.” But that was not enough for him. In 1867, Toponce transacted his first big cattle deal, using the animals to haul freight into Montana and then selling them to local meat markets and stockmen.

He also had contracts to supply meat to the construction crews building the transcontinental railroad. Alex said that on the last day of track-laying he “threw a shovel full of dirt on the ties just to tell about it afterward.” He could not recall what the dignitaries said at the Golden Spike Ceremony, but, he wrote, “I do remember that there was a great abundance of champagne.”

In 1871, Toponce acquired a cattle herd that had been trailed from Texas as far as Denver. Alex completed the drive to land he had leased on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. His ranch supplied the reservation, the gold camps, and any other market where Toponce could make a buck. At various times, he owned cattle in Utah and Nevada, and even drove some into California. He sold the Fort Hall outfit in 1879.

Alexander Toponce. Reminiscences.

Along with his freight line and cattle, Toponce built roads, ran a stagecoach company, and invested in mining properties from near Bellevue to north of Challis. He eased out of the wagon freight business in 1883-1886 as the completion of railroads across Idaho made long hauls unprofitable.

Alex himself did not ease back, however. At various times, he owned a piece of a canal company and grist mill in Utah, and a charcoal kiln in Wyoming. Seeing empty grazing land in Wyoming, he ran a considerable sheep outfit there. In 1892, the railroad shipped “twelve double-decked cars” full of sheep for him.

He also found time to serve a term as mayor of Corinne, supply ties to the railway company, own a butcher shop, and more. In 1914, he sold the rights to a hydropower site he stilled owned in Idaho. He finally began to slow down a few years later, and took the time to prepared his Reminiscences. His wife arranged publication after his death in May 1923.

References: “Construction: Pacific States,” Electrical World, Vol. LXIV, McGraw Publishing Company, Inc., New York (July 4 to December 26, 1914).

“Railroad Transfer of Sheep,” The Standard, Ogden, Utah (Nov 11, 1892).

Dan L. Thrapp (ed.), Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1991).

Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (1971).

On Sunday, November 11, 1906, officials laid the cornerstone for a new Roman Catholic cathedral in Boise, to be known as the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

Catholics had gotten off to an early start in Boise City. Two priests – Fathers Toussaint Mesplie and A. Z. Poulin – arrived in the region about the time the Army established Fort Boise in 1863.

During their first years, they held services in private homes or available public buildings. Catholics built their first Idaho churches in the mining towns of the Boise Basin. Their initial attempt in Boise City burned to the ground only weeks after it was completed in 1870-71. Services then returned to private dwellings, or sometimes the chapel at the Fort.

As placer mining dwindled in the Boise Basin, so did parishioner contributions. By around the end of 1875, administrative control had reverted to the Archbishop of Oregon. That arrangement lasted ten years, while a handful of dedicated priests struggled to maintain a Catholic presence in Idaho.

St. John’s Cathedral, ca. 1895. Illustrated History.

Finally, in 1885, Bishop Alphonse Joseph Glorieux was appointed to run the diocese. At the time, the Boise City church was little more than a “shanty,” with four small attached rooms. The bishop quickly had a separate multi-room residence built, followed by an enlargement and upgrade of the church itself. In 1889, he added a hall for meetings and classes. By 1895, Glorieux had further expanded and refurbished the church, making the first St. John’s Cathedral something they could point to with pride.

However, as the city and the Roman Catholic congregation grew, Bishop Glorieux decided they needed a more drastic solution. Businesses had begun to hem them in, limiting their ability to expand. Fortunately, all that development also inflated the value of the church real estate. They were able to sell “at a good figure,” and purchased a full block further from downtown.

When the time came to design a new cathedral, church leaders turned to the firm of Tourtellotte & Hummel, who had also designed the Idaho state capitol. The architectural committee chose a Romanesque style, characterized by a symmetrical layout with large, square towers that convey a sense of mass, round arches, and simple, geometric façade work. The description by the diocese notes that its Romanesque style used “the German cathedral of Mainz as a model.”

The cornerstone ceremony included a special program of music, with full orchestra and a forty-member choir. The Idaho Statesman reported (November 11, 1906) that the church hierarchy would be represented by “the largest gathering of bishops at a similar occasion ever held in the northwest.”

Cathedral, ca 1918. J. H. Hawley photo.

To avoid heavy debt, Bishop Glorieux had the builders proceed in phases as funds became available. Thus, services began in the basement once the walls and roof were completed in 1912. The bishop himself did not live to view the finished structure; he died in August 1917.

As the structure neared completion in 1920, “some the most impressive features” were installed: numerous stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ and other religious motifs. The completed cathedral was dedicated on Easter Sunday 1921. The final form did not, however, include a pair of conical towers flanking the front entrance, as called for in the original concept. (These would have more than doubled the height of the building.)

Today, the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Idaho.

References: [Hawley]. [Illust-State]

“Cathedral History,” Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, Boise.

On November 12, 1888, Mormon pioneers dedicated the school building for the Bannock Stake Academy in Rexburg, Idaho. With this small start, the Academy can justly lay claim to being the first organization in the state that eventually grew into an institution of higher learning. Not the first actual college, however; at least three Idaho schools taught college-level classes before them.

Principal Spori. BYU-I Archives.

The Stake selected Jacob Spori, a highly educated Swiss emigrant, as the first Principal. He and two other instructors ran the Academy initially as an elementary school.

Rexburg had been established by members of the LDS Church, led by Thomas E. Ricks, in January 1883. The town grew quickly, achieving a population of over 800 in early 1884 and burgeoning to over 1,400 by the end of that year. The Bannock Academy was among a host of local schools created by the Mormon church to teach standard academic subjects along with LDS religious doctrine.

Donations from members paid for desks and remodeling the log structure that served as a Ward meeting house. From the dedication onward, tight finances plagued the school. Funding was so scant that Spori covered its first-year debts, and the salaries of the other teachers, out of his own pocket. He resigned after three years for the sake of his family.

The Academy’s survival remained in doubt all through the Nineties under the two succeeding Principals: At one point, the entire staff served without pay for a half year, accepting foodstuffs in lieu of tuition so they could at least eat. A new Principal who came on board in 1899 began to phase out the lower grades, turning the institution into a high school.

Main building, ca. 1905. BYU-I Archives.

To accommodate the expanded curriculum, the Stake first purchased a building in Rexburg, and then arranged for the construction of a more suitable structure on land south of downtown. Workers put the finishing touches on the structure in time for the start of the 1903-04 school year. By then, the Church called the school the “Ricks Academy,” in honor of Thomas E. Ricks, who had died in September 1901.

Later, it became first Ricks Normal College and then just Ricks College. The institution barely survived crisis after crisis. In the early Thirties, the church tried to give the school to the state of Idaho as another junior college. Protesting any added drain on the state’s education budget, legislators spurned the offer.

World War II created yet another crisis. The draft and vital war work severely depleted the pool of potential male students. On top of that, several faculty members were called up. In May 1945, Ricks awarded degrees to its first, and only, all-girl graduating class.

However, after the war, returning veterans quickly changed the class mix and, in fact, caused a major housing crunch. From 1948 to 1957, the school transitioned into a four-year curriculum and then back to two-year status.

For a few years after that, it appeared the school would be moved to Idaho Falls. That crisis passed also, and in June 2000 it gained an assured 4-year status, now operating as Brigham Young University-Idaho. Today, BYU-Idaho is thriving. They have recently completed (mostly) a major new building program.

References: [Hawley]

David L. Crowder, The Spirit of Ricks: A History of Ricks College, Ricks College Press, Rexburg, Idaho (1997).

Jerry C. Roundy, Ricks College: A Struggle for Survival, Ricks College Press, Rexburg (1976).

Moses Alexander.
Illustrated History photo.

Idaho Governor Moses Alexander was born on November 13, 1853 in Obrigheim, Germany. In 1867, he emigrated to the U. S., where he lived with a sister in New York for a few months.

Moses then moved on to work with a cousin in Chillicothe, Missouri. He proved to have a talent for retail merchandizing, which he put to good use … advancing from clerk to partner at the age of twenty.

In 1891, Alexander moved to Idaho and opened a men’s clothing store in downtown Boise City. His operation prospered and, over the years that followed, Moses established a chain of stores across southern Idaho and in Oregon.

Within a few years he was a recognized leader in the community, having promoted and brought to completion the construction of the first Jewish synagogue in Boise. A rabbi from Salt Lake City officiated at the opening, and the Idaho Statesman reported (August 31, 1896) on “the very impressive ceremony of dedication of the temple Beth Israel.” Fittingly, they also held a bar Mitzvah ceremony for Moses’ son Nathan.

Despite his extensive business operations, Moses took time for public service. In Chillicothe, he had served on the City Council and twice as Mayor. He continued that interest in Boise. He was elected Mayor in 1897, chose to skip a term, and was elected again in 1901. Alexander was an active Mayor. The switch from a volunteer to professional fire department [blog, Jan 28] was made “on his watch,” and he led other civic improvements.

He ran for Idaho governor in 1908 but the nomination process was hotly contested and highly divisive for Idaho Democrats. The Republican nominee won. Health problems that dogged him later in life led him to decline a nomination for the next election.

He felt ready to go in 1914, easily won the Democratic Party nomination, and then out-polled an opponent plagued by scandal in the Republican Party. Moses thus became the first governor of any U. S. state who was also a practicing Jew*. He was reelected in 1916.

A strong temperance supporter, Alexander helped push through a state-level Prohibition law even before the entire country went officially “dry.” Idaho quickly experienced a clear foretaste of the unintended, bad consequences of Prohibition [blog, Oct 28], yet the governor never wavered in his position.

World War I (the “Great War”) provided the other favored cause during Alexander’s time as Governor. Despite – or perhaps because of – his German birth, Moses fervently supported the American war effort. Long before Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, anti-semitism was a powerful political force in Germany. No one has found evidence that this influenced Alexander’s attitude, but it can’t be ruled out.

Alexander’s Boise store, ca. 1925. Library of Congress.

Hampered by health issues, Alexander failed in another run for Governor in 1922. He died in January 1932.

Considerable archival material about Alexander’s career and family background is cataloged in The Moses Alexander Collection at the Idaho State Historical Society.

* Records show that Washington M. Barlett, whose mother was Jewish, served as Governor of California for nine months before his death in September 1887. Bartlett was not active in any religion while in California, and his funeral service was held at the Trinity Episcopal Church in San Francisco (San Francisco Bulletin, San Francisco, California, September 13, 1887).

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

"Washington Bartlett,"The Governors' Gallery, The California State Library.

Dylan J. McDonald (Ed.), The Moses Alexander Collection, Idaho State Historical Society (2002).

Timothy Regan. J. H. Hawley photo.

Wealthy businessman and developer Timothy Regan was born November 14, 1843 near Rochester, New York. The family later moved to Wisconsin, where Timothy grew up and received a public school education. In 1864, he struck out on his own, taking the isthmus route to California.

He found little to his liking there and, in November, ended up in Silver City, Idaho. Almost broke, Timothy immediately found work chopping firewood. He then landed a job in the Poorman Mine, until it closed down in 1866. He went back to chopping wood, worked in Salt Lake City for a time, and then returned to the Silver City area when a new mine opened up in 1868.

Regan soon branched into several enterprises: operating a sawmill, transporting lumber and ore for the mines, and hauling freight in the region. In 1875, he and partner Hosea Eastman purchased the Idaho Hotel, in Silver City. (Regan bought Eastman out two years later.) Also in 1875, a bank failure ruined several mining companies and Regan, as one of their major creditors, acquired many of their properties.

Considered, according to the Illustrated History, “an expert in his judgment of ore,” Regan eventually held some of the most valuable properties in the area. He later sold many of these holdings at a substantial profit. Although he and his wife moved to Boise City in 1889, Timothy retained some of the mining properties as well as at least a share of the hotel. (He apparently sold the hotel interest about ten years later.)

Regan quickly became a force in Boise City development. Three years before the move, Regan had joined with Hosea Eastman and some others to organize the Boise City National Bank. (The building they later commissioned is today on the National Register of Historic Places.) Although he was a major stockholder, Timothy apparently never held an officer’s position with the bank.

Regan did serve for many years as the President of the Artesian Hot and Cold Water Company, which opened the Boise Natatorium in 1892. Supplied with hot water from nearby geothermal wells, “the Nat” is still a noted Boise landmark. He was also a major stockholder and officer for the Weiser Land & Improvement Company.

Regan was General Manager and Treasurer of the Overland Company, Ltd., another firm he and Eastman shared. Seeing a need for more office space in downtown Boise, the Company demolished the old Overland Hotel to make room for a new structure.

Overland Building, ca 1915. J. H. Hawley photo.

Largely completed in late 1906, with full occupancy early the following year, the Overland Building would, according to a headline in the Idaho Statesman (November 13, 1905) “be a credit to a city with a population of 100,000.” For many years after, the Overland, later renamed the Eastman Building, was the prestige business address in downtown Boise.

Regan and his brother-in-law, Frank Blackinger [blog, Aug 26] formed a separate partnership, which owned the Capitol Hotel. Regan and Hosea Eastman were, in fact, married to two of Blackinger’s four sisters.

The Regans’ younger son, John, was killed in France during World War I [blog, Feb 6]. Timothy passed away in October 1919.

References: [Hawley], [Illust-State]

“Boise City National Bank Building,” National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service.

Nancy DeHamer, “Hosea Eastman, Timothy Regan, and Frank Blackinger,” Reference Series No. 728, Idaho State Historical Society (1971).

William Keefer. J. H. Hawley photo.

Idaho Falls developer and builder William W. Keefer was born November 15, 1852 in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, 40-60 miles southwest of Harrisburg. Although he was a carpenter by trade, as a young man he spent two years teaching school.

In about 1873, he found work in the west. He ended up leading a construction crew building bridges and depots for the Utah & Northern Railroad in northern Utah and southeast Idaho

Financial problems slowed and then halted track-laying in southeast Idaho from 1874 into early 1878. Work resumed in March 1878, and the rails marched steadily north. They reached Eagle Rock (today’s Idaho Falls) about a year later [blog, Apr 11]. Then the company began to construct a full inventory of railroad shops and a passenger station in the little town, so Keefer focused on that work.

The completed shops provided locomotive repair and maintenance facilities, and were equipped so the company could build various types of rail cars there. When crews completed the railway structures, Keefer decided to settle in Eagle Rock rather than continue with the railroad.

The town experienced something of a building surge at the time, so Keefer found plenty of work. Along with his construction business, he began investing in prime real estate, with an eye toward development. It helped that the town was platted in 1884.

By the mid-1880s entrepreneurs had formed irrigation companies to build diversion dams and canals for cultivated agriculture. That sparked “Eagle Rock’s Building Boom,” according to the Idaho Register (April 4, 1885). The item noted that Keefer and a partner had just completed one project and had started a “soda water manufactory and sample room.” Later that year, the Register reported (Noember 21, 1885) that Keefer was making many improvements to his brewery: “nearly quadrupling his present capacity for making beer.”

The growth in farming to supplement stock raising helped “cushion the blow” when the railroad company moved its shops to Pocatello in 1887. Although the population suffered a severe drop, the town survived.

Matt Taylor’s original wooden bridge across the Snake River [blog, Dec 10] deteriorated beyond any reasonable repair effort after almost a quarter century of use. Thus, in 1890, commissioners hired Keefer to construct masonry piers for a new steel bridge next to the old one. When no one bid on the structure itself, Keefer went ahead and completed the job. The bridge would serve the city until 1907.

Broadway, looking east, ca 1912. H. T. French photo.

Throughout the Nineties, Eagle Rock/Idaho Falls (the name changed in 1891) kept growing: many churches, two or three banks, a hotel, and more. Keefer by no means handled all these projects, but he apparently had parts of many.

In 1909, Keefer and his twin sons, Fred and Frank, began construction of a dam to impound the Snake right at the town. The dam and a retaining wall diverted a substantial part of the flow to a new hydroelectric power plant. The plant went operational in 1912. Today, the dam and diversion wall are what tourists consider the “falls” of Idaho Falls.

Besides his development work, William Keefer served two years as county coroner, ran for county sheriff at least once, and served two terms on the Idaho Falls city council. He passed away in March 1940.

References: [Hawley]

Barzilla W. Clark, Bonneville County in the Making, Self-published, Idaho Falls, Idaho (1941).

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

On November 16, 1930, Idaho Falls officials dedicated a new City Hall. It replaced the old city building, which had been in use since before 1911.

Idaho Falls, aka “Eagle Rock,” aka “Taylor’s Bridge,” originated when James Madison “Matt” Taylor and his partners opened a toll bridge at the spot in 1865 [blog, Dec 10]. Settlement was very slow at first. When Matt’s cousin Sam Taylor [blog, Apr 18] arrived in June 1870, he recalled, “There was nothing there then but Matt Taylor’s family and what help they had around, and men that worked for the stage line; no settlers at all.”

Idaho Falls train yard. Bonneville County Historical Society.

The stage station finally experienced a growth spurt after the Utah & Northern Railroad arrived in April 1879: Eagle Rock grew as newcomers settled in the region, especially north along Henry’s Fork. Then, in 1887, the town suffered a significant loss of population when the railroad shops moved to Pocatello. Still, continued settlement in the area gave people confidence about the future.

Eagle Rock organized into a village structure in 1889 and selected a board of five trustees. Two years later, the town’s name changed to Idaho Falls. Not until 1895 did the Board formally designate a Chairman. By 1900, the town was large enough to be a “city of the second class,” with a Mayor and council.

Sometime during this period, the Board procured a specific City Hall. This structure, on the southwest corner of Broadway and Capital Avenue, would remain in use until the new City Hall was dedicated. For five or six years after 1911, part of the building also served as the Bonneville County courthouse. The county then erected a new courthouse building, which is still in use today.

Around 1928, “five and dime” retailer S. H. Kress offered a premium price for the property that housed the police and fire stations. With the old City Hall showing its age, the Council saw the offer as a way to finance a replacement. They accepted, and fire and police units became tenants for awhile.

With money in hand, the city began planning a new structure, one that would allow the consolidation of the city offices with the police and fire stations. With additional revenue from the municipal hydro-power plant, the council did not need to call for a bond election. For $9,000, the city purchased a lot that was then owned by the Idaho Falls Elk’s Lodge.

City Hall drawing.
Idaho Falls Historic Preservation Commission.

Construction proceeded in phases after purchase of the property. Although much remained to be done at the time, the city offices moved into the completed fire station structure in August 1929. After that, work proceeded rapidly, leading to the formal dedication noted above.

Over the years, parts of the interior were modernized, and a foyer with skylights was remodeled into additional offices. However, "the lobby retains its distinctive tiles and decorative detail."

City Hall still serves Idaho Falls well today and its façade looks pretty much like it did eighty years ago.

References: [Illust-State]

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

“Golden Jubilee Edition, 1884–1934,” Idaho Falls Post-Register (September 10, 1934).

“Idaho Falls City Building,” Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation (2012).

On Saturday, November 17, 1883, three different newspapers across Idaho published stories about a trio of captured horse thieves. That timing arose from the more-leisurely newspaper publication schedules back then. The Owyhee Avalanche (Silver City, Idaho) and the Blackfoot Register were both weeklies, issued only on Saturdays. The Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman (Boise) had issues on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Watching the horses. Library of Congress.

The raiders began their depredations the previous month when they stole a considerable band of horses near Fort McDermitt, Nevada. That’s along the Nevada-Oregon border about seventy miles north of Winnemucca. They reportedly left Nevada with about 75 animals. Many of them belonged to a stockman named Jeremiah “Jerry” Hearn. He was originally from Massachusetts and brought his bride, Margaret, to the area in 1881.

Edward F. Mullaney, whose brother had lost horses to the thieves, trailed the bandits as they made their way across the southeast corner of Oregon into Idaho. (We know only a few of the pursuers’ names, probably because the composition of the posse changed along the way.)

In Idaho, the thieves added about 40 horses belonging to stockman Con Shea [blog, Sept 24] to their herd. They then pushed through the mountains to the east, emerging, it is supposed, somewhere south of today’s Murphy. Based on the eventual size of the stolen herd, it’s likely they gathered more horses on the high plains there. The raiders finally crossed the Snake River near the mouth of the Bruneau River.

The crooks next dodged there way east. They would have needed to avoid the new Oregon Short Line tracks, since by this time the railroad was running regular mixed trains over the line. They finally pushed their herd into the Lost River area, some sixty to seventy miles west of Eagle Rock (today’s Idaho Falls). Apparently not concerned about any possible pursuit, the thieves now “laid over four or five days” (Blackfoot Register). While there, they stole 45-50 horses belonging to rancher Edward Hawley.

Robbers’ approximate path (Green line). Overlay on historical map.

Rested up, and still unaware of any posse, the thieves moseyed through East Idaho before turning north into Montana. Along the way, they “picked up” another 15-20 horses. The pursuit closed in near the town of Bannack, about eighteen miles west of Dillon.

Events then turn a bit murky. The three apparently sent someone into Bannack for supplies, but were tipped off that a posse was after them. The crooks quickly abandoned their loot and “lit out.” They were soon caught, however, and jailed in Dillon.

Amusingly, the three “simultaneous” news articles had different snapshots of these events. The Statesman and the Register noted that the crooks were in jail pending extradition paperwork from Idaho and Nevada. The Avalanche, on the other hand, knew that the prisoners had already broken out of jail.

The three were recaptured in December and returned to Nevada for trial. The Reno Evening Gazette reported (March 21, 1884) their convictions, under the names of Lee, Stimson, and Dan Bowden. The latter was a gunman well known in southern Idaho and northern Nevada. Lee, apparently, had been “recently released” from the Idaho Penitentiary. The court sentenced Stimson to four months in the county jail, while the other two received long prison terms.

References: [B&W]

Blackfoot Register; Idaho Statesman, Boise; Owyhee Avalanche, Silver City, Idaho (November 17, 1883).

“Horse Thieves … ,” Owyhee Avalanche (November 10, and December 22, 1883).

“Horse Thieves,” Idaho Statesman (November 24, 1883).

“Cattle Stealing Gangs,” Reno Evening Gazette, Reno, Nevada (March 21, 1884).

On November 18, 1895, “surplus” lands on the Nez Percés Indian Reservation were thrown open to claims by white settlers. This action crowned a long campaign to force assimilation upon the Nez Percés and other Indian tribes.

Nez Percés encampment near Lapwai, 1899.
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

The original 1855 treaty between the U.S. and the Nez Percés essentially confirmed the Indians’ sovereignty over much of their extensive ancestral homeland in the Pacific Northwest. However, that treaty lasted just eight years. Then prospectors found gold in what would become Idaho. Some of the discoveries were clearly inside the Nez Percés reservation, which led to a new treaty that drastically reduced the allotted lands [blog, Jun 9].

Most of the Nez Percés bands rejected the agreement, yet whites officials – with the usual self-serving cynicism – billed it as an all-encompassing document. Continued flagrant violations of both treaties eventually led to the Nez Percés War of 1877 [blog, Jun 17]. After that, all of the various bands of the tribe were forcibly placed on reservations – mostly in Idaho but some in Washington.

Soon, the Nez Percés adapted. The schools filled with Indian children, cultivated plots expanded, and native handicrafts found their way to market. Yet much had not changed, perhaps because the Nez Percés did not put that much emphasis on accumulating material possessions. Indian cowboys grazed growing herds of cattle and bands of horses, making good use of the lush rangeland. Women and youngsters moved across the countryside, gathering camas roots and the other usual bounties from the earth.

Unfortunately, as settlement increased around the reservations, the “empty” lands inside the boundaries became an issue. An item from the Idaho County Free Press (June 18, 1886) captures the prevailing white attitude: “The land is of no use to them for they cannot and will not utilize it. … As long as it is reserved from white occupation it will remain as useless as though located in the desert of Sahara.”

Senator Dawes. Library of Congress.

An unlikely alliance between land-greedy settlers and the national “do-gooder” community found a solution. The 1887 “Dawes” or “Severalty” Act provided that lands on many Indian reservations would no longer be held communally. Instead, individual Indians would own plots patterned after the traditional Euro-American family farm.

Although the law made some provision for grazing, its clear intent was to force tribesmen to become small farmers. Then, the do-gooders were sure, they would assimilate into white society as “stout yeomen of the soil.” White settlers would, of course, make productive use of the acreage left over after these allotments.

Government officials arbitrarily assigned a value to the “excess,” bought it from the tribe, and distributed the proceeds among the individual tribesmen. The land office then made these “purchased” plots available for white homesteaders. Some years passed before the details were ironed out in Idaho, but the resulting transfer finally happened in 1895.

Authorities did nothing to keep claimants out, so most had moved onto the land well before the legal opening. A special correspondent for Boise’s Idaho Statesman (November 19, 1895), writing from Lewiston, seemed almost disappointed. Yes, he wrote, “there was no lawlessness, no suffering from the snows of winter or the intense heat of midsummer.” But as a result “all the romance which is supposed to attach to occasions of this kind was lost.”

References: [Illust-North]

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

Francis Haines, The Nez Percés: Tribesmen of the Columbia Plateau, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (1955).

Thomas R. Wessel, “Agriculture, Indians, and American History,” The American Indian: Past and Present, 6th Edition, Roger L. Nichols (Ed.), University of Oklahoma Press (2008).

Attorney Haga. H. T. French photo.

Boise lawyer and education advocate Oliver O. Haga was born November 19, 1872 in Luverne, Minnesota (in the extreme southwestern corner, 25-30 miles east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota).

At the age of twenty, he had a job as school Principal in Wisconsin. In 1894, he graduated from Indiana’s Valparaiso University. (He later received a master’s degree from the school.)

After graduation, he moved to Idaho as the school Principal in Salmon City. He spent two years there, two years in a similar position at Glenns Ferry, and became Principal of Boise High School in 1898. His tenure followed a period of dramatic growth in the Boise student population. In 1894 and then again two years later, Boise City had added new facilities to its system.

For many years, Haga had filled his spare time reading law in local attorneys' offices. During the summers, he traveled East to study in various law schools. Thus, concurrent with his move to Boise, he qualified for the Idaho bar. In time he would earn the right to argue cases in the Supreme courts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Indiana, as well as Federal courts in those states … and the U. S. Supreme Court.

In 1901, Oliver resigned from the Boise school to go into the law full time. He joined Judge James H. Richards, a former Boise mayor, in the firm of Richards & Haga. In little more than a decade, Richards & Haga developed a client list that included the Idaho branches of some of the largest financial and investment companies in the United States. Haga himself became a nationally-known authority on irrigation and water law, a hugely important specialty in the arid Western states.

In early 1926, Haga was appointed as one of two Idaho members of the Advisory Commission for the The SesquiCentennial International Exposition. The Exposition, a world’s fair held in Philadelphia, commemorated the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It opened at the end of May, was officially dedicated on July 4th, and ran through November.

Haga developed extensive business and property holdings in the Boise Valley, across southern Idaho, and even into Montana. As a sideline, he became a “gentleman farmer” and rancher in the Boise Valley, where he bred registered shorthorn cattle.

BJC Administration Building, ca 1955.
Albertsons Library Digital Collections.

Haga never lost his interest in education. He had a long tenure on the Boise school board, including several years as board president, and also served on the Board of Trustees of the Idaho Industrial Training School. The Training School was a rehabilitation center for juvenile offenders.

From 1934 through 1939, Haga responded to an educational crisis in his adopted home town: the preservation of the fledgling Boise Junior College. The detailed story is beyond the scope of this blog. To summarize: Oliver not only Chaired the Board of Directors that managed the school, but he also shepherded a “junior college bill” through the legislature. That law, signed in February 1939, provided for more reliable school funding.

Haga passed away in 1943. Eight years later, the BJC Administration Building was designated the Oliver O. Haga Hall, although, the Boise State archives note, it was “rarely called by that name.”

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

Erastus Long Austin, Odell Hauser, The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition, Reprint Edition, Arno Press, Inc., New York (1976).

On November 20, 1895, supporters held the first women’s suffrage convention in Idaho. In general, the western states had been much more supportive of women’s suffrage than those in the East. Wyoming had written it into the Territorial Constitution in 1869 and carried that over into statehood in 1890. The state of Colorado passed a similar amendment in 1893.

Suffragettes collecting petition signatures.
Library of Congress.

Nationally, however, advocates made little progress. The 1892 Republican party platform paid the notion lip service, but nothing came of that provision. Moreover, the History of Woman Suffrage said, “No Democratic national platform ever has recognized so much as the existence of women … ”

In 1894, canvassers in New York State collected some 600 thousand petition signatures in support of a women’s suffrage amendment: Constitutional delegates rejected the idea by almost a 2-to-1 margin.

That same year, Idaho politicians supported women’s suffrage in their party platforms and on the campaign trail. Thus, the legislature that convened in early 1895 passed a resolution calling for such an amendment … with just 2 dissenting votes out of 70 cast.

Still, conventional wisdom held that “popular indifference” would doom the measure – opponents would be sure to vote while the rest of the electorate wouldn’t bother. Determined to change that, advocates convened that first convention in Boise, meeting at the home of the President of the Boise Equal Suffrage Club.

Suffrage leaders, including Susan B. Anthony -- seated right of center, in spectacles --
meeting with Utah organizers. Utah State Historical Society photo.

In addition to the usual slate of officers and an advisory board, the women designated county presidents from all across the state. The women then laid out a campaign to insure passage of the amendment. They even received a telegram with advice from Miss Susan B. Anthony: “With hope of carrying amendment, educate rank and file of voters through political party papers and meetings; women speakers cannot reach them.”

To bolster their campaign, supporters held a second, much more heavily attended convention in July 1896. Outsiders also came to lend their support, including Abigail Scott Duniway. Abigial Jane Scott had crossed Idaho in 1852, when she was eighteen years old, as an Oregon Trail emigrant [blog, July 29]. She had since become a nationally-known advocate for women’s rights.

The Idaho Statesman observed (July 5, 1896), “The equal suffrage convention held here last week was a pronounced success, and the result will be beneficial in the campaign that will soon be upon us.”

Hiram T. French related an episode that illustrates the women’s determination. Organizers sent the announcement for a planned local event to their usual contact in a small North Idaho mining town. However, that person had moved, so when two speakers arrived to make the presentation, nothing had been arranged. Undeterred by the slip-up, the women hurriedly found a hall and then hired boys to assemble two huge woodpiles near the primary mine facilities. Lit just in time for the shift end, the roaring bonfires attracted “a large audience” to the talks.

As described elsewhere [blog, Nov 3], the measure passed handily.

References: [Brit], [French], [Hawley]

Susan B. Anthony, Ida H. Harper (eds.), The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol IV: 1883-1900, The Hollenbeck Press, Indianapolis (© Susan B. Anthony, 1902).

In November 1811, Wilson Price Hunt recorded in his journal, “On the 21st at daybreak we saw ahead of us a river that flowed to the west, its banks lined with cottonwood and willow trees. Some Indians who had pitched camp there had many horses and were far better clothed than those whom we had seen recently."

Hunt’s party thus became the first whites to report seeing the Boise Valley. (A smaller group led by Hunt’s associate Donald Mackenzie may have actually seen it earlier, but the details of Mackenzie’s route are uncertain.) As noted before, Hunt’s expedition represented John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company [blog, Oct 5].

Snake River canyon below Caldron Linn. Idaho Tourism.

They had built dugout canoes and attempted to voyage down the Snake River, but lost a canoe and one French-Canadian boatman at Caldron Lynn [blog, Oct 28]. Although the immediate prospect looked grim, Hunt did not give up right away. The next day, he wrote, “For thirty-five miles I went along the banks of the river, which continues to carve a passage northwest through the mountains. Its bed is no more than sixty to ninety feet wide, it is full of rapids, and its course is broken by falls ten to forty feet high. Except at two spots where I went down to get water, the banks are precipitous everywhere.”

His party clearly did not follow the canyon rim all the time. Had they done so, they could not possibly have missed Shoshone Falls, some 20-25 miles downriver from Caldron Lynn. At over 200 feet tall, the falls top Niagara Falls by nearly forty feet. Later, trappers traversing the area located the feature by the roar of the water crashing over the edge.

In any case, the explorers abandoned their canoes, cached the goods they couldn’t carry, and started walking across Idaho. To make foraging easier, Hunt divided the group into several smaller parties.

Hunt’s contingent generally followed the north bank of the Snake, barely avoiding starvation by trading with local Indians for dogs and dried salmon. Finally, somewhere near, or west of today’s Glenns Ferry, tribesmen advised Hunt to leave the river and head more directly north and west. That route indeed proved shorter, but they found no water. Before light rains after two days relieved their thirst somewhat “several Canadians had begun to drink their urine.”

Boise River, fall. Idaho Tourism.

The next day, they reached the Boise River. They traded with several Indian bands for food and a couple of horses. Hunt said, “They told us that farther upstream beaver were plentiful, though in the vicinity of our camp there were very few.”

With winter closing in, the Overland Astorians, as they are usually called, barely made it out of Idaho before the worst weather blew in. They arrived on the Columbia river about two months later, and were happy to reach Astoria a few weeks after that. The Astorians had learned a good deal about the beaver country west of the rockies, but the Pacific Fur Company would not benefit from that knowledge.

References: Wilson Price Hunt, Hoyt C. Franchère (ed. and translator), Overland Diary of Wilson Price Hunt, Ashland Oregon Book Society (1973).

Washington Irving, Astoria, or Anecdotes of an enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains, G. P. Putnam and Son, New York (1868). Author’s revised edition.

James P. Ronda, Astoria and Empire, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1990).

On November 22, 1899, tracks of the St. Anthony Railroad Company were completed into Rexburg, Idaho. The goal of the Company, which had been incorporated in May, was to extend a rail line from Idaho Falls to St. Anthony. Reporting on the Rexburg arrival, the Fremont County Journal said, “All afternoon the construction train was puffing back and forth through town.”

St. Anthony in 1907.
Vintage postcard displayed at www.SFnewsandviews.com

The tracks reached St. Anthony the following spring. Over the next several years, the railroad built branch lines to communities to the east and west of the main line. By about 1918, Fremont County would have, according to J. H. Hawley, “more than a score of railway stations.” Eventually the company would be acquired by the Oregon Short Line Railroad.

During its period of growth, the Company found itself at odds with the United States government. Construction crews had cut timber for ties and bridges from public lands accessible from their right-of-way. In this, they cited a Federal statute that allowed a “duly organized” railroad company “the right to take, from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, material, earth, stone, and timber necessary for the construction of said railroad.”

The closest suitable timberlands were 20 to 25 miles distant. Interpreting the intent of the law liberally, the company obtained the necessary material from those stands. Federal administrators disputed their right in this case and demanded they pay over $20 thousand for timber illegally cut from public lands. A lower court denied the Federal claim, as did a circuit court of appeals. Determined, authorities then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. After much legal nit-picking about the meaning of the word “adjacent,” the High Court reversed the judgement. The railroad company had to pay the charges.

West Yellowstone train depot, ca. 1910. National Park Service.

In 1905, leading investors in the St. Anthony railroad felt the time was ripe to extend the tracks to the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park [blog, Mar 1]. The work proceeded slowly, for various reasons, not the least of which was the heavy snowfall encountered in the mountains between Ashton and the town of West Yellowstone. In fact, each season opened with a major effort to clear anywhere from six to thirty feet of snow off the tracks.

The first passenger train reportedly reached the entrance depot in June 1909. The Idaho Falls Times noted (April 20, 1909) that the railroad had already taken heavy bookings in anticipation of that event. They expected that “attendance at the park for 1909 will be more than double last season.”

Rail traffic through Idaho to Yellowstone enjoyed a boom between the World Wars. Thus, in 1925, the Union Pacific (which by then had absorbed the OSL) built a huge tourist dining hall in West Yellowstone. However, that traffic plunged after World War II, and by 1960 the town no longer had passenger service.

Today, trains still operate as far north as Ashton, Idaho, with some branch lines around the region; however, much branch trackage has also been abandoned or ripped up.

Reference: [B&W], Hawley]

“United States vs. St. Anthony Railroad Company, 192 U.S. 524,” Record of U. S. Supreme Court Cases, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. (1904).

“West Yellowstone History,” West Yellowstone Tourism Business Improvement District, West Yellowstone, Montana (2010).

On November 23, 1877, a Bannock Indian, Tambiago by name, shot and killed cattleman Alexander Rhoden at the Fort Hall Indian Agency. Alex was born around 1852 in northeast Missouri, near the Nebraska border. In 1865, the family moved to near Omaha.

Alexander Toponce. Reminiscences.

Later, Rhoden came to Idaho and went to work for cattleman Alexander Toponce [blog, Nov 10]. Toponce, who recalled the spelling as “Rodin,” said the Missourian had been working at the ranch for a number of years before the shooting. The young drover was delivering some of Toponce’s cattle under contract to the Agency.

Accounts suggest that the shooting grew out of the uneasy relationship between whites and Indians at the time. A proclamation by President Andrew Johnson had designated the Fort Hall Reservation in 1867 [blog, June 14]. About a year later, most of the Shoshone and Bannock bands in Idaho finally agreed to resettle there, persuaded by glowing promises from Federal negotiators.

As happened all too commonly, the Agency did not keep its end of the bargain. Most tribesmen hardly noticed the failure to provide seed, instructions on farming, and other craft training. They could easily live without these elements of assimilation anyway. But their very survival depended upon the promised allotments of food and warm clothing.

Unable to live on the skimpy-to-nonexistent supplies provided by the Indian Agent, bands began to roam far and wide outside the reservation. Upset by these excursions, the Agent complained to tribal leaders, which created an atmosphere of frustration and discontent.

The Bannocks generally wandered the most, and therefore earned an extra level of nagging from the Agent. Soon, Bannock leaders began to suspect that the Agent was favoring the Shoshones in his already-sparing allotments.

The existence of this feeling among the Indians was confirmed by an Army officer who inspected the reservation. In his report he wrote, “The Bannocks are regarded by officers of the army and civilians as friendly and peaceable towards the whites. They are, however, very much opposed to their Agent, Mr. Danilson; this opposition I learn is provoked by his discrimination in favor of the Shoshones.”

Of course, the inspector could not stay long enough to verify the Bannocks’ suspicions. But in this tense atmosphere, an unknown white angered the Indians anew: One account said he raped a Bannock girl, but other reports suggest horse theft or some other crime.

Tribesmen had no way to specifically identify the offender, so they knew white authorities would do nothing. A frustrated brave stormed out and shot two teamsters, neither of whom, it is generally agreed, had anything to do with the initial offense. The teamsters eventually recovered from their wounds.

Group of Bannock, 1878. Library of Congress.

After more disputation, the shooter was arrested. As he was brought to, or passed through Fort Hall, Tambiago “snapped” at this one-sided display of justice ... and shot Rhoden. Again, it’s unclear whether Tambiago was the brother or just a good friend of the accused man. Authorities finally caught and arrested Tambiago. Tried and convicted of murder, he was hanged the following year, the first man hanged at the Idaho Territorial Penitentiary.

In his Reminiscences, Toponce remarked, “The Indian who killed Rodin had no grudge against him. He simply wanted to kill a white man and Alex was the first one he saw.”

A week or so after the shooting, Toponce shipped the young man’s body back to Nebraska for burial.

References: George Francis Brimlow, The Bannock War of 1878, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho (1938).

“Killed By An Indian,” Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah (December 1, 1877).

Alexander Toponce, Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (1971).

Early on November 24, 1889, a fire destroyed the state-run mental hospital located in Blackfoot, Idaho. The sanitarium, as it was then called, housed 47 male and 20 female patients at the time. Early accounts said 7 patients (5 men and 2 women) were missing afterwards, with two bodies found in the ruins. However, Hawley’s later History suggests that no one was killed in the fire.

South Idaho Sanitarium, now Idaho State Hospital South.
J. H. Hawley photo.

Located a half mile or so north of Blackfoot, the asylum had been authorized in 1885 and opened for patients the following year. Before then, mentally ill individuals had been housed in Oregon, under contract with that state. Officials transferred thirty-six patients (26 man and 10 women) when the Blackfoot facility opened.

After the fire, male patients were kept temporarily at the Bingham county courthouse and females at the local Methodist Episcopal Church. The institution was rebuilt at a location a few miles further north.

In 1905, the legislature funded a second state hospital; it was built in Orofino. As views on mental health issues became more sophisticated, the terms “sanitarium” and “asylum” were dropped in favor of a simple “Idaho State Hospital South” and “ … North.”

Today, Idaho is still wrestling with the proper approach, or approaches to treating people with mental health problems. Clearly, sufferers who are a danger to themselves and to others require different methods and facilities from those with lesser problems. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.

Official drawing for Patent No. 157,124.

On November 24, 1874, the Federal government granted a patent to Joseph F. Glidden for an improved form of barbed wire. Over the years, many ideas had been tried but Glidden’s was the first effective design that could be manufactured at reasonable cost.

Homesteaders benefited first from the new product: It provided a way to protect fields from range cattle and sheep. In many jurisdictions, courts would not award damages for losses to stock unless the owner had tried to provide some sort of protection for his (or her) crops. An 1873 Idaho law said, in part, that farm fields “shall be enclosed with a good and lawful fence, sufficient to secure the crops therein from the encroachments of all kinds of domestic animals.”

Possible awards then hinged on the phrase “good and lawful fence.” A split rail fence met the criteria, but the materials were costly and difficult to obtain. In many areas, even wooden posts for stringing a wire fence had to be hauled from miles away. Still, posts and wire were far more affordable than anything available before.

Stockmen also quickly saw the advantages of fencing large expanses of range to keep it for themselves, and they had the capital to buy wire by the train car load. Thus, production of the new form jumped 60-fold a year after the patent was granted. Barbed wire fences brought their own problems, of course. The lore of the Old West is replete with stories of the fence cutters and gun-handy cowboys hired to patrol the wires.

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

Joseph M. McFadden, “Monopoly in Barbed Wire: The Formation of the American Steel and Wire Company,” Business History Review, Vol. LII. No. 4 (Winter, 1978).

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

Reverend William Judson Boone and the College of Idaho [otd 11/05]

Elections: U. S. President Abraham Lincoln and Lewiston Mayor Ankeny [otd 11/06]

Medical Pioneer and Tuberculosis Researcher Edwin Guyon [otd 11/07]

University of Idaho Language Professor and Dean Jay Eldridge [otd 11/8]

Boise Mayor, Attorney, and Earthquake Witness Joseph Pence [otd 11/09]

Alexander Toponce: Freighter, Stockman, Stage Line Operator ... and More [otd 11/10]

Cornerstone Laid for Roman Catholic Cathedral in Boise [otd 11/11]

BYU-Idaho Predecessor, Bannock Stake Academy, Has Building Dedicated [otd 11/12]

Jewish Businessman and Idaho Governor Moses Alexander [otd 11/13]

Timothy Regan: Freighter, Mining Expert, and Business Developer [otd 11/14]

Idaho Falls developer and Construction Leader William Keefer [otd 11/15]

Idaho Falls Dedicates a New City Hall and Fire Station [otd 11/16]

Horses Thieves Trailed, Captured, and Jailed – Escaped, Caught Again [otd 11/17]

Nez Percés Indian Reservation Opened to White Settlers [otd 11/18]

Boise Attorney, Businessman, and Education Leader Oliver Haga [otd 11/19]

Women’s Suffrage Advocates Hold First Idaho Convention [otd 11/20]

Wilson Price Hunt Fur Trade Party Reaches Boise Valley [otd 11/21]

Branch Railroad Arrives in Rexburg, Headed for Yellowstone [otd 11/22]

Unsuspecting Cowboy Shot and Killed at Fort Hall by Angry Bannock [otd 11/23]

Fire at State Mental Hospital in Blackfoot, Joe Glidden Patents Barbed Wire [otd 11/24]