HISTORY CORNERs
From 1st
one: Dec 93 or Jan 94 TO 6-16-95
Then a
gap, then 11-1-96 to 5-21-98
#1 12-30-93
This article is the first in what is
planned as an ongoing series of articles about Council's fascinating past.
With all the digging going on in town, I
thought it would be a good time to tell about some interesting discoveries from
the last time the town was dug up.
In 1940, the WPA was putting in many of
the sewer lines that are now being replaced.
At the bottom of an eight foot deep trench under Galena street, west of
what is now the Council Valley Market, the crew found a large spear head and a
stone axe head. Both were made of
flint. The spear head (which may
actually have been a cutting tool) measured about four inches long.
Several arrow heads were found during the
1940 excavations, especially around the settling tank in the west part of town,
and along the trench leading west from the tank.
I've been told that if the present workers
find any artifacts, the job might have to be stopped until an archaeologist can
be called in to examine the site. While
this is both good and bad, the immediate result is that the workers might
simply keep quiet about anything they find in order to keep the project
moving. That's understandable, but if
it happens, the community will lose a once in a lifetime chance to learn more
about how the native culture used this valley.
Future articles, in addition to stories of
Council's history, will keep you informed of what the museum is doing. Several ambitious new members have been
added to the museum board, and you will be seeing some good things happen. This should matter to you. It should matter to you because local
history is incredibly interesting. It
enriches our lives in ways beyond measure.
And Council has one of the best historical collections in the state for
this size town. It should also matter
to you because museums and other historical attractions account for a very high
percentage of tourist dollars: cold, hard cash for our local economy.
Stay tuned.
#2 1-5-94
HISTORY
CORNER by Dale Fisk
One of the most striking facts of
life in the Council Valley about a century ago was the handicap of inadequate
transportation. When the Moser family
settled here in 1876, there wasn't a road of any kind into the valley. George Moser used a plow to scratch a
ditch down the north side of Mesa hill, and by placing the upper wheels of the
wagons in it, managed to keep them from tipping over.
The basic route that the Mosers
established was used up until about 1920, and is still visible in the first
canyon east of the present highway. It
cuts down the hill and across the old paved highway. If you look about 300 yards up the Middle Fork from the present
highway bridge at the base of Mesa hill, you can see the abutments for the
bridge the old "Moser grade" used.
When roads were finally built, they
were what we would call four-wheel-drive trails. These dirt roads were very often impassible (or even dangerous) for
weeks at a time during wet seasons.
Until communities were big enough, and organized enough, to afford such
luxuries as bridges, travelers used fords on smaller rivers, and ferries on
larger ones.
Railroads were the only mode of
transport that was fairly dependable.
When Indian Valley was first settled in 1868, the nearest railroad was in Utah. By the time the Mosers arrived here, rails had just crossed
Idaho's southern border. The nearest
major supply points were Boise or Baker, although there was a small store at
Falk's crossing, east of present day Payette.
Six years later (1882), the railroad reached Weiser. This was a milestone in the settlement of Council.
Now it only took a journey of two days (one way) to get tew up, they
didn't seem to age at all, but now, many of them are old. Some, like the Ridge school house, have begun to lean precariously ... and some
have died. It
ust
doesn't seem right. From my point of
view, they were always here - like the mountains. These men have been my reference points ... my Landmarks.
There is little we can do to prevent
the loss of living Landmarks. But there
is much that can be done to preserve the priceless legacy they leave behind
them. That's why I'm researching and
writing their stories. That's why the
Council museum exists, and why it is so important to support it.
For over a year now, the museum
board has been diligently investigating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
expand the space available for the museum's exhibits. The room we have is inadequate for even the present collection,
not to mention other heirlooms that would be donated or loaned if space were
available.
We
have finally come up with an approximate plan for an addition to the City Hall
building for the museum, and nailed down an agreement toward this goal with the
initial financial backer: Evea Powers (Vernie Harrington's daughter). She will match any money we raise, dollar
for dollar, up to $10,000. Through
private grants and local contributions, we plan to raise enough for the
addition.
We are hoping that the community
will pull together and help with this investment in a cultural and economic
legacy that will benefit us and our grandchildren.
You'll be reading and hearing more
about this soon.
#3
1-12-94
HISTORY
CORNER by Dale Fisk
It was a cold day, less than two weeks after Thanksgiving. The Christmas season was starting. The older students of Council's overcrowded
old brick school were looking forward to moving into the new, $48,500 high school that was nearing completion
across the highway from the courthouse.
People who were listening to the
radio were startled by the sudden interruption of regular programing. It was announced that Japan had just
attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Soon after that, President Roosevelt announced that the United
States was declaring war. The word
spread quickly through Council. Whether
they heard it in a store, or by a phone call, or on the radio, the shock of the
news, and the date December 7, 1941, was indelibly stamped on the memory of
everyone who was old enough to realize what had happened. From that day on, the history of this
nation, and the lives of millions, was irrevocably altered.
A few days after Pearl Harbor, a new
siren was installed in Council to serve as a fire and air raid alarm. Military experts were saying that attacks by
enemy planes this far inland were very probable, and blackout instructions were
issued.
As near as we can tell, the big bell
that now sits in front of the city hall / museum building was used as an alarm
before that time. If anyone has any
more information about this bell, please call me: 253-4582.
A letter recently arrived at the
Council Post Office from a WWII vet who is trying to locate someone he knew
during the war. The man who wrote the
letter is Robert Hull, and he is looking for Robert M. Keyes. The two men served together in the 511th Parachute
Infantry Regiment. Keyes was the
lieutenant in charge of the Demolition Platoon, and stayed with the unit until
it arrived in New Guinea. At that time,
Keyes left the unit, and Mr. Hull has never heard what became of him. Mr. Hull says that Keyes lived in the
Council area, and may have owned a ranch here.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Robert Keyes or his
relatives is asked to contact Robert M. Hull at 1926 S. Johnson St., Visalia,
CA 93277 . He will gladly accept collect phone calls at (209) 625-3027.
#4 1-20-94
HISTORY
CORNER
by Dale
Fisk
In my writings, I will occasionally
use the term "Landmarks".
I'll try to explain my usage of that word.
Just after 1900, a number of
homesteaders settled on "the Ridge" west of Fruitvale, and a one-room
school was built in 1915 for the
children of the new families. My father
was one of those children.
When I checked on the old school a
couple years ago, it was in pretty sad shape.
The porch had fallen down a few years before. The brick chimney had long
since been shot to pieces by squirrel hunters in lack of more suitable
targets. The weathered shingles had
given up clinging to the roof, and now the whole building was leaning to the
point of no return.
All my life I had seen that old school
as a symbol of a precious heritage, and as a landmark in more than just the
physical sense. I saw the ghosts of
noisy children running and laughing in the school yard. I imagined figures whirling around the floor at special Saturday night
dances, as the notes of a fiddle drifted above their heads. To me, this neglected old friend represented
a way of life that had faded away like the echoes of the music and the
laughter. Now it stood empty ... silent
... dying.
The
old school finally collapsed under the weight of a heavy snowfall on the night
of December 8, 1992.
When
I was a boy, I used to go with my father to the cattle auction. I would listen to the men talk about
politics, the price of cattle, or the best way to operate some complicated
piece of farm equipment. I thought they
must be very wise, these men who held the world in their hands. I was intimidated by the thought of ever
being able to know as much about life as they did.
I learned
a lot from those men. As I grew up,
they didn't seem to age at all, but now, many of them are old. Some, like the Ridge school house, have begun to lean precariously ... and some
have died. It just doesn't seem right. From my point of view, they were always here
- like the mountains. These men have
been my reference points ... my Landmarks.
There is little we can do to prevent
the loss of living Landmarks. But there
is much that can be done to preserve the priceless legacy they leave behind
them. That's why I'm researching and
writing their stories. That's why the
Council museum exists, and why it is so important to support it.
For over a year now, the museum
board has been diligently investigating a once-in-a-
lifetime
opportunity to expand the space available for the museum's exhibits. The room we have is inadequate for even the
present collection, not to mention other heirlooms that would be donated or
loaned if space were available.
We
have finally come up with an approximate plan for an addition to the City Hall
building for the museum, and nailed down an agreement toward this goal with the
initial financial backer: Evea Powers (Vernie Harrington's daughter). She will match any money we raise, dollar
for dollar, up to $10,000. Through
private grants and local contributions, we plan to raise enough for the addition.
We are hoping that the community
will pull together and help with this investment in a cultural and economic
legacy that will benefit us and our grandchildren.
You'll be reading and hearing more
about this soon.
#5 1-27-94
Many long time residents of the
Council area remember when this was a well known fruit producing region. It was a dynamic, but relatively brief, time
in our history.
Although many early settlers grew a few fruit trees for their own
use, William and Dora Black are generally credited with starting the first
commercial orchard in the county. The
Blacks lived at the present day Gossard ranch on Hornet Creek.
Even
though local fruit was of high quality, the market was mostly limited to local
sales until after the arrival of the railroad in 1901. By 1904, B.B. Day, who now owned the Black
place, was shipping apples to markets
as remote as Walla Walla and Nampa. The
next year, he was sending apples to Chicago by the railroad car full, and area
farmers were beginning realize that there was money to be made in fruit.
By 1909, orchards were the rage here, and it seemed that everyone
was jumping onto the band wagon. Local
business men came up with a logo depicting a red apple accompanied by the
slogan "The Home of the Big Red Apple" which was placed on envelopes,
banners and other promotional material.(CL, Sept 17, 1909) A metal printing plate for reproducing this
logo is displayed at the museum in Council.
That same year (1909), the famous
Mesa Orchards began, about 8 miles south of Council. This was also the year that the townsite of Fruitvale was
established. The name was doubtlessly a
result of the fruit rage.
In 1912, "The Council Valley
Orchards Company" started developing orchards on the slopes north east of
Council, mostly east of highway 95, and between Orchard Road and Mill Creek
Road. At one time, that whole area was
almost one continuous orchard.
By the fall of 1912, it was estimated that there were 3,000 acres
of orchard within a twelve and a half mile radius of Council. For about the next thirty years, fruit was a
staple of Council Valley's economy.
I have three questions this week.:
1.
My best information is that, at its peak in 1929, the Mesa Orchards
Co. had 1,200 acres actually growing
fruit trees. It has been claimed that
it was anywhere from "one of the largest commercial orchards under one
head operated anywhere in the northwest", to "the biggest orchard in
the world". Does anybody have
concrete evidence as to its actual size in relation to its peers? Newspaper claims, opinions and memories
don't count unless they can be corroborated.
An almanac printed during the 1920s might have this info. Old horticultural journals might hold a
clue. Any solid leads would be very
appreciated.
2. Early in World War II, the government
considered Mesa orchards for use as a Japanese detention camp. It was supposedly rejected as being too
small to hold enough detainees, and yet I have read somewhere that local people
remembered Japanese kids attending the Mesa school during the war. If anyone has memories, or other info, about
Japanese families being detained at Mesa, please call me.
3.
In 1942, the last three apple trees that were planted by George Moser in
1880 were destroyed. The trees stood in
front of Bob Young's house near the corner of the high school property, and the
street curved around them. Somebody who
knows where this exact spot was, please give me a call. 253-4582
#6 2-3-94 History Corner
As I write this, the old parsonage
next to the Congregational church is being torn down. By the time you read this, it may already be gone... another
Landmark down the drain. Right after I
originally had this article all written and delivered to the newspapers, Dick
Parker's outstanding article about the parsonage was printed. He knocked big holes in my estimation of
when the parsonage was built. I had
found a bit in a 1910 Council Leader paper
that said, "The
Congregational church has decided to install a regular pastor in the
valley." A meeting was reportedly
called to decide site to build new parsonage.
Dick's more dependable date (1901) from church records made me realize
how undependable old newspapers can be.
As to the concern that the old
papers on the walls of the parsonage were lost to posterity, there was only one
local paper: Council Journal, Mar 25, 1902.
It was an issue of which there is no original or microfilm copy as far
as I can tell, but it didn't contain any significant news relevant to Council
history that can't be found in other issues.
The rest of the "wall
paper" was Saturday Evening Posts and other non-local publications.
More tidbits on the church or
parsonage from my research:
1912 - A new organ was purchased by Rev. Stover
1915 - Rev. Cox set out 20 shade
trees around the church and parsonage.
1922 - A Boy Scout troop (probably
Council's first) was organized under the sponsorship of the church.
1927 - A Mr. Summer and a Mr. Teems,
who had a sawmill on Johnson Creek, were starting a lumber yard across the
street from the congregational church parsonage.
1935 - The parsonage was extensively
remodeled, and a bathroom was added.
1940 - The Council library was in
the "annex" of the church. A
small rental library of new books was maintained at the parsonage, where books
rented for 3 cents per day.
Bill Winkler said the first
religious service in the valley was held by Sylvester Shrieve, a Methodist
minister, in 1879. There were many
traveling preachers until the late 1880s when the first regular services were
conducted by Rev. Hopper who came up from Midvale once a month.
In 1910, my great great grandfather,
J.L. Baker, who was a Methodist preacher at Cambridge, was sent to Council to
establish a church here. Construction
was finished and the building was dedicated on Sunday, Dec. 10, 1911. It was located just across the highway,
south of the present Starlite Motel.
The parsonage was just torn down just a few years ago.
The Methodist church was abandoned
by the time the Nazarene congregation started
holding services there in the mid 1920s. In 1934, Rev. F.D. Brown moved to Fruitvale and held Nazarene
church services in the McMahan school house. [As noted in a later column, this
was actually another new school.] While the Congregational church parsonage was
being remodeled in 1935, the Nazarenes were tearing down the old Methodist
church in Council and using the lumber to build a small church at
Fruitvale. It was built at the east end
of Jonathan Ave., just north of the
road, and east of the ditch. The
building was later converted to a house that was owned by Fred Burt, and is
still there. In 1938, another Nazarene
church was built on the south east corner of Dartmouth St. and Illinois Ave. in
Council. It was just demolished a
couple years ago.
Coincidentally, the first LDS church
was also located in Fruitvale.
Beginning just after 1930, services were held in private homes there for
a year or two. In 1932, Elder J.L.
Sandidge began holding services in the Legion Hall in Council. In 1935, construction of a log church was
started just south of Jonathan Ave. in Fruitvale. It was wired for electricity, just in case power ever reached
Fruitvale. The building was completed
and formally opened on Sept. 11, 1937.
Pete and Chris Friend converted the old church into a home which they
torn down and replace with their current house a couple years ago.
As you can see, we have lost a
number of Landmarks fairly recently.
Another one that is about to fall is the old John Kesler (1867 - 1937)
house. It's the big, white, square
house just south east of the airport.
The Keslers contracted with Adams county as a "poor house" in
the 1920s to care for county indigents.
Frenchy David, the pioneer Seven Devils prospector who shot himself near
Bear, spent some of his last days there.
Stay tuned.
#7 2-10-94 HISTORY CORNER
I guess a few words about
earthquakes would be appropriate, in light of recent events. Most of us remember the quake in Idaho a few
years ago, but there have been several over the years.
The first one I could dig up in the
old newspapers was on May 13, 1890.
Miners in the Seven Devils were shaken awake in the middle of the
night. The sound was described as "...a
loud rumbling sound like that made by a number of horses stampeding." I think it was Al Towsley who said he
thought someone was trying to blow up his cabin with blasting powder. Surprisingly, the quake was not felt by
anyone on Hornet Creek.
A few local people had friends and
relatives in the great San Francisco quake of 1906, and sent help in the way of
cash and supplies. Weiser businessmen
sent a railroad car of flour. It was
the biggest earthquake in the nations history at the time. Think how horrible it must have been to have
hundreds of victims trapped under rubble before they even had any kind of
machines to move it.
There were a couple of local earthquakes in 1908. The first was a fair sized trembler in the
Meadows area. The other was a smaller
one, centered near Weiser.
In 1915, a man in the Cambridge area
awoke in the night to the sound of objects on the kitchen table rattling
around. Half asleep, he got up and put
the cat outside, thinking it had been knocking things off the table. The next morning everyone was talking about
the earthquake. It was centered
somewhere in Utah.
Only eight months later, in May of
1916, the northwest was rocked by what people in Boise called the strongest
earthquake in the city's history.
Several chimneys collapsed, but there was little other damage.
In 1920, there was another
earthquake in the Los Angeles area. It
was experienced by a local man, Sterling McGinley, who was there at the time.
This week, I want to ask several
important questions.
First, when the Council area was
just getting started as a community, it had no central core that could be
called a town. Several years before
John Peters built a store where Shaver's now stands, he established the first store in the valley at a location
described as being on what was later "the Bedwell place". This was about a mile, or a little less,
north of town. It most probably would
have been somewhere along Galena Road, which was the main road out of
town. It might have been on the east
side of the road. Does anybody know the
place?
The first school, aside from classes
in the fort, was also said to be close to this spot north of town, on what much
later (1943) was the Ed Shannon place.
Where was this?
Speaking of schools, the library is
collecting photos of old schools in this area. There doesn't seem to be a photo anywhere of the Orchard
school. Does anybody have one, or know
who might? Please, somebody come up
with one!
Another picture we're looking for is
one of Ham's Texaco service station.
Photographs can easily be copied without even removing them from your
home. If you have any iformation about
these locations, or if you have any pictures from the past that you think might
be interesting, please give me a call.
253-4582
2-17-94
4???????
HISTORY
CORNER by Dale Fisk
Just within the past year or so, we have
lost several Landmarks. The one with the most direct connection with the
pioneers of the Council Valley was John Gould.
John and his brothers, Lester and Clarence, were local institutions, and
we lost them only fairly recently.
Their father, George Gould, came to the Council Valley in the fall
of1888. That was a drought year
followed by a mild winter. The next
winter ('89 & '90) happened to be just about the worst one in the history
of this area... something like last winter, only with extensive flooding the
following spring. Hundreds of livestock
starved, froze or drowned that winter and spring..
In 1890, George aquired the ranch on
Cottonwood Creek that is now owned by the Fraziers. It was the Gould who built the present Frazier house. By acquing this place, George felt he
had begun to establish himself, and he
adopted the "90" brand in honor of the year of this accomplishment. The 90 brand has been in uninterrupted use
by the Gould family ever since.
In Feb. of 1893, George married a
neighbor girl, Viola Duree. All four of
their children were born on that place: John - Jan. 3, 1894, Clarence - Sept.
15, 1895, Annie - Dec. 27, 1897, and Lester - April 16, 1905.
In 1909, the Goulds traded ranches with the
Becksteads who lived on a ranch 3 miles north of Council. The Becksteads had built the large ranch
house which still stands on the Gould place.
The ranch had been settled in 1878 by George Winkler, and was one of the
earliest homesteads in the valley.
Mr. Winkler planted some of the first fruit trees in the valley
here. Although it was badly broken by
snow last winter, I suspect the huge apple tree in front of the old house today was one that Winkler
planted.
The big white barn on the ranch was built
in 1915, and quickly became a landmark in itself.
In 1938, when Clarence married Nancy
Stover, the teacher at the White School just across the highway from the ranch,
they built the smaller dwelling next to the main house for their home. Clarence has been called a genious, and
maybe he was in some ways. To say the
least, he was very mechanically creative.
A number of the machines that he
built are cached away on the ranch, including a water-powered generator, down
by the river, that provided electricity for the ranch years ago. Clarence died Aug. 8, 1987
Viola Gould died in 1948. When George died three years later, the
estate was divided among the kids.
John and Clarence continued to run the main part of the ranch as one unit. Lester acquired the place that Steve and
Elsie Shumway now own.
Lester died Sept. 1987 John died June 6, 1992
Clarence's three children now own
the ranch. Donna Gould Nelson and her
husband, Todd, now live on the Gould Ranch.
If only that land could talk - what
stories it could tell. Like the time
in January of 1895 when George Winkler was awakened in the middle of the night
by an uproar in the chicken house.
Sleepy-eyed, George lit a lantern, picked up his shotgun, and stumbled
out to the coop. He proptly encountered
the cause of the chicken's panic: a very large cougar. Everyone but the cougar (and maybe a couple
chickens) survived the evening's entertainment.
2-24-94 ?
7 HISTORY
CORNER by Dale Fisk
In one of the display cases at the
museum, there is a pair of horse snow shoes.
That's right - snow shoes that were worn by horses. In the days before good roads or snow
plows, pack animals were often the only
way to haul supplies to remote mining towns.
In the winter, dog teams were sometimes used between McCall and the Warren area, especially for
carrying the mail. I don't think they
were used much for heavier hauling.
Putting snow shoes on horses doesn't
seem to have been a very common practice.
Mickey Aitken Hendrickson said that Eston Freeman, an early mail carrier
to Warren, introduced snowshoes for horses in this part of Idaho. People laughed at him and said they wouldn't
work, but they did. Hendrickson said they
were used extensively in this general area.
The horse
snow shoes in the museum are made of metal.
This may have been an uncommon
material for this purpose. The
ones that Hendrickson described were made of wood. Wooden snow shoes were used on horses in the Buffalo Hump area,
north of the Seven Devils. A man who
told about the ones used there, said they were made by crossing two boards to
make a shoe about twelve inches by ten, with the forward corners rounded. Holes were burnt into the boards to fit
extra long calks and toes on the horse's regular shoes. Each snow shoe was held on with bolts. The horses seemed to like the snow shoes
after they learned how to walk a little
spraddle-legged while wearing them. The
man said that "...when the wooden
contrivances are fitted on, they [horses] can be driven anywhere and are enabled
to go along with greatest ease. On
these shoes they do not sink more than six inches at any time in the trail, and
rarely over a foot in the loose snow."(From the Salubria Citizen
newspaper, Apr 14, 1899)
A hundred years ago, if you were to
mention "snow shoes" to someone, they would have thought you were
talking about what we now call skis.
And they referred to what we call snow shoes as "webs".
In the late l800's and the early
part of this century, skiing was a whole different story from today's sport. Almost everyone made their own skis. They consisted of shaped and bent wooden
slats with a loop to hold the toe of the skier's foot, and some method of
holding the foot forward into this loop.
Our museum at Council has two pairs of these old-style skis on the wall,
along with one pole. It's amazing how
huge they are.
Before the 1920s, at least in this
country, skiing was primarily a way to get from one place to another, as
opposed to recreation. Except for
experts, it was almost literally a "straight forward" activity. Slalom type turns were pretty much unheard
of. To go down a hill, you simply
pointed your skis down the mountain and let gravity do the rest.
Instead of ski poles, a single,
long, heavy pole was used, primarily for balance and braking. If your speed became excessive, the pole
was placed between your legs and the trailing end was pushed into the snow to
create drag.
Stay
tuned.
3-3-94 9 HISTORY CORNER
Baseball was probably the first
intramural sport played in Council.
Although travel was difficult, there were games between neighboring
communities as early as 1890. After the
Pacific and Idaho Northern Railroad reached the towns along the Weiser River,
games became common between teams located along the trains route.
When the teams along the tracks
adopted a league name, it was only natural to call it by the railroads initials
- the "P&IN League".
There is a P&IN League baseball trophy in the Council museum. In everyday local slang, the railroad was
called the "Pin" or "the pin road". Likewise, the sports league became known as
the Pin League. I would assume that
when teams were added to the league
that were from towns that were not located along the railroad, it became known
as the "Long Pin League". If
somebody has better info as to how "Long" got added onto the Pin
League name, please give me a call.
Weiser had a football team as early
as 1906, but some of the Council boys had never even seen a football game, much
less played in one, until 1922. A team
was established here, and showers were built in the old, brick, combination
grade school / high school that year.
The first Council High School football
game was at home against Payette in November. Council lost ten to nothing.
Basketball came to Council High a
short time after football, after the Legion Hall was built in 1923. The
upstairs of the building served as a basketball court. Even after the old high school was built in
1941, it was occasionally used for that purpose.
I
recently came across some old Council High School year books from the
1940s. It's interesting how much has
changed, and how some things are shared by every generation. High School year books are a valuable
resource for recording Council's past.
The pictures are priceless. If
you have an old Council High School year book, that you could donate, the
Library and/or Museum would like to have it so it can be preserved for the
whole community.
Ruth Husted has generously donated
year books from 1941-42 through 1945-46.
They are unique because construction of the high school had just been
finished in December of 1941, and because these were the war years. Annuals from this time frame (and into 1947)
contain photos of some well-known local folks that still live here: Everett Harrington,
June Ryals, Leo Mink, Ferd Muller, Art and Alice Deeds, Eunice Madson, Ruth
Husted, LaDell Merk, Alma Fisk, Mary Owens, Maxine Hallet, Norman Kilborn, Ed
Kesler, Frank Hulin, and more.
These kids got to go to school in a
brand new high school after being cramped into the second story of the old
brick school. The new school must have
been a marvel to them. It was said to
be "... not only the newest, but the most modern physical plant in the
state". It had a real gymnasium,
and separate rooms for science, business, home economics, library, etc.
Does anyone know when the first year
book for Council High came out? We
would welcome the donation of annuals from any year, but especially old
ones. They are the ones that will be
the hardest to find, and are the most interesting. If you have a year book that you could donate, please bring it in
to the Library, or contact me.
A few weeks ago, I asked if anyone
knew the whereabouts of Bob Keyes. It
turns out that quite a few people knew the Keyes family, and knew that Bob now lives at Donnelly. Several people called or wrote to Mr. Keyes,
as well as to Mr. Hull who was looking for him. Mr. Keyes didn't remember exactly who Mr. Hull was, and looked
through his old photos, etc. to jog his memory. I'm sure the two men had a pleasant visit, remembering
experiences of 50 years ago. My thanks,
and theirs, to the people who helped get them together.
Now I have another "Where Are
They Now?" question. I got a call
from Frank Thompson who went to school at Council for only one year, during the
1940s, and moved away in about 1948.
Most of his school years were spent at the Cottonwood school. He would like to know if anyone knows how to
get ahold of Jay or Albert Thorp. If
anyone has an address or phone number for one of them, or of someone who would
know how to contact them, drop a line to Frank Thompson at Valley, WA 99181 or call me at 253-4582.
I need to correct a mistake from a
couple weeks ago. I said that in 1934,
Rev. F.D. Brown moved to Fruitvale and held Nazarene church services in the
McMahan school house, near where Raffetys live now. It was actually the "new" Fruitvale school where these
services were held, not the McMahan school.
The McMahan school had been abandoned for about eight years by this
time, and had collapsed under heavy snow the year before.
3-10-94
10 HISTORY
CORNER
I guess it's time to stick my neck
out. Over the years, there has been a
running battle between two camps on the issue of "the Council
Tree". Just where was it? And was there more than one?
One side says there was a single
tree, and that it was located just south of Mill Creek on the west side of
highway 95. The tree to which they
refer is still standing, although it has long been dead.
The other group claims that there
was not one, but a grove of five Council Trees, and that they stood just north
west of the present town of Council.
After reading every available issue of the Council Leader, the Adams County
Leader, the Fruitvale Echo and the Council Advance newspapers between 1901 and
1944, as well as issues of the Weiser Signal, the Salubria Citizen, the
Cambridge Citizen and the Cambridge News to cover 1882 to 1901 for which there
were no Council papers, I have found not one single reference to a Council tree
anywhere near Mill Creek. Instead, I
found numerous references to five Council trees located north west of
town. For a time, the Adams County
Leader even had a big logo, along with the paper's name, across the top of the
front page of each issue that showed
the five Council trees with Indians smoking a peace pipe under them.
The clincher came when I read a high
school history essay written in 1930 by Rose Freehafer (former Senator Jim
McClure's aunt). She personally
interviewed Bill Camp, who had known some of the Indians in the area, and even
spoke some of the Nez Perce language.
An Indian that Camp worked with told him that the Council trees were
located on the Kesler place about three quarters of a mile north, and slightly
west, of Council.
Until the 1920s, there were five
pine trees in a field at this location, in a group by themselves, but the
landowner later cut down all but one of them.
When Arthur Hallet acquired ownership the land where the Council trees
stood in 1917, all five trees were still there. Arthur's son, Byron (Buff) Hallet said the last tree died in
1928, and was cut down for firewood.
Buff Hallet planted five young pine trees at the approximate location of
the original Council trees in1986. They are growing on the south side of
Airport Road, straight south of the Council airport.
I suppose this will upset a few
fondly held beliefs about "the Council tree", but it seems very
evident that there were five trees, and that they were located at the spot
mentioned above. I have simply not run
across one scrap of evidence to the contrary, or any hint that the site near
Mill Creek is legitimate. If someone
can tell me how and when this Mill Creek spot came to be associated with the
Council tree, I'm very curious.
3-17-94
12 HISTORY
CORNER
Recently I asked for info about Jay
or Albert Thorp because their old friend, Frank Thompson, was looking for
them. I got a call with info as to how
to locate Jay, but before I could pass it on to Frank, I got a letter from Jay. He gets the Record, so he saw the article
and he sent a letter to Frank.
Last week, I wrote about the Council
Trees. Dick Parker gave me some great
info on that story. It seems that Ralph
Finn started the idea of a single Council tree near Mill Creek. Before the three dams were built on the
Snake River west of here, Ralph was an
advocate of an idea that had been proposed to build one giant dam in Hells
Canyon instead. He felt that the huge
reservoir created by this dam would bring a great boom to Council, and he
pushed the idea of making a tourist park at the Mill Creek site. The pine tree growing there was to be
promoted as the Council tree. Dick
says that Hugh Addington, and other old timers, always referred to there being
several Council trees, and that they were located at the spot north west of
town. Hugh remembered the trees as
being more or less in a line.
I also got a call from Ervin Bobo
who gave me some real gems of information.
The most exciting one, for me, concerned a pile of rocks on a hilltop on
the Ridge, west of Fruitvale, at a spot called "Eagle Point". This pile, made of chunks of basalt rocks,
is about five or six feet tall. My dad
said that the pile was there when the first settlers arrived on the Ridge. Nobody knew who put them there, or why. My brother and cousin once took the whole
pile apart to see what was under it, and found nothing. They rebuilt the original pile, and heaped
up another bunch, so now there are actually two piles there.
Lewis
and Clark noted seeing a somewhat similar pile of rocks near the top of Lolo
Pass. They said, "On this eminence
the natives have raised a conic mound of stones six or eight feet high and
erected a pine pole fifteen feet long." (From the "Original Journals
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition" edited by Reuben G. Thwaites, 1904, vol
3, p 180) This Lolo trail spot has come to be known as the "Indian Post
Office".
A few years back, a scholar of some type found more rock piles in
the Lolo area and naturally figured they had a similar Indian origin as the one
Lewis and Clark had mentioned. Ervin
was watching TV one day, and saw a program about these rock piles and their
history. He was pretty amused, and/or
irritated at the education the public was getting about these rock piles, and
called up the TV station. You see,
Ervin had a pretty good idea how the piles got there. He had helped pile them up!
He was with a surveying outfit in the 1950s in that area. They used an old method of surveying that
incorporated line of sight calibration, using telescopic instruments. Rocks were piled around the base of a long pole with a big white flag attached
to it. Such flags were visible from
miles away, and served as reference points for determining survey lines. The rock piles were simply the remains of
these flag pole supports. I imagine the
scholar was pretty red-faced.
Ervin said that the Council area was
surveyed in the 1880s, using this same line-of-site, flag pole method. The rock pile on the Ridge sits on a bare
hilltop that can be seen from many miles in several directions. The Fruitvale area was just starting to be
settled in the 1880s, and the Ridge was homesteaded after 1900, so the pile
could have been made by surveyors before anyone lived in the vicinity. On the other hand, since the Nez Perce
Indians made at least one known rock pile that was similar to this one, I
suppose it could be of native origin.
Anybody have more clues?
I want to thank both Ervin and Dick
for calling me. Getting information
like this is better than finding a gold nugget. My thanks, also, to the others who have called. I sincerely hope that anyone who can add a
piece to the puzzle of the history of the Council area will call and fill me
in. 253-4582
3-24-94 Missing
3-31-94
It's amazing how recently
electricity came to some parts of this area.
Thomas Edison lighted a section of New York City with electricity in
1882, but widespread use of the technology didn't appear until about the turn
of the century. Electric lights had
appeared in Weiser in 1903, but no one here in the "upper country"
had entered the electrical age by that time.
(With the possible exception of Iron Springs in the Seven Devils.)
You might be surprised to know just
how long ago plans were made for a power plant on the Oxbow of the Snake River
south of Hells Canyon. The present dam
was finished in 1961, but plans were made for one at this site since just after
the turn of the century. At least as
early as 1905, people were making big plans for that unique convolution of the
river. A concrete dam was planned that
was to be 800 to 1000 feet long. An
electric generator was to be built at the bottom of a tunnel that would be
blasted through the solid-rock neck of the bow. It was thought that the generator could supply power to an area
including the Seven Devils mines and Baker, Oregon. The plan was finally abandoned about 1907 because of a lack of
customers. Very few people in the
region had a single light bulb in their home.
Grandiose schemes that put the cart before the horse was not at all
uncommon in those days.
The same year as the Oxbow scheme
made the news (1905), Dr. Starkey built the first hotel at his sanitorium, on
the hill north west of the present pool.
He installed electric lights in each room of the hotel, and provided
power by installing his own water powered generating plant on Warm Springs
Creek.
About this time, electricity was
becoming the rage in the U.S. At first,
it was pretty much only used for lighting, but people soon investigated just
about every possible use for the new miracle.
Since a railroad line was being contemplated north from Council to link
Boise with Grangeville and Lewiston, it was proposed that it be an electric
railway, powered by generating plants that would be built at intervals along
the Salmon River.
Meadows was the first town in the
upper country to have electricity, in 1908.
I'm not sure what the initial source of power was, but in 1910, the
County Commissioners granted permission to build a power line to Meadows from
what must have been a generator on the Falls of the Little Salmon River, some
miles north of town.
In 1911, Isaac McMahan's nineteen-year-old son, Ernest, installed an
electric power plant on their ranch at Fruitvale. The generator was driven by water from the irrigation ditch. Private generators like this were relatively
rare at the time, and was thought by some to be the only one of its kind in the
County. That claim may or may not have
been true. Clarence Gould built an
elaborate power plant on the Gould ranch, three miles north of Council, during
this approximate time frame. The
building that housed the plant is still standing, just east of the river. It think the generator itself may even be
around the ranch somewhere.
The beginning of general public
access to electricity on the upper Weiser River valleys began in 1912 when the
Adams County Light and Power Company installed a hyro-generator on Rush Creek,
eight miles north of Cambridge. The
lights were turned on in Cambridge on Christmas day of that year.
Before
power lines reached Council, private generators were used by a few businesses
in town. My guess is that they were
driven by small gasoline engines. By
1913, the Opera House (now the theater) had electric lights. The next year, Charlie Warner (not the one
from Bear) installed the first electric fan in Council, in his barber shop, for
the comfort of his patrons.
Right after the big fire that burned
half of downtown in 1915, Council signed a contract with the Adams Co. Light
and Power Co. to supply electricity from its Rush Creek plant. The first lights powered by this source were
turned on in a number of homes and businesses here on August 28, 1915.
In 1923, a power line was extended
north of Council to Orchard road to supply the fruit packing plants there. Jack Darland provided the first electricity
in Cuprum with his power plant in 1931.
A power line didn't reach the Fruitvale store until 1940. At about the same time, line extensions gave
lower Hornet Creek, and most of Council Valley, access to electricity. I don't know when Bear and Cuprum was
reached by power lines, but I think it was surprisingly late. Would someone who knows give me a call?
253-4582
4-7-94
13th
History Corner
Picture yourself living in an area
where you were born and raised, where your parents and your grandparents, and
even their great great grandparents, were born and raised. Imagine that these ancestors handed down a
deep spiritual tradition, involving a reverence for your family and your
country, around which you center your life.
Now suppose man-like creatures from
another planet come into your community.
Soon, they take over. They chop
down the trees that your great great grandfather planted, and are burning them
in their camp fires that they build on top of your mother's grave. They walk
into your house and tell you that you have to move out. They tell you that your way of life is
wrong, burn your Bibles (or other sacred books), and tell you that you are to
stop practicing your evil religion.
Next, they force you to live in concentration camps. There is no food,
and your children slowly begin to starve to death.
Wouldn't most of us fight to our
last breath against such a fate? The
tragedy is that a scenario very similar to this has already happened. It happened right here in the United States
when the natives of this country were conquered by Whites. The differences in the situation from my
imaginary one are subtle. Basically, it
was a clash of two irreconcilably different cultures.
Indians were a source of constant
anxiety for the earliest settlers in this area. Settler's feelings towards Indians were very similar to how we
would feel if vagrant motorcycle gangs were roaming our area today. Indians were accustomed to a hard, or even
violent, lifestyle. White people in the
early days generally thought of Indians as being very dirty. And since Whites of that era usually only
took a real bath about once a year, we can assume that some American aborigines
were pretty unsanitary by modern standards.
Indians were seen as having backward ways of acting and talking, and
manners that often seemed rude or arrogant.
They would often camp on ground claimed by homesteaders, and according
to some reports, would turn their horses loose to graze in grain fields.
There were constant reports of
Indian thievery which were often unfounded, but all too frequently were
true. Many of the displaced natives
were desperate, and resorted to stealing to survive. They had been uprooted from their homes and the only way of
living they had ever known - left to wander in a hostile, bewildering nightmare
with no way out.
You
can imagine what barbaric creatures white people must have seemed through
Indian eyes. Native Americans had a
totally different view of private ownership and property rights. The idea of an
individual owning a piece of land was so foreign to them that they often failed
to even grasp the concept. Their
survival depended on being able to roam the land freely, sharing it as a group.
Any one person owning a part of the earth was as ridiculous to them as someone
owning the air. It seems to them that
white people cut the earth-mother into pieces to be bought and sold like their
prostitutes, for whatever selfish purpose the owner pleased.
In
spite of the abuse that was being demonstrated against the members of their
race, the Shoshoni Indians along the Weiser River showed themselves to be an
extremely tolerant people. Even after
Whites began to take away their wintering grounds by settling in Indian Valley,
the natives remained cordial to them, even going so far as to show the invaders
how to harvest and preserve salmon from the rivers. Indians also became a
source of hired labor on farms, helping with the harvest of crops.
Eventually,
all of the natives in this area were forced onto the Fort Hall
reservation. They were told they must
live like white people, but were given no means or training with which to do
so. Food was very often scarce or
non-existent. The concentration-camp
existence they were forced to live under must have been almost impossible to
bear. In their culture, everything
sacred, everything that gave purpose and meaning to their lives was based on
their relationship with mother earth, from whom they had been ruthlessly
torn. What cultural values could they
pass on to their children when almost every value they understood had been made
irrelevant?
It seems bitterly ironic that a
culture that outwardly professed spirituality, but was really based on
materialism, so brutally crushed a culture so totally immersed in spiritual
values. Few people, other than women
who have been raped, can understand the crushing emotional damage that results
from someone violating and stealing the most precious, sacred, personal parts
of your life, and being powerless to do anything about it.
Today,
the damage that was done to the natives of this country is insidious ... the
stories of their lives mostly unknown... but their former presence here
underlies everything that has followed them. The places where we now live, work
and play, were all a precious legacy handed down from native fathers and
mothers (Landmarks) to sons and daughters for almost 100 centuries longer than
the blink of an eye that our European culture has been here.
The museum in Council has an
extensive collection of Indian projectile points and stone tools. Recently, we have begun a long range project
to classify them as to their where they came from, and how, when and by whom
they were used. The result will be an
interesting display in our new museum space.
More on that subject, and how we need your help, soon.
4-14-94
15 History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
John Hancock was one of the very
first businessmen in Council. He and
Milt Wilkerson built the first actual business establishment here in 1891. Called the "Council Valley Hotel",
it stood just south of the present Ace Saloon.
The picture of this building that is in the museum is the oldest
photograph, that I know of, ever taken in what is now the town of Council.
About 1884, John Hancock and a friend drove some cattle
from Salmon River into the Seven Devils.
This was a common route for taking cattle and supplies into the Devils,
especially before a road was built from Council. After spending some time looking for stray cattle in the
direction of the Snake River, the two men headed back east toward the Salmon
River. There were few trails, and they
just trekked in the general direction.
When it got dark, they made camp
without really knowing where they were.
Maybe they felt a little like mountain man, Jim Bridger. Bridger once said he had never been lost in
his life, but he had been mighty confused for several days. When Hancock and Company got ready to build
a camp fire, they discovered they only had one match. After carefully preparing the tender and kindling, they struck
their one and only chance at a warm supper and camp. The match flared up and promptly went out.
Soon, they heard what sounded like a
cow bell off in the distance. Following
the sound, they found the camp of an old man who was in the area trapping
beaver. The man welcomed them to stay
for the night, and they gladly accepted.
During the course of the evening, they asked their host where they
were. He said, "About six miles
west of Price Valley." Since
Hancock and his companion admitted to being lost, they called the place
"Lost Valley". The name has
stuck to this day.
About 1900, two brothers, Frank and
Colonel Ryan, came west from Kansas, intending to take up land near Walla
Walla, Washington. Near Payette, they
were told their was good homestead land available near Council. One way or another, they found themselves in
Lost Valley, and liked the place well enough lay claim to it. Frank built a cabin in the middle of the
Valley, and Colonel erected his more toward one edge.
Both brothers studied law during
this time. Frank got his law degree in
1905. That same year, the Weiser
Irrigation District filed on the land at Lost Valley for a reservoir site. This didn't coincide very well with the Ryan
boys' homestead idea. A law suit
followed. While the dispute was making
its way trough the courts, the reservoir was built in the fall of 1909. The lawsuit was settled the next year. The Ryans proved, ironically, that the
highest and best use of the land was as a reservoir site. They established that they should be paid
for their homesteads on the basis of this value, and were paid $16,000 for the
two homesteads - a substantial sum in those days. Colonel went back to Kansas and practiced law. Frank moved to Weiser, built a house at 747
W 2nd Street, and practiced law in that town until his death in 1956.
Frank's son, Harold "Hal"
Ryan, followed in his father's
footsteps, and is now a Federal Judge in Boise. I had a nice visit with him last week, and copied two old
photographs of his dad standing in front of his Lost Valley cabin. My thanks to Kenny Schwartz for telling me
about Hal and this great story.
As near as I can tell, Frank's cabin
site was about where the middle of where Lost Lake is now. My dad remembers seeing a cabin floating in
the reservoir back in the late 1920s.
It was drifting near the campgrounds on the east side of the lake, just
south of Slaughter Gulch. Colonel's
cabin may have escaped being flooded out.
Anybody know where it might have been located?
Speaking of Slaughter Gulch, the
story I got of how it received this name is that Isaac McMahan had of bunch of
his cattle stolen and butchered there in the early days. Anybody know any more particulars on this
story? 253-4582
A few notes on the Reservoir from
old newspapers: 1912 - a lake trout
was caught in Lost Lake that was as long as a man's arm. 1925 - Lost Valley Reservoir Co. was
incorporated. 1928 - Nine salmon
were caught just below the Lost Valley Dam.
1929 - Lost Valley
Reservoir Dam was raised.
Since last week, Lila Coats told me
the power line reached Evergreen about 1950 or '51. Tina Warner and Gay Carter
said that the power line only reached the Bear Cuprum area about 1979! Tina also informed me that Jack Darland
would have been a pretty young boy when he was credited by the paper as running
a power generator at Cuprum in 1931.
Maybe it was his dad, Tony, or his grandfather, John.
4-21-94 Missing
4-28-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Big game animals have always been a
big part of life in the Council area.
They were a basic source of food for the first miners and settlers.
When the Wilson Price Hunt
expedition came through Idaho in the winter of 1811, the group led by Donald
McKenzie passed through the southern part of the Seven Devils. They almost starved for lack of game. Deer were not plentiful in the Hells Canyon
- Seven Devils area until several years after the establishment of the Black
Lake Game Preserve in 1912. This
preserve, which covered 67,200 acres north of Black Lake, was abolished in
1935.
According to Charles Winkler, when
his family came to the Council Valley in 1878, white tail deer were as common
around Council as mule deer, although he said deer in general were not
plentiful here back then. Since that
time, and until fairly recently, white
tailed deer were rarely seen. Over the
past twenty years or so there has been an increase in the number of white tail
deer in this area. They have generally
been more common in the northern part of
the state during my lifetime.
Elk
were unheard of here in the early days.
There is a record of trappers sighting a large herd of elk in Long
Valley in 1831, but by the time the
Black Lake Game Preserve was established in 1912, there were no known elk in
Idaho west of the Island Park Divide near the Wyoming border. Council's Socialist legislator, Earl Wayland
Bowman, the author of the bill that created the Preserve, persuaded the state
Game Warden to use $5,000 to buy Yellowstone Park elk from the U.S. government,
and put them in the new protected area.
Another
story says the U.S. Government donated the elk: 35 cows and 15 bulls. At any rate, the elk arrived in 1915. They were shipped in by rail, and when the
train stopped in Council, a crowd of fascinated locals gathers to gawk at the
strange new animals.
The elk were released near New
Meadows, and for the next 34 years, they had a chance to adapt to their new
habitat, undisturbed by hunters. Elk
were originally a plains animal, and they didn't naturally take to the higher
mountains on their own. For instance,
the Rapid River drainage, where a number of elk herds thrive today, was pretty
much devoid of the animals until they were pushed into the area in the late
1940s or early '50s.
By the time the local elk hunting
season was reopened in the fall of 1949, a large herd had established itself
near the head of the West Fork of the Weiser River, just west of Lost
Lake. On opening day of the first open season, a large number local men
hunted this prime location. This was
also opening day of deer season, and either sex was legal game for both species. For some time after it was light enough to
shoot that morning, it sounded like there was a war going on in that
vicinity. In addition to bucks, does
and cow elk, eighteen bull elk were killed.
A number of these bulls had trophy sized antlers. One monster bull had ten points on one side
and eleven on the other.
The State enforced game laws in the
early days as best they could, but before cars and roads were common, it was
hard for an official to cover much territory.
Also, there were few game wardens in this part of Idaho. For a long time, game laws were widely
ignored by local people. After 1923,
Forest Service officers were supposed to help enforce game laws. Apparently, this didn't help much.
Some of the early Idaho game laws
are of interest:
1889 - Illegal to kill buffalo, elk,
deer antelope or mountain sheep between January 1 and Sept 1.
1903 - Moose, buffalo, antelope or caribou must not be killed at any
time. Elk, mountain sheep and goat season Sept 1 to Dec 31. Limits: one elk (either sex), two deer, one
mountain goat, one mt. sheep. A hunting
and fishing license cost $1.
1907- Elk, deer, mountain sheep and
mountain goat season Sept 15 to Jan 1.
Hunting and fishing license still $1
1927
- A resident fish and game license cost $2.00
5-5-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Following up on last week's History
Corner, here is some info on other game animals.
Mongolian pheasants were released in
this part of Idaho sometime around the turn of the century. Hunting them was not allowed until
1907. In 1909 there was a report that
Chinese peasants were being released into this area. Chukkar partridges were introduced to the Snake River country,
east of here, in the 1940s. The bird
that is being chased around the mountainsides this time of year, the Merriam's
turkey, is a recently introduced
species to our vicinity.
The 1907 Idaho season for prairie
chicken, pheasant, partridge and turtle dove was Sept 1 to Dec 1, with a limit
of 12 to 18. Snipe, plover, ducks
and geese were legal from Sept 15 to Jan 1 with a limit of three geese, and 24 of any one of the other
birds. Quail season was Nov 1 to Dec 1
with a limit of 18.
On a tape recording that Jim Camp
made of Hugh Addington, Hugh commented
on how many grouse there were in the Seven Devils area in his younger
days. He said, "The grouse... was
so thick that you could have a grouse any time you wanted one. I've seen them on Horse Mountain after the
grasshoppers so thick... just thousands of them! That whole country was just
saturated with them."
In 1891, a tongue-in-cheek report in
the Salubria newspaper tried to point out how rich the mining district was by
saying that several people were making a good living by shooting Seven Devils
grouse which had gold nuggets in their craws.
The subject of Salmon fishing could
be a whole other column, so I'll stick with the smaller species. The old pioneers of the Council area said
that fishing was always very good here.
They considered the main Weiser River the best place to fish for trout,
especially the deep holes in the river.
In 1899, the local fishing season
was from May 1 to November 1 for trout.
It was a felony to take fish by the use of dynamite, but that didn't
stop some people from doing it. As I
understand it, dynamite was put into a jar, or some other watertight container,
the fuse was lit and the lid put on.
The jar was thrown into the river, and the shock of the explosion would
stun or kill any nearby fish. The fish
were collected when they floated to the surface, sometimes by the dozen. I haven't heard of anyone practicing this
method in
recent
years, but it was not that uncommon for a few decades after the turn of the
century.
In 1903, there was a limit of 20
lbs. of trout, bass, catfish, grayling, or sunfish. Any fish under 4" had to be thrown back. No use of snag hooks, explosives or nets was
allowed. It was that year that several Council people went on an
outing at East Fork of the Weiser River.
Dr. Brown caught 325 small trout.
The next day, L.L. Burtenshaw caught 180 and T.W. Johnson caught 45.
By 1905, fishing was allowed year
'round. The limit was still 20 lbs.;
limit of 30 lbs. in possession at any time.
Trout and black bass had to be at least 4" long.
In
1912, some Council men caught over 600
fish in the Bear Crk and Lick Crk area.
In May of 1925, it was announced
that, "A new fish hatchery is to
be built by the state on the Weiser river about 10 miles north of Council,
..." toward Evergreen. This
hatchery provided thousands of fish that were planted all over this area for
many years. The cement
"ponds" are still there as far as I know.
Looking back like this makes one
think. The salmon are gone here, and
fading fast in other places... some
species of other game fish are becoming hard to find... and what's the limit for trout now? So much for the "progress" we have
made by multiplying the population of our own species.
?5-12-94?
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
There is a grave south east of Lost
Lake with a morbid, but interesting, story behind it.
The story begins back in 1930, when
cowboying was a lot different than it is now.
Most of the ranchers who summered cattle on the Forest's Warm Springs
grazing allotment in the West Fork / Lost Valley area lived around Fruitvale.
The Circle C ranch was the one exception, having bought the large McMahan
grazing permit. Most outfits didn't
have a truck to haul horses or cattle, and nobody had a horse trailer. When they had riding to do anywhere on the
Forest, the only way to get there was to get on their horse and endure however
many hours in the saddle that it took to get there.
There wasn't even a road up the West
Fork of the Weiser River beyond the Finn homestead at the mouth of Lost Creek
until the 1950s. There was a crude road
in to the reservoir from Tamarack that was put in when the dam was built in
1909. The present road from Pine Ridge
was built about 1935.
Because of the time and distances
involved in traveling to and from Lost Valley, a "cow camp" was set
up in the meadow, just over the little hill east of Lost Lake where the cowboys
could stay. About all that's left now
is the old log corral. The main
campground was a couple hundred yards north west of it.
That summer of 1930, Dick Fisk (my
father who was 17 at the time), Ike Glenn, Sterling McGinley, Fred Glenn, and
possibly some other cowboys, were camped here when a stranger, an older
gentleman, approached the camp, carrying a pack on his back. He introduced himself as Tom Cleggette. During the course of their conversation,
Cleggette mentioned that he was doing some prospecting in the area, and implied
that he had found a little gold somewhere in that part of the country. After a brief visit, the old fellow hiked
off again. As he left, Ike called after
him to be careful. Cleggette replied
that he had been in the woods all his life, and knew how to take care of
himself. It would be the last time any
of them ever saw Tom Cleggette alive.
The next June (1931) Tommy Clay, who
was riding for the Campbell ranch, and Fitz Mink, riding for the grazing
association, were hunting cattle south east of Lost Lake, just south of where
the present road from Pine Ridge tops out.
As they rode through the trees, something out of place caught there
eyes. Coming closer, they were stunned
to find the badly decomposed body of a man crumpled up against the trunk of a
tree.
Sheriff Bill Winkler, who by this
time was no spring chicken at the age of 65, and County coroner Bob Young came
up from Council to investigate. The
clues they found told a tragic tale.
From a
hunting license in the man's wallet, he was identified as Tom Cleggette, age
71. The rest of the information on the
license, including where he might have come from, had been obliterated by water
stains.
A few hundred yards from the body, a
crude camp was found. It consisted of a
tarp stretched over a ridge pole, with vertical logs forming a wall at one
end. A large pile of fire wood was
stacked nearby. Cleggette had evidently
become snow bound here during the winter.
On the margins of a road map, he had written a sort of diary, little of
which remained readable. The one,
ominous notation that was decipherable was dated January 11. It consisted of the stark statement,
"All is gone." Apparently he
had eaten the last of his food supply.
Another note began, "Tell ...", but the rest of the message
had been washed away.
There was some evidence that
Cleggette had killed and eaten a deer during his ordeal. He had finally fashioned a crude pair of
snow shoes and tried to escape his dire predicament. After a desperate struggle through deep snow, he only made it the
short distance to where his body was later found before giving up. It could have been that he was too weak to
return to camp. Or maybe he decided it was
useless to even try. In his hand was
found a semi-automatic German Luger pistol.
Two shots had been fired. One
had pierced his heart. Winkler and
Young speculated that the second round, which had not entered Cleggette's body,
had been the result of a contraction of his hand as he died.
The men had planned to transport the
body to Council for burial, but it was so decomposed that it wasn't
practical. For the past 63 years, Tom
Cleggette's body has reposed under the spot where it was discovered. No relatives or further clues to his
identity were ever found.
If you enjoy stories like this,
please support our effort to improve the museum. The word "history" is mostly
"s-t-o-r-y". Each item in the
museum has a tale to tell, and we want to tell it. We want to create a fitting place to preserve the incredible
stories of what happened here... for you, and for generations to come. Please consider a contributing whatever you
can.
5-21-94???
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Lately there has been some publicity
concerning the Idaho State Seal, and the woman, Emma Edwards Green, who designed
it. You may not know that Emma Edwards
(her maiden name) also designed a U.S. half dollar, lived in this area for a
time, and taught school at Lick Creek.
Emma's father, a former governor of Missouri, came west to California in
the 1840s, and later to Boise. When
Idaho became a state in 1890, the first legislature authorized a competition
for the design of a state seal. By this
time, Emma had studied art in New York City.
She submitted a design, won the contest and was awarded $100 for her
work. A painting she did of the seal
was exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The Idaho Historical society now has the painting.
Idaho has the distinction of having
the only state seal that was designed by a woman. Emma's name has been missing from the state seal ever since Paul
Evans revised it in 1957. Recently,
Governor Andrus signed a bill to put her name back on the seal, along with
Evans' name.
About
1895, while living in Salubria (near present - day Cambridge), Miss Edwards
submitted a design for a new fifty cent piece.
The woman depicted on her drawing for the coin was patterned after a
local young lady who was an acquaintance of hers. Emma's design was picked by the Treasury out of several hundred
proposed. Of course the coin is no longer
in circulation.
Emma Edwards was friends of Arthur
and Pearl Huntley. The Huntleys were a
couple who had the ranch just south of Cuprum that is now owned by the
Speropolus family. In1896, Emma was
teaching at the Lick Creek school. I
assume that the Lick Creek school was near the OX Ranch headquarters there,
which was the location of a hotel run by Charley Anderson at the time. (If anybody knows for sure where this school
was at, please call me.) This was ten
years before Arthur and Pearl were married in 1904, and Emma was acquainted
with Arthur Huntley at the time. Emma
stayed with the Huntleys for a time after their marriage. Someone with a fertile imagination (not me
of course) might wonder if Arthur and Emma ever courted, and just what the
relationship between the trio was later.
The
summer that Emma taught at the Lick Creek school (1896) was also the year that
Arthur Huntley's friends, the Caswell brothers, discovered gold at Thunder
Mountain. You may be familiar with the
story of how Huntley had grubstaked the Caswells with $50, and consequently
became quite wealthy from this investment.
At some point, Emma Edwards married a miner named James Green, and
lived with him in Boise. Emma Edwards Green died in 1942.
5-17-94…
?5-24-94…?
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The
year of 1862 probably brought more change to what was soon to become the
territory of Idaho than any other. The
previous April, the breaking threads of national tension in the Eastern U.S.
had turned into a rip at Fort Sumter.
By 1862 a giant gaping rent had torn the national fabric apart as the
Civil War swung into its bloody stride.
But people in Idaho were too distracted to exhibit much interest in the
War. It was as if a curtain had opened,
spot lights blazed and trumpets blared.
Thousands of fortune seekers dashed onto the pristine wilderness stage
to begin a frenzied performance.
If
one month of 1862 were to be singled out as the most pivotal, it would be
July. It was that month that Levi Allen
discovered copper in the Seven Devils.
That story has been told enough, including in Heidi Bigler Cole's recent
book, that I won't detail it here.
Also in July of 1862, another rich
gold bearing area was discovered at Warren's Diggings, about 23 miles to the
south east of Florence. At almost the
same time, enormous gold deposits were discovered in the Boise Basin in the
mountains north east of present-day Boise.
Another major event that fateful month was
that Tom Goodale started a wagon trail through the Weiser River territory. Looking for an Oregon Trail shortcut, Goodale took a train of
about 60 wagons from Boise, through the Emmett area, and across the Crane Creek
hills to near present day Cambridge.
Here the party was at a loss as to how to proceed for about two
weeks. Exploring to the north, the
Cuddy and Seven Devils Mountains convinced them it was not wise to continue in
that direction. To the west, they ran
across John Brownlee's ferry, which he had just built across the Snake River
near the mouth of Brownlee Creek..
Brownlee came to the wagon camp and made a deal with the group to ferry
the wagons across the Snake without charge if they, in return, would build a
road to his ferry. This was agreed to, and the road was built. It probably following the well marked Indian
trail that already existed on this route.
While the wagon train was camped in
the Cambridge area, a girl named Martha
Jane Robertson died on August 21. She
was buried near that location. A
monument commemorating this first White grave in this part of Idaho now stands
in front of the Cambridge museum.
Although
it was never adopted as a popular route for west bound wagon trains, Goodale's
cutoff between Boise and eastern Oregon quickly became a major route traveled
by thousands of miners and others coming from Oregon to the Boise Basin gold
strike. This cutoff became known as the "Brownlee Trail".
Instead
of continuing to Oregon, three wagons from Goodale's train split from the party
near Midvale, and headed north for the mines at Florence. The fate of these wagons, and the story of
the eight men who accompanied them, has become a local legend. Their story next week.
Have you written that check yet?
?6-2-94…..?
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Instead of continuing to Oregon,
three wagons from Tom Goodale's train split from the group, near Midvale, and
headed north for the mines at Florence.
Although whites started using a trail up the Payette River that same
year, which went through Long Valley, past Payette Lakes and on to Warren and
Florence, these men either didn't know about this route, or it had not yet been
established. One has to remember that,
at this time, the vast area between Boise and Florence was totally uninhabited
and, except for the earlier fur trappers, virtually unexplored by white
people. These men may have been the
first to attempt to reach Florence from the south instead of via Lewiston. They certainly were the first to attempt
this route with wagons.
The
best known of the men on this expedition was Dunham Wright, a distant cousin of
Abraham Lincoln. Almost 70 years after
this journey, Wright returned to the area to recount his adventures. It was 1929, and Council was holding the
first of several community "Pioneer Picnics". Wright, then 87 years old, was the featured
speaker at the event. The following is
a combination of his oratory to the crowd that day, quoted here from the June
14, 1929 the Adams County Leader, and letters written by Wright. I have made some punctuation changes and added my own comments within brackets
([]).
I was here, in these hills and valleys 67
years ago and was doing everything in my power to find a way out of here,...
It was August 1862 that I passed through
this district, and as we drove up this morning I wanted to see some of the old
sarvice bushes from which we picked sarvice berries on that former trip. Friends, without those sarvice berries, I
would not be with you today.
With seven other men I left the main
emigrant train of 60 wagons at Middle valley and started to go to Florence
where rich placer diggings were reported.
We started with three wagons.
The first day we left one wagon and doubled our ox teams on the other
two. Then we rolled rocks, cut trees,
got down steep mountains by tying trees behind the wagons, and the hill sides
were so steep that it seemed the wagons would tip over endwise. [They went up the Little Weiser River
drainage.] Then we came to more difficulties and finally to what looked like
the jumping off place. [This was at the
head of the Little Weiser, overlooking the steep drop off into Long
Valley.] There we abandoned the other
two wagons and cut up the wood of them to make pack saddles.
One of the men was a carpenter and had some
tools with him. Cinches and other
straps were made from the canvas tops of the wagons. We camped here for about two weeks
We had to
make pack animals out of our cattle and that is a mighty hard thing to do. Cattle won't stand for it. But we put our blankets on them and we had one
pony that we packed with our small quantity of flour and ammunition. Everything in readiness we took a long last
sorrowful look at our old wagons that
we had mutilated, leaving chains, trunks, and all other paraphernalia that
could not well go on oxen's backs.
Finally, when we started with this pack
train, we did not proceed far when the pony rolled down the mountain side and
landed in a small lake at the bottom.
It took two men half a day to get him back, delaying our trip down the
mountain, dark overtaking us long before we were half way down, having to stop
and tie our oxen to trees and so dark we had to feel for the tree, took our
packs off and got into our blankets, etc. the best we could, tired, hungry and
thirsty. I woke next morning almost 15
feet below my blankets.
When we got the pony out and repacked, we
neglected to put on the ammunition, and went away without it. Then we found ourselves in a hostile Indian
section without ammunition. The Indian
signs were to be seen here - figures with arrows sticking in them, and we knew
what that meant. [On peeled trees along the trail, the Indian s had drawn
pictures of men, and an arrow was left sticking in them.] We did not take to
the Indian trail, but traveled after dark among the lodge pole pine - tired,
hungry, chilled, and anything but comfortable. I was then a boy of 20.
We followed down a stream and came to a
valley where there was high grass [Long Valley], and during camp, a yellow
jacket swarm attacked our cattle, causing them to go bucking and bawling in
every direction and scattering our food and bedding to every quarter of the
compass. It was the greatest stampede
the world has ever known for the size of it I think. Eight big steers going bucking, spiking, bawling, tails in the
air, tinware rattling like a chaviri, they turned their packs underneath them
and tramped our bedding and wearing apparel into strings, and tinware into a
cocked hat, the whole thing looked as though it had passed through a terrible
cyclone.] We spent three days getting
things together, salvaging what food we could find through the high grass and
what clothing and quilts we could get that would hold together.
Wright
was almost overwhelmed by the ordeal.
He felt they were hopelessly lost somewhere in the uninhabited vastness
of the Rocky Mountains. The men camped
at Payette Lakes for three weeks, trying to find a way out. They climbed to the top of the highest mountain
they could find in an effort to detect smoke from a friendly camp fire, but saw
none. They almost froze at night;
having nothing but a few blankets to sleep under. And they soon had almost nothing to eat but service berries. He noted that in this strange country, the
familiar stars in the sky were the only things he had ever seen before. His gold fever, which had burned hot until
that point, left him and never returned.
Dunham continues:
Like old Moses leading the children of
Israel out of the wilderness, we had to lead out of that wilderness, but while
he was forty years at it, we were only three weeks. Finally we were obliged to take the Indian trail down the
Salmon. After many difficulties, we saw
in the distance what we thought was a band of elk, but what proved to be
cattle. When we found they were cattle,
we shouted for joy. We had subsisted on
a little piece of bacon each morning and those sarvice berries. We were hungry and exhausted, but salvation
was at hand.
The
young men finally made it to Florence, but they met with the same disappointing
failure to strike it rich as most of the other fortune seekers there did.
A
few years later, early residents of Indian Valley found the wagons left behind
by Wright's party, and were puzzled as to who would have taken them to such a
remote spot, and why. It remained a
mystery for a good many years until Wright's story became known. These early settlers burned what was left of
the wagons to salvage the iron. Iron
was a precious and hard to acquire material in those days, given the distance
to anyplace to buy it. A good
blacksmith could turn almost any piece of iron into a useful item. The location where the deserted wagons was
found became known as "Burnt Wagon Basin". The Forest Service has planted a permanent marker on this spot.
In a glass case at the museum, there
are a few pieces of the wagons, some nails from them, and a photo of Dunham
Wright. Why don't you drop by and see
it, and while you're there, drop some money in the donation jar?
6-9-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
All of the early mining done in the
Seven Devils was "underground" as opposed to open pit. The term "tunnel" is usually used
to indicate a horizontal opening. A
"shaft" refers to a vertical tunnel, and an "inclined
shaft" is a slanting tunnel that slopes at an angle, between vertical and
horizontal.
The old style of underground mining
was similar to modern methods except that there were few machines to do the
work. Except where huge, extremely
expensive boring machines are used,
digging a tunnel still requires drilling and blasting. Instead of pneumatic rock drills, early
miners used a hammer and "star drill". The hammer was usually a single or double jack. The drill was a chisel which was up to
several feet long, and had a star design on the business end instead of a single,
flat tip. One man would hold the chisel
while another would drive it into the rock.
After every blow, the chisel was rotated slightly. After the hole was deep enough, it was
filled with blasting powder. A blasting
cap was placed on the end of a long piece of fuse and then shoved into the
powder. The fuse was lit, everyone
backed off a safe distance.
In a tunnel, after the smoke and
dust had cleared, the loosened ore was shoveled into ore carts. These hand-pushed ore carts had wheels
similar to those on a railroad car, and
ran on a much smaller version of a train track. This track was extended into the mountain as
the tunnel was dug, and led back to the "portal" or opening where the
contents of the ore carts were unloaded.
If the blasted material was not worth keeping, it was dumped off the end
of the tracks onto the "tailings pile".
This cart and track method of
removing ore also applied to moderately inclined shafts, except that a powered
hoist had to be used to bring up the carts.
On vertical shafts, buckets were used instead of carts.
The blasting process was not without
its hazards. Even after dynamite
replaced black powder, it was very touchy if it was too old, or especially if
had been frozen. And fuses sometimes
burned much faster than they were supposed to.
One of the most common types of
accidents was the result of a "missed hole". A typical mishap was reported in 1905, in
the Weiser Signal newspaper. The
account said that Ed Fulp and Fred
Powell were seriously injured at the California Mine in the Seven Devils. A number of charges had been fired, and all
but one exploded. Waiting a sufficient
length of time, the men returned to investigate. As they approached the spot where they had placed the charges,
the remaining one exploded. Both men
were bowled over and showered with sharp pieces of rock. They escaped with their lives, but were
badly cut and bruised.
Another missed hole accident
happened at the Queen mine in 1906.
Bill Carrick and Fred Lincoln were on the night shift. They were digging with picks when Carrick
hit a "missed shot" left by the day shift, exploding the charge. One piece of rock hit Carrick over the
right eye, knocking him down and rendering him unconscious for a short
time. Lincoln was uninjured. Dr. Peacock, the mine foreman, fired the day
shift crew for negligence and carelessness.
What may have been the most
spectacular such stories on local record
involved one of the areas best known pioneers, Charlie Allen. Charlie learned the dangers of mining the
hard way in 1892. He and two partners
had dug a vertical shaft at their Lobo mine in the Seven Devils. It was about 6:00 PM and Charlie wanted to
knock loose an extra big bunch of rock so they would have plenty of work the
next day. The other two men cleared out
before Charlie lit the fuse. After the
fuse was burning, Charlie yelled, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" As he scrambled up the first of a set of
wooden ladders, he was 110 feet underground.
Knowing the undependability of
fuses, Charlie was in a hurry... maybe too much of a hurry. Or maybe he was just tired at the end of a
long, hard day. At the 65 foot level,
he had to change from one ladder to another.
He slipped. In an instant, he
was falling, headfirst, into the blackness below him. About eight feet from the bottom of the shaft, he slammed into a
rock ledge, landing on his side.
Charlie lay there in agony, knowing that he was about to die. If the fall hadn't injured him beyond
recovery, the double charge of giant powder just two feet below him would
certainly snuff out his life like a candle in a hurricane. It would only be a matter of seconds
now. dependability
Charlie's companions waited at the
top of the shaft. They listened in
horror as they heard him slip and fall.
A minute later, the muffled boom of the exploding powder shook the dirt
under their feet. Dust and air rushed
up the shaft in front of them. Feeling
overwhelmed by the tragedy, they descended into the abyss to recover Charlie's
lifeless, mutilated body.
As the two men neared the bottom of
the shaft, they heard something move.
They went closer, and there, in the light of their lantern sat Charlie,
calmly smoking his corncob pipe. He was
scratched, badly bruised and generally a mess, but, miraculously, none of his
injuries were life-threatening.
This account is based on an account
of the events in the Idaho Citizen newspaper of Salubria, Feb 12, 1892 The editor noted that even though the story
was hard to believe, the men swore it happened.
6-16-94
I apologize for missing a week
sometimes in writing the History Corner.
I have the roof off of our house, and have had to to burn the midnight
oil on my remodeling job between rain storms.
This time, I thought I would throw
together a few things about one of the families that helped make this area what
it is today. Part of what peaked my
interest is a grave of a fairly young woman, located under a pine tree just off
the Council Cuprum road.
Forty-two year old Frederick C. Wilkie, his wife Sarah, and their
four sons, (Fred, Arthur, Ralph and Richard) settled on Hornet Creek at
"Dale" (now called "Upper Dale") in 1882. They lived where Mill Creek meets Hornet
Creek, just south of the old Hornet Guard station.
In the spring following their
arrival here, Sarah gave birth to a fifth son, Oscar Craig Wilkie. (He was known by his middle name, Craig.)
Almost exactly a year later, in March of 1884, Sarah died. Her grave is about a quarter of a mile east
the Wilkie homestead, about 100 yards above the road. She was only 33 years old.
Just over a year and a half after Sarah died, in 1885, Frederick
married Fannie Fletcher. A girl and two
more boys were born during their ten and a half year marriage. Frederick and Fannie were divorced in the
spring of 1896. During the time that
Fannie was married to Frederick, she taught school at Upper Dale and at several
locations near Salubria and Midvale.
Frederick Wilkie had been a Major in
the Union army during the Civil war, and was known locally as "Major
Wilkie". He was involved in local
politics, serving as justice of the
peace and county commissioner. He and
his sons are probably best remembered for establishing one of the first
sawmills in the area.
The first sawmill that the
Wilkies used was one Frederick bought in 1885 from A.F. Hitt, the man after
whom Hitt Mountain near Cambridge is named.
Hitt had run an active lumber business with this mill on Hitt Creek some
miles west of Cambridge, until one day in 1884, while working at the mill, he
slipped and fell into the sharp teeth of the saw. One of his feet was caught in the saw in such a way that the heel
was cut off. It was an extremely
painful, debilitating injury that never did heal, forcing him to sell the mill
the next summer.
This sawmill was a "sash"
type mill that had a saw blade that reciprocated up and down. It was outdated even at that time. When Hitt operated the mill, the Indians in
the in the area didn't understand how it moved by itself and were extremely
afraid of it. They would come no where
near it. Former residents of Norway,
however, are said to have had a different reaction to the sash mill. The mill made a peculiar sound that
resembled the rhythm of a Norwegian folk song, and any time a Norwegian came
within hearing distance of a sash mill, it is said they had the irresistible
urge to do a folk dance.
By all indications, the sash mill
was a water powered mill under the ownerships of both Hitt and the
Wilkies. It is thought that when
Wilkies operated the mill, it sat beside the creek in the depression just north
of the Council - Cuprum road, just before the road turns up Mill Creek. It is probable that the creek here was named
"Mill Creek" because of the presence of this early mill. Also, the narrow canyon through which Mill
Creek flows just before reaching Hornet Creek is called Wilkie Canyon.
There were very few sawmills in the
Council Valley vicinity during the early years of settlement, and demand for
lumber constantly increased as more and more people came to the area. By 1891, the Wilkie sawmill was not able to
keep up with the demand for lumber. In
1894, they acquired new mill equipment.
The new set up probably had two circular saws which were aligned so that
one cut the upper part of the log, and the other cut the lower part.
The Wilkies operated mills in various locations in the head of
Hornet Creek and Crooked River. By
1899, they had mills both on Hornet Creek and
the Middle Fork of the Weiser River.
Fred Wilkie Jr. had more scholarly
interests than his sawmilling brothers.
He worked for several newspapers, including the Weiser City Leader, the
Idaho Citizen (at Salubria) and the Idaho Statesman. He later became president of the Northwestern Engineering Co.
After a stint at a paper in Utah, he came back to Hornet Creek in 1900. His
house was just across the creek from the Upper Dale school. This house later belonged to W.R. Shaw (Deb
Shaw's father).
Although he didn't seem to take to
the vocation of sawing boards, he didn't stray far from the family business
after he moved back to the area. He
made his living here as an architect and carpenter. When the old I.O.O.F. hall was built in Council in 1905, Fred
Wilkie drafted the plans for the building.
More on the Wilkies next week.
6-23-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Of
the Wilkie boys, Art and Rich were apparently the most ambitious. The two seemed almost driven to
achieve. Whether it started out as
the grand plan it would become, may never be known, but things began to fall into
place in 1908. About this time, Art
Wilkie built a planing mill at the railroad about a half mile east of the main
Weiser River, about six and a half miles north of Council. Here, the road to the West Fork of the Weiser branched off of the crude wagon
trail that criss-crossed the river on up to Starkey where the trail ended. The mill was probably built on the flat
between the railroad tracks and the lone hill at the present site of Fruitvale.
By the fall of that year (1908), the
operation was in full swing and things were looking good. The P+IN railroad even built a siding at the
mill, probably at the request of the Wilkies.
But it wasn't long until their good fortune took a turn for the
worse. Sparks from the steam engine
that powered the planer mill started a fire which destroyed the mill, the
lumber yard, and even the engine
itself. Undaunted by the major setback,
the Wilkies immediately built another, even bigger mill on the same spot.
It
must have been late 1908 or early1909, when the Wilkies, under the name "
Wilkie Traction and Transportation Company", built a road over the
"Ridge" to the present site of Fruitvale. The plan was to process the lumber from their sawmills here at
their planer, and load it on train cars.
The tracks were closer to their operations at this point than at
Council.
The Wilkies were some of the first
people to use steam powered tractors, then called "traction engines",
in this part of the country. They
almost certainly used them to build this route which became known as "the
traction road". Stationary steam
engines had been in common use for some time in applications such as the Seven
Devils mines. But these mobile engines
were something new, at least in this area.
One of the steam engines in Council's town square is thought to have
belonged to the Wilkies.
Maps
of the area dated 1912, show the Wilkie Traction Road going east across the
hills from the Peck place near Dale. (This is the old Armacost place - the OK
ranch - a mile or so toward town from the old Hornet Guard station.) Traces of it can still be seen here. The road
went across to North Hornet Creek, then continued east, probably up what
is now known as "Traction Gulch",
to the present end of the Ridge Road.
From the head of this gulch, it most probably followed the route of the
present Ridge Road except for a half
mile or so just before it crosses the West Fork of the Weiser. Here, the original road followed the creek
bottom. Sometime around the 1940s, it
was changed to the side hill. Before
this, the original stretch of road here was sometimes a bottomless mud bog in
the spring.
Sometime between 1909 and 1912, homesteaders
on the Ridge built a shorter road connecting the Hornet Creek road to the Wilkie traction road. It started just up from the Lower Dale
school and went north west up what was known as "Warner Gulch", and
connected with the traction road where the road now tees at the cattle
guard. This Warner Gulch road, along
with the traction road that went on to the present site of Fruitvale, became
the county road in 1912, and is now called Ridge Road.
At the time the Wilkie Traction road
was built, about 1908, there were five homesteaders living on Pleasant
Ridge. By 1912, the Ridge had become a
booming homestead area with about 26 families living on scattered dry land
farms across the rocky hills between Hornet Creek and Fruitvale. Using
two traction engines, the Wilkies pulled three or four wagons at a time with
each engine, hauling about 10,000 to 12,000 board-feet of lumber each
trip. By 1912, the Wilkies would ship
about 7 million board feet of lumber from Fruitvale by rail.
In 1909, a post office was
granted to a spot near the Wilkie
planer mill. The general area had
heretofore been referred to as "West Fork". The new post office was officially given the name
"Lincoln". At the same time,
Art Wilkie, along with some other men, formed the Lincoln Lumber Company, with
Art Wilkie as president. A young man
named Andy Carroll became the first Postmaster. Carroll, a friend and sawmill employee of the Wilkies, was also
Secretary and Treasurer of the Lincoln Lumber Company. The post office may have been in the Lincoln
Lumber Company store which records show was managed by Carroll in April of
1910. Andy's father, Joseph Carroll,
who had run stores in Midvale and Council and had run the hotel at Lick
Creek, may have been involved with the
store at this time. Another source says
that the store belonged to Rich Wilkie.
Almost as soon as the name Lincoln was granted by the Postal Department,
the name was changed to "Fruitvale".
After moving to Fruitvale, Rich
Wilkie sold fire insurance, was a notary public, and helped publish a newspaper
called the "Fruitvale Echo".
Art Wilkie, owned and operated the Fruitvale hotel for a time. (Joslin's
house now.) Aside from the family
operations in this area, he was also was involved in logging operations at
Tamarack for a time.
By
1910, things were going so well that the Wilkie brothers found the traction
road inadequate to handle the demands that lumber and freight traffic placed
upon it. They made plans to build a
railroad line between Fruitvale and Crooked River and organized a stock company
to sell shares in the venture. The
planned route was to parallel that of their traction road. For one reason , the rail line was never
built.
More on Fruitvale and the Wilkies
next week.
6-30-94
HISTORY
CORNER
by Dale
Fisk
At
some point, the Wilkie brothers began to form a plan that would make the place
where their new road met the railroad nothing less than the hub of the local
universe. Aside from serving their own
lumber shipping needs, they realized that, with their new route, Lincoln would
be the nearest railroad point to upper Hornet Creek and all of the Seven Devils
mining area. And it was also very near
the hot springs at Starkey, which, since being reached by the railroad, was
becoming a very popular tourist destination.
As county after county was being
created across the West, the competition between towns for the prize of
becoming the county seat was very heated.
Sometimes it even resulted in violence.
When Adams County was carved out of Washington County in 1911, it was a
custom made opportunity for Art and Rich.
The Idaho legislature appointed Council as the temporary county seat,
but a permanent county seat would be determined on the next election, which
would be in November of 1912. If
Fruitvale could become the county seat, it would turn the Wilkie real estate
holdings into gold.
The
Fruitvale Echo newspaper began publication in April of 1912. The publisher was listed as the
"Fruitvale Commercial Club", but public perception seems to have been
that it was published by Rich Wilkie.
And in reality, the paper may have been little more than a vehicle for
his personal ambitions.
The new Fruitvale newspaper was almost immediately a thorn in the
side of its rival, the Council Leader.
For months after the Echo first appeared in print, the Leader editor,
James A. Stinson, patiently ignored the soap box editorials printed in the Echo
as one would the tirades of a younger sibling.
His only comment was the veiled reference when the Echo first began
publication, "It was only an 'Echo' drifted down from the
hills." Finally in September, Stinson reached his breaking point and cut
loose with a scathing front page attack,
responding to a comment the Echo had made on an article in the Leader. In one of the three separate shots at the
Echo, Stinson said, "... the poor thing does the baby act by crying that
we abused it. If you can't stand it why
don't you get a man in your place?"
During
the short life span of the Echo, Rich
Wilkie waged an incessant, unrelenting, almost religious crusade to make
Fruitvale the county seat instead of Council.
Among other virtues, he extoled the central location of Fruitvale in
relation to other communities in the county.
Wilkie spent a great deal of time and energy traveling all over the new
county, especially in the Seven Devils, gathering 506 signatures on a petition
to put Fruitvale on the upcoming ballot as an official candidate for county
seat. When the deadline for filing the
petitions had passed, Wilkie went to court to bar New Meadows and Council from
appearing on the ballot. Represented by
well known attorney Frank Harris of Weiser, Wilkie claimed that Council and New
Meadows didn't gather the number of signatures required by law. Wilkie also contested the names of 73 New
Meadows petition signatures. He must
have gone through them with a fine toothed comb.
The controversy dragged on for
months, but by a few days before the election, Judge E.L. Bryan ruled that the
law didn't outline requirements for inclusion on a ballot in such a case, and
ruled that the towns could indeed appear on the ballot.
At
this time, some Meadows Valley people were still steaming from the fact that
the railroad had been built to New Meadows instead of to the established town
of Meadows. They felt that land
investors at New Meadows had pulled strings in order to make themselves
wealthy. Some thought that Wilkie's
motives in his lawsuit were suspiciously similar, as he and his family had much
to gain from the success of Fruitvale.
When
election day rolled around, the weather was miserable. A blinding storm with a mixture of rain and
snow plagued the area all day. The
weather proved to be an ill omen for the dreams of the Wilkie family. Council won the county seat election by a
land slide, with a total of 919 votes.
To add insult to injury, voters from the Fruitvale precinct gave 76
votes to Council, a number almost equal to the total number of 87 votes that
Fruitvale received from all over the county!
The Seven Devils towns proved to be the most supportive of Fruitvale,
but only by a narrow margin.
When
it became clear that Fruitvale was not going to become what the Wilkie family
had hoped, they seemed to lose interest, and left for greener pastures. Not long after the election, Ralph moved to
Portland. The following spring, Art and
Craig moved their families to Ashton, Idaho.
In the election of 1924, Art, who was still living in Ashton, ran as a
candidate for the Idaho Supreme Court judge.
Evidently he lost in the primary election.
Rich Wilkie soon followed his
brothers to south eastern Idaho, settling in Idaho Falls. He eventually became a lawyer there. He died there of a heart attack, in 1925, at
the age of 49.
A few years ago, some relatives of
the Wilkies were in Council looking for local information on the family. This was before I collected all of this, so
if anyone knows how to reach them, please let me know.
7-7-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
One of Council's best known places
of business in the early days was a store that once stood where the Council
Valley Market 's parking lot is now.
The first merchants associated with the beginnings of this store were
Sam, Harry and Abe Criss and a man named Cohen. Initially, they had no store, but traveled up and down the Weiser
River valleys, selling goods out of a wagon.
Every week, during the mid 1890s, their ad appeared in the Weiser paper:
COHEN
& CRISS
The traveling merchants will sell you
goods and strange to relate they
DON'T WANT ANY CASH!
But prefer to take chickens, eggs,
butter, hogs and such things, allowing the highest market price for everything,
and they come right to your door and get the produce and deliver the
goods. Carry dry goods, notions.
By 1898, Cohen and Criss had stores
Salubria and Council. The one in
Council was built in the fall of that year, about where Shavers is now. It was operated by Sam Criss. Carlos Weed's father, Carl Weed, had been in
business with Sam Criss in one way or another about two years at this
time. Weed had joined up with Criss
right after leaving college in Oregon in 1896, at the age of 22.
In 1900, the Salubria Citizen
newspaper reported an incident here concerning Weed: "News has been received of a prize fight or some other kind
of a scrap at Council between Carl Weed and Chas Irish. Particulars are lacking." And in another place in the same issue: "Chas. Irish has sold his saloon
business in Council and left for new fields since his bout with Carl Weed, in
which he came out second best."
In 1901, Abe Criss was on the train
headed for Weiser. Just as the train
pulled into the depot, he dropped to the floor of the car - dead of a heart
attack. The Council store was soon
bought out by Bernard and Herman Haas and run as the Haas Brothers store.
In January of 1902, the store
burned, along with several other businesses north of the town square (now the
park) in Council. The following
April, the company was reorganized as Haas Bros. & Co. Sam Criss and Carl Weed became partners
with the new owners, and a new store
was built where the parking lot for the Council Valley Market is
now. In 1905, it measured 26 by 100
feet, and had two warehouses, one 30 X 80, the other 30 X 40. The Knights of the Macabees held their
elaborately costumed lodge meetings upstairs.
The store became a center of
activity in Council. It was a common
sight to see large pack trains loading supplies for the Seven Devils
mines. People came from as far as Long
Valley to stock up here.
Sometime during the next five or
so years, Carl Weed became the owner
and / or manager of the store. In 1909,
Tom Doughty ran it as a hardware store.
By 1912, George M. Winkler became partners with Carl Weed, and ran the
store. He sold guns, ammunition and
farm equipment in addition to the usual assortment of hardware.
By 1920, the business had become the
Council Grocery Company. At some time
before this, Jim Winkler had become Carl's partner, but now was being replaced
by Charles Weed, Carl's brother.
Charles had just returned from teaching at a college in China for about 20 years. The store soon became known as the
"Weed & Weed" store. The
partnership lasted until 1928, when Carl bought out his brother.
In 1941, the local paper reported
that due to "ill health",
Carl had sold the store to Sam Cream of the Weiser Grocery Company. If the paper had its facts straight, the new
owner apparently never operated the establishment. Soon after the Second World War started, scrap paper that was
being collected for the war effort by school children was stored in the empty
store building. Finally, in 1943, the
paper reported that Ernest Winkler, who had owned the building for several
years, was tearing it down. So ended a
Council landmark.
It was in 1941 that the present
Council Valley Market building was built just east of the old Weed store. It was originally the Golden Rule Store, and
also housed the Adams County Bank. I'm
not sure exactly when the Golden Rule went out of business, but I remember it,
so it must have been in the late 1950s.
I wouldn't mind hearing from someone who knows when it was, who ran it,
etc. Also, when did the bank move
out? Did it move from there to what is
now the drygoods section of Shaver's?
Was that a different bank?
I have shown my slide show to two
Junior High history classes, the Odd Fellows and the Grange. It's a pretty interesting and educational
presentation, so if your group wants to see it, give me a call. I got an interesting call from former
Council lad, Tim DeHaas, recently. He
gets the Record where he lives in Arizona, enjoys the History Corner and says
that his neighbors down there enjoy reading it too. And I was also able to help Barbara Pittman of Ukiah, CA get some
info on her grandmother, Grace Hutchinson, who taught at the Upper Dale school
in 1912. She sent a donation toward the
museum project. So far we haven't been
overwhelmed with people shoveling money at us, but now that I have a roof on my
house again I'm gonna start trying to rock the boat a little.
7-14-94
HISTORY
CORNER
by Dale
Fisk
Another store that was well known in
Council was the Cool and Donelly feed store.
It stood just east of the current location of Norm's Corner, just south
west of the Ace building. It was a very
long, narrow building, run by Fred Cool and Dale Donelly.
Fred's brother, L.S. Cool, started
the first newspaper in Council about 1901 or so. It was called the Council Journal. The office was on the north west corner of Moser and Main, just
west of the old Winkler and Cox blacksmith shop. (If you've seen my slide show, you've seen both of these.) The Journal didn't stay in publication over
a few years for some reason. It was
replaced in 1908 by the Council Leader, which was the predecessor to the Adams
County Leader.
Fred Cool originally had a store
across the corner of this intersection, on the south east corner of Moser and
Main. Around the turn of the century,
famous sawmill man, Steve Richardson had a store there. By 1908, Cool was operating a feed store at
this location. In 1910, The Washington
County Land and Development Company bought Cool's lot and built the Pomona
Hotel there. Fred then bought the lot
east of The Whiteley Brother's Store
(now Norm's Corner) and built a new store.
In 1912, an ad in the local paper
proclaimed, "Public weighing on a Fairbanks scale by a licensed weigher,
at Cools." also selling "pure
river ice", grain sacks, sack needles and twine. Another mainstay that he sold was coal. About 1914, Cool was joined in the business by Dale Donelly, who
lived on Hornet Creek. The two men
sometimes organized shipments of hogs, cattle or other livestock via the
railroad.
In 1922, Cool retired, selling out
the Donelly. Cool moved to Portland and
ran a hotel there for a number of years.
Donelly continued with the business for some time. According to my father, Dale Donelly was one
of the finest men he ever met. I guess
that's why he named me after him. He died when I was very young - in the 1950s.
Somebody please tell me when Donelly
closed the store, and / or when it was torn down. It was before my time.
There is a photograph in the Idaho Historical Society's file in Boise
of the inside of the store. But we don't have one at the museum
yet. If any one has a picture of the
store, please let me know. For that
matter, you probably know by now that we are trying to collect all the old
pictures we can. The library even has
budgeted some funds for this. If you
have interesting old pictures of people
or places in the area, let me know.
Tony Schwartz loaned me a few great ones recently so I could copy them. My thanks to him on behalf of the community.
Just for general information, it's
easy to copy photographs. About all you
need is a camera with a lens that can focus (like most 35 mm cameras), and a
magnifying lens. I have a set of lenses
that screw onto my camera lens, but before I got them, I just used a magnifying
glass. Most of the time I just use
whatever color film I have in my camera: anything from 100 to 400 ASA. To use color film on black and white photos,
you have to use natural (sun) light. If
you don't, the picture will turn out an amber color. A well lit window sill, but not with direct sun on the photo you
are copying, works great. The hardest
part is holding still enough if you don't use a tripod, and focusing
precisely. I've had pretty good luck
taking hand-held shots at a 30th of a second, but a tripod is best. Give it a try. It's a great way to share old family pictures and make sure those
memories don't get lost.
7-21-94 Missing?
7-28-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The events of human history usually flow
in a gradual progression, punctuated by major events that greatly change the
direction and magnitude of that flow.
One of the major motivators in the European "discovery" and
conquest of America was the almost insane lust for one thing: GOLD. Columbus, and those who followed him,
including the first white people to exploit Idaho, were motivated to a large
extent by the possibility of finding untapped sources of this precious purveyor
of wealth and power. .
It's hard to pinpoint an exact starting
point for the settlement of Idaho by white people, but probably the most
influential domino to fall in the line of events occurred near the Sacramento
River in 1848. James Marshall was
cleaning out the ditch down stream from the water wheel at John Sutter's
sawmill, when an unusual looking rock caught his eye. The moment he picked up
that rock, which turned out to be a gold nugget, it was as if he had set off an
explosion that rocked all of North America, if not the world. Beginning the following year (1849), a
tidal wave of humanity that was almost unprecedented in the history of this
planet surged west in a mad rush to strike it rich. This flood of tens of thousands of gold seekers soon splashed
some of its overflow into the Northwest and Idaho.
In
1852, E.D. Pierce , a "49'er" and trader in California, came up the
Columbia River to the Clearwater River.
He soon suspected that there was gold in the area. During the next 8 years, there were a number
of gold rushes to various areas in the North West, but resistance to any
invasion of whites by the Nez Perce Indians prevented mineral exploration in
the Clearwater and Salmon River areas.
A treaty was made between the United States and the Nez Perce which was
to keep whites out of their
homeland. Pierce however, was
determined to exploit the area, and worked incessantly toward that end.
Wrapped
in a self righteous mantel of "Manifest Destiny", Pierce smuggled
prospecting equipment into Nez Perce territory on the North Fork of the
Clearwater in 1860. He did indeed find
gold, and began to energetically promote the area. Word spread all over the west that a fantastic new gold region
had been located.
Although
it risked starting a war with the Indians, the unscrupulous Pierce invited
prospectors to sneak into the area, and even guided them to the most promising
locations. By May of 1861, nearly 1000
prospectors had invaded the Clearwater region to seek their fortunes, and many
more were hot on their heels. Several
small towns sprang up, including Pierce, Elk City, and Oro Fino. By the end of the summer, the white
population of the area that would become Idaho had gone from almost zero to
over seven thousand souls, all of whom were located in the Clearwater River area.
That same year (1861), gold was discovered just to the south, and the
boom town of Florence was established.
The gold along the Clearwater had been fairly evenly distributed in the
ground, with few if any rich veins. But around Florence, the deposits were
close to the surface and more concentrated.
Here, a man could become fabulously wealthy over night. The result was an even more wild rush of
whites to the area. Faced with such an
overwhelming deluge, the Nez Perce gritted their teeth and bitterly did what
they could to resign themselves to their fate...at least for the time being.
Next week - more gold discoveries,
and the rush of fortune seekers leads toward the settlement of the Council
area.
? 8-4-94
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
One of the most historical spots on
any tour of the Seven Devils mining district would have to be the old townsite
of Helena. It was the first town to be
established in the Seven Devils. Helena
was located several miles north west of the present site of Cuprum, up and over
the steep ridge between Indian Creek and the Snake River, and . It was tucked into in the Deep Creek
drainage, just across Copper creek from the Peacock mine.
Levi Allen discovered copper at what
would become the Peacock mine in 1862, but because of its remoteness and Indian wars, the area wasn't exploited unit the mid
1880s. Mining didn't really get started
there until Albert Kleinschmidt arrived on the scene and poured massive amounts
of money into the mines. Albert had the
famous Kleinschmidt Grade built in 1890.
Most of us think of the Grade as the steep set of switchbacks south west
of Cuprum, but it actually started at the Peacock mine and Helena.
The Weiser paper reported in 1884
that a new town was being laid out in the Seven Devils that was to be called
"Copperville." This may have
been the beginnings of Helena, but there is some information that a tent town
by that name, or by the name "Copper Town" existed at the South
Peacock mine, just to the south west of the main Peacock mine, prior to the
birth of Helena.
Again in 1887, the paper said that a
new town was being established as "Anna Bristow". Most historians have said that this was
Helena before a name change. But, three
years later (1890) the Weiser paper again reported that "a new town"
called Helena was being started. This time, a post office and about twenty
buildings were under construction. Town
lots measuring 25 X 100 feet were selling for $50 to $150. When you consider that wages at that time
were around a dollar a day, an equivalent price in todays dollars at even $5
and hour ($40 per day), would be $2,000 to $6,000 per lot. That's $32,000 to $96,000 per acre!
Moses Fuchs, a Salubria business man
turned miner, was apparently the main owner of
the Helena townsite, eventually holding title to 202 of the 237
lots. He became the first postmaster,
running the post office in a store he had built. I have no idea as to the significance of these names and dates
as yet, but Fuchs filed two plats of the townsite with the County. The first, in 1897, was filed as the town of
"Seven Devils" and designated as "The world's Greatest Copper
Camp. Terminus - Weiser and Idaho Northern Ry [Railway]". He filed an identical map in 1907 as the
"Helena Townsite". The
townsite was about 1500 feet long, north and south, and about 600 feet
wide. The two streets running north and
south were labeled "Center" and "Main". The two avenues crossing them were called
"Copper" and "Peacock".
It
is said that Helena was named after first girl born there: Helena Smith. But it is much more likely that the town was
named for other reasons. Helena,
Montana was THE copper town in the U.S., and it was common practice to name a
fledgling town after a successful one in order to be associated with it. In addition, both Albert Kleinschmidt and
Levi Allen were from Helena, Montana.
According to one source, Helena once
had three mercantile stores, six saloons, one brewery, two assay offices, two
saw mills, and was served by two small dairies. The town was very active during the mining boom, but, like all
human endeavors in that district, it eventually faded away. By 1919, there were about 25 deserted log
cabins remaining at Helena. Some of
them had fallen in, others were roofless, and only one or two were habitable.
In the late 1920s, the townsite was
taken by Adams County for back taxes, and sold at auction. The entire site was bought by Jake Wallace
of New Meadows for only $15. A few weeks
afterwards, this humorous letter appeared in the Adams County Leader:
Mr. E.D. Wallace, President
General Manager and Selling
Agent of Helena Townsite
Main Office, New Meadows, Idaho
Dear Mr. Wallace:
Having learned of your recent
acquisition of the townsite of "Helena," Idaho, I hasten to write you
to ask you if you have a good corner lot which you will sell me for a
nickel. Must be clear of incumberences
with deed and abstract brought down to date.
Would prefer a location near the depot and post office and preferably on
the street car line.
Yours Very Truly,
H.R. Ackley
In 1988, a camper on the Snake River near
Eagle Bar thought he was being environmentally conscientious by burning his
toilet paper after using nature's outdoor facilities. The result was a raging forest fire that destroyed over 15,000
acres . The last two or three remaining
structures at Helena that had stood for almost 100 years were burned as the
fire swept through the old town site.
By the fall of 1991, erosion and salvage logging had virtually wiped out
any sign of the town except for piles of tin cans. The cans seem to have been simply thrown out the door when empty,
and many of the buildings had a trash pile next to it. Today, it's even hard to find the cans.
This week, Ethel Gossard has made a
donation in memory of her late husband Mac Gossard. Thank you Ethel.
This column is written
to promote support for the Council museum.
The current balance in our account is about $1,790... we need at least
$10,000 to start our much needed museum addition project. Please help. Donations made as memorials will be acknowledged in this column,
along with he name of the person in who's honor the contribution was made. Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252,
Council, ID 83612. Make your check out
to the Winkler Museum.
8-11-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The main body of copper ore that was
mined in the Seven Devils lays in one huge underground formation. It starts at Lockwood Saddle, and slants
downward like a giant subterranean wall, running north east all the way to
Landore. Along its path, the Alaska,
Queen, Blue Jacket, Helena, Arkansaw and Decorah mines tapped into it. All of these mines, except the last two
mentioned were located in the Garnet Creek drainage.
As early as 1885, which was at the
very beginning of the influx of miners to the Devils, a camp was established on
Garnet Creek, just below the Queen mine.
Today, the collapsed opening to this mine sits just above the road that
goes through Garnet Creek, connecting Lockwood Saddle and the main Cuprum -
Landore road. A huge, old metal ore bin
has stood beside the tailings pile, right beside the road, for years.
The camp on Garnet Creek was
initially known as "Garnet", and had hopes of become a town. I don't think it ever quite made that
status, but it is mentioned by that name as the town a few times in newspapers
of that day. It has also been called
the "Blue Jacket Camp", I suppose because the office for that mine
was built there in 1899. The two story
log office building is still standing at the site of the old camp, about 100
yards down the creek (along the old road that runs straight down the canyon)
from the main road and the Queen mine.
In old photos, which by the way are in the album at the library, there
was hardly any brush here. Now, the
place is choked with it to the point that it's hard to see what's left of the
dozen or so cabins that once stood along the creek. The walls of the old cook house are still there and easy to see,
just across the creek from the mine office.
The old cook house was the scene of
an odd but tragic event in February of 1901.
A young man named John Shroeder had been cooking at the camp since the
previous July. One evening after he put
supper on tables, John stepped out the back door to get more wood for the
stove. About an hour passed before,
Blue Jacket mine manager, Stuart French, and his brother William, realized that
John had not come back inside. The two
men went to investigate. As they
stepped outside, they saw two hands protruding from under a large pile of
snow. It was John. Apparently, a deep load of snow had
accumulated on top of the uncovered pile of fire wood. Instead of disturbing the snow by taking
wood from the top of the pile, John had been undermining it for some time by
removing wood from lower down. His luck
ran out when he pulled out one piece too many, and the whole thing collapsed on
top of him, killing him.
Another
death took place in one of the cabins at Garnet, or very nearby. Heidi Bigler Cole mentions the story of his
death in A Wild Cowboy. I've dug up a
few more details.
Albert
Kleinschmidt's sons stayed in the mining district for many years after Albert
sold out and left the area. Two of the
"boys", Harrison and Franz, had been living together near the Blue
Jacket mine, but at some point a disagreement occurred, and Franz moved into
Cuprum. Harrison spent the winter of
1937 -38 alone in the cabin with his dog.
Toward the end of March, he felt something very wrong in his chest. He sat down at his table and started to
write a note stating that he had suffered a heart attack and needed help. Just how the note was to get to anyone is
unknown. Maybe he planned to tie it to
the dog and send him for help. As he
wrote the note, Harrison fell off his chair onto the floor.
A
week later, John Darland, Cuprum postmaster and proprietor of the Cuprum Hotel,
became concerned that he had not heard from Harrison in about two weeks. Darland headed for the cabin, finding nine
feet of snow in the area when he arrived.
When he entered the cabin, Darland found Kleinschmidt dead where he had
fallen. The unfinished note was lying
on the table, and the pen he had used to write it was still clasped in his
hand.
Evidently
temperatures had been above freezing and Kleinschmidt's body had badly
decomposed in the eight days since his death.
In her book, Heidi said that Harrison's dog had eaten part of the dead
man. I have heard this disputed, but Bert
Warner says it's true.
Darland
went back to Cuprum and phoned sheriff Ed Wade and coroner Joe Ivie. Along with Alex Shaw, they took Dr.
Thurston's "snowmobile" as far as Bear. The snowmobile was a model A Ford with skis instead of tires on
the front. There was one other like it
in the area, operated by Gene Perkins to deliver mail between Council and
Cuprum.
The
snowmobile couldn't make it any farther than Bear, so the men rode horseback to
Cuprum. From there, they had to take
skis the remaining six miles to the cabin.
Kleinschmidt's decomposed body was wrapped in blankets and strapped to a
pair of skis for the arduous journey back to Cuprum.
Harrison had a wife somewhere, and a
son who lived in Seattle, but due to the condition of his body, he was buried
immediately in the Cuprum Cemetery. His
photograph was integrated into the tombstone, and is still plainly
visible. The Cuprum cemetery is located
short distance this side of Cuprum. A
small dirt road leads north west from the main road it. Many of the grave markers have deteriorated
or been destroyed, so the location and identity of all who are buried here is
hard to determine.
The Council - Seven Devils tour is
still in the works. It's just a matter
of waiting for a time when there will be less dust and the fire danger. In the mean time, I will be presenting my
slide show on Friday night, Sept. 23 at the Library meeting room at 8:00
PM. I'll take you on a stroll up the
main street of Council around the turn of the century, and tell you some things
you've never heard before about why Council is the way it is today. The informal admission price will be a
donation of whatever size you see fit.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,750... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with he name of the person
in who's honor the contribution was made.
Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
8-18-94?
History
Corner
It's going to be interesting to see
just when we can schedule this tour that I keep talking about. It would be nice if it would cool down and
rain before we invade that area.
One of the historical ranches along
our tour will be the Gossard place on Hornet Creek. William and Dora Black and their two sons settled on this ranch
in1889.
A year after they arrived, the
Blacks traded a milk cow to a nursery man in Boise for young fruit trees. They added to their orchards as they were
able, and it soon became the first, and largest, commercial orchard in
Washington County. At its peak, the
Black place had about 1500 fruit trees, and a half acre of strawberries.
Dora Black told of an incident they had with Indians in the early days:
"The Nez Perce Indians came on their
annual trip to Weiser and camped near our house. We had a house full of friends from Weiser the same Sunday. In the evening we were singing and dancing
to the music of violin and guitar, raising lots of noise, when an Indian
messenger came asking us to keep quiet. It was Sunday and the hour for their prayer
services. We were quite ashamed and
kept still."
In
1892, there was an outbreak of diphtheria that killed 9 people in the Council
area. Both of the Black's only
children, sons died from the disease that December. Harry was two years old.
Ralph was only two and a half.
The nearest doctor was Dr. Wm. Brown, 35 miles away in Salubria, and the
medicine he sent arrived too late to save them.
The
graves of these little boys are visible from the both roads that go by the
place today. They were buried under a
pine tree on the hillside, north west of the ranch buildings. In those days it was believed that burial at
night would help prevent the spread of the disease, so many diphtheria victims
were buried after dark. This may well
have been how these little boys here were buried. If so, what an eerie, heart-breaking ceremony it must have
been. The vast blackness outside the
small circle of lantern light under this tree must have made it seem to Mr. and
Mrs. Black that they were escorting their precious sons even farther than usual
on their journey into eternity.
Later, the family wanted to move the
boys bodies to a cemetery near Council, but authorities would not allow it.
Diphtheria is an extremely contagious bacterial disease and it was feared that
disturbing the graves might cause a new epidemic.
Originally an Iowa girl, Dora Black
had taught school in Oregon, and then in Montana where she met and married
William, before coming to Idaho.
Between 1893 and 1895, she taught in almost every school in the Council
area. Getting to and from the Upper
Dale school was no problem, since it was practically next door. When she taught
at the Lower Dale school, then called the "lower Hornet" school, Dora
rode six miles, to and from work, each night and morning. When engaged at the lower Council school
(just north of town) and upper Council school (later called the
"White" school, three miles north of town) she probably boarded with
someone near the schools. Since school
terms only lasted a few months in those days, she would often be employed at
two or more of these schools during the same year. Dora helped mold the childhood minds of such well known local citizens as Matilda Moser, Jose Biggerstaff - White - Allen, and Mary and Albert Robertson.
William Black, better known as
"Billie", would seem to have been a jack of all trades who jumped
from one career to another. His parents
may have started the trend. Originally
from England, they emigrated to Canada where Billie was born, then moved on to
the U.S. when he was 16 years old. He
was about 30 years old when he came to this area.
In 1896, Billie ran unsuccessfully
against Art Wilkie and another man for the office of state representative. Early in 1898, he was caught up in the fever
of the Klondike gold rush, and headed north to strike it rich. Along the way, he came to his senses and
stayed in Washington until July.
No sooner had he arrived home, when
was determined to go back to Washington to make his fortune. The Salubria Citizen reported that Billie
sold his ranch to Benjamin Day, who ran the Inland Hotel in Salubria, for
$4,000, and in turn, the Blacks leased the hotel from Day. Dora later said that they traded the ranch
for the hotel. She said that one reason
they gave up the ranch was that her father had died, and that his death added
to the loss of their sons made her not care to live there anymore.
Dora,
apparently also no stranger to a variety of careers, was already experienced in
the hotel business, and ran the establishment while Billie went off to chase
his dreams in Republic, Washington.
Those dreams were apparently short lived, as he returned within a few
weeks to help run the hotel.
Benjamin B. Day, originally from
Ohio, had been a member of the Washington State Senate in 1886. He lived in Warren before coming to Salubria
at about the same time the Blacks had come to Hornet Creek. Upon acquiring the Black ranch, Day set out
to make it "... a summer resort and general stopping place for weary
travelers ...".
Ever on the move, the next summer
(1899), Billie Black announced his retirement from his brief career as a hotel
magnate, and the Blacks turned the business back to Mrs. Day. By the next spring (1900), the sale of the
ranch to Mr. Day had fallen through, Billie had become part owner of a mine in
the Heath district, had leased the ranch to Al Jewell, and was once again heading north with the
gleam of gold in his eyes. This time he
hitched his star to the gold rush at Nome, Alaska. And this time he actually made it there... but he only stayed a
short time. The following year
(1901) Benjamin Day made another stab at buying Black's Hornet Creek
property. This time the deal
stuck. A year later, Billie and Dora
were back in the hotel business, leasing the Vendome hotel in Weiser. Again, this vocation didn't satisfy Billie's
itch for very long. By 1904, he was
running a cigar store in Weiser. From
here, Billie's trail, at least through the local newspapers, becomes cold. He apparently ran the cigar store for a
longer period than most of his other callings had held him. Billie died in 1931, and Dora continued to
live in Weiser until her death in 1948.
J.R. Sowash bought the place from D.D. Day in 1906 (for $11,000)
and then sold it to August Kampeter the next year. After August died in 1936,
his son, Bill, took over the ranch.
Bill and his wife, April, ran the ranch for many years until they sold
it to Mac and Ethel Gossard in 1971.
I would like to thank Dr. Bruce and
Rachel Gardner for a generous donation to the museum, made in memory of several
people who have left us within the past year or so:
Mac Gossard
Chloe Ludwig
Cleone Fraiser
Dr. Fred Stovner
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,750... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with he name of the person
in who's honor the contribution was made.
Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
8-25-94?
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
On our upcoming tour of the Seven
Devils mining district, we will stop here.
It looks like a thousand other ordinary places in the mountains around
Council. A creek runs through a culvert
under a gentle curve in the dirt road, brush and trees bury the hillsides in
green, and the road continues on without giving the slightest hint of anything
unusual. The only clue that there is
anything special about this location is a few symmetrically piled logs just off
the road: the rotted remains of a
couple of cabins.
Like so many other places we pass by
each day, this nondescript turn in the road once held the hopes and dreams of a
generation that came before us. This
spot was once at the vibrantly beating heart of the Seven Devils mining boom.
It started when E.D. Ford, who later
developed the Black Lake mines, built a cabin along Indian Creek here in the
1890s. In 1898, Thomas G. Jones came
along. He was a flamboyant, wealthy man
who had been in on the discovery of the enormous Homesteak gold strike in
Montana. One story says that he won the
land here in a poker game from Lewis Hall, president of the P&IN
Railroad. At any rate, Jones divided the
land into lots and established a townsite that he dubbed "Landore"
after his home town in Wales.
By the end of that year (1898), the
little burgh had a population of some 20 legal voters. In 1900, a road was built from Landore to
Bear that made for a shorter trip from the mines to Council. It would also be less steep and muddy than
the old route via Cuprum and the Huntley grade. When the road was being planned, it was said that in good weather
the new road would save two days every trip for loaded teams, and during the
muddy season, teams loaded for that section might make the trip in from three
to four days less time. The shorter
route caused Landore to replace Cuprum as the dominant town in the mining district. A number Cuprum and Decorah businesses moved
to Landore as a result.
Landore grew rapidly, and by 1901,
had a newspaper, a post office, several stores and hotels, and the luxury of
long distance telephone service. Just
about all of these were located along the one main street which is now the
curve in the road that I described at the start.
The
next year (1902) was a bad one in the Devils, and the area was very
economically depressed as mining came to a standstill. The newspaper, the "Seven Devils
Standard", which had only recently relocated there from Cuprum, packed up
and moved to Meadows. Here, its name
was changed to the "Meadows Eagle".
One of the Standard / Eagle editors, Ben Edlin, later became editor of
the Weiser Signal for a number of years.
Things picked up in Landore and in
the Devils is general in 1904 when construction began on a copper smelter at
Landore. T. G. Jones gave the Ladd
Metals Co. five acres to built it on.
Charley Allen set to work to supply 300,000 ft of lumber for the project
from his Landore sawmill, and the company advertised for 5,000 cords of wood to
fire the smelter.
In one month, from June to July, the
population of Landore went from eight souls to nearly 200 residents. The result was a "tent town
addition". The school also grew
from 2 students to 16. Between July and
September, over 800 loaded freight wagons had arrived in Landore with supplies,
machinery, etc. Every mining company
poured tens of thousands of dollars into new machinery and general
expansion. Things had never looked
brighter in the Seven Devils.
The size of the town of Landore is
an interesting topic. Winifred Lindsay,
who grew up in Cuprum and Landore, said she remembers it having a peak
population of one thousand and three. I
have serious doubts as to the validity of that figure, but I suppose it's
possible that this number was reached for a very short time. Lindsay said the
population was very transitory, and shrank and grew radically from season to
season. It was said that between 5,000
and 6,000 people once lived within a 7 mile radius of Landore during the mining
boom.
The new wood-fired smelter at
Landore was said to have used an unusual process. The Weiser Signal
reported, "The heat is supplied
from a gas flame... from the carbon of wet rotten white fir wood mixed with
oxygen and hydrogen at the proper moment." This "water gas" was said to have burned with a white
glow similar to that of an electric light and was free from soot. I have no idea how much truth there is to
all this, but the paper seemed very serious about it, mentioning it in several
issues.
But by winter, it was clear that the
process was not working as well as the company let on. In December, the company ordered 1,000 tons
of coke to replace the wood as fuel. (Coke
is partially burned coal - the coal equivalent to wood charcoal, but it burns
hotter.) This seemed to work for
awhile, and the smelter processed 60 tons of ore each day from mines all over
the district. At least one pure copper
"matte" was freighted from the Landore smelter to Council. The bar(s) measured 24" long by
10"X12" and weighed about 400 pounds.
Problems continued, and the smelter
was rebuilt with a "reverberatory" furnace made of brick. (A reverberatory furnace radiates heat from
the roof onto the ore.) As always, the
company said the new process was a tremendous success. But by fall, it was announced, "On
account of being unable to procure the necessary fluxing material and proper
fuel, without enormous extra expense to the company in the way of
transportation, the Ladd Metals Company smelter at Landore has suspended
operations indefinitely, but it is earnestly hoped they may be able to resume
early next year." It never resumed
operation, and the doom of the Seven Devils mining district was sealed.
Landore continued to struggle
through the ups and downs of the mining cycles, but never could relive its
short-lived glory days. In 1916, half
the town burned down when the postmaster went to sleep with a candle burning
beside his bed. Finally, by 1920 the
town was virtually deserted, and the post office was closed.
In 1941, fire lookouts reported
dense smoke coming from Indian Creek, and they sounded the alarm. It was soon learned, however, that it was
only someone burning the old smelter at Landore to salvage scrap iron for the
war effort. At the time, there was a
big pile of rotting firewood still stacked in the smelter from its wood-fired
days - approximately 8 to 18 cords.
For years, the brick smelter chimney
stood just a short way off the road, and served as kind of a landmark. I have heard that it fell down fairly
recently, but I'm not sure. The old
mine office and one or two other log structures are very far gone, and will
probably not even be visible for much longer.
If you are interested, I have
carefully drawn out a diagram with the locations and names of most of the
buildings that once stood in Landore, based on a drawing by Anna Adams and on
old photos. These photos and the
diagram are in the photo album at the library. If you haven't seen this album, or haven't seen it is a long
time, I have added over a hundred photos to it in the last year or so.
_____________________
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,700... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with he name of the person
in who's honor the contribution was made.
Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler
Museum.
??????
10-5-94????
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Two small streams enter Hornet
Creek, about nine miles out of Council.
The first is Hanson Creek. It
was named after the Rasmus and Anna Hanson family who came to live here about
1883. When they came to the U.S. from
Denmark in 1881 with their infant son, Soren, they spoke no English. The Danish spelling of their name was
"Hansen", but the immigration officials misspelled it "Hanson"
on their papers, so rather than fight bureaucracy, the family retained that
spelling from then on.
The
Hansons came West with a group of Mormons, and spent two years living at Logan,
Utah before coming to Idaho. The
tongue-in-cheek story among the family was that Anna insisted on the move to
Idaho because she didn't want Rasmus to adopt the Mormon practice of taking a
second wife.
Indians
used to come through Hornet Creek twice a year in those early days, traveling
up the creek in the spring, and then back down in the fall. One fall in the 1890s, as the Indians came
through, they took the Hanson's little blond-haired daughter, Anna, with
them. It took Rasmus two days to figure
out what had happened to her, catch up
with the Indians and take her back. The
Indians gave him the excuse that she had wanted to come with them. This type of casual abduction by the Indians was not an altogether unusual
occurrence in those days.
During
the mining boom, the Hanson family made extra money by selling vegetables to
miners in the Seven Devils. When their
son, Bill, started school, Mrs. Hanson taught herself to read and speak English
as Bill was learning to read. (You may
know Bill Hanson's daughter, Mattie Thomas.)
In 1896, Rasmus hired Elisha Stevens
of East Fork and Mr. Sevey of Fruitvale to
build a big barn on his place that is still standing. (Does anybody know Mr. Sevey's first name? The Robertson - Sevey Ditch is 1/2 named
after him.) In later years, the Hanson
place belonged to Sam King, and now belongs to his son, Larry Walling.
In
1902, Soren Hanson of Hanson Creek married a neighbor girl, Dora Lakey, from
the next creek up the valley. The next
creek up was, of course, Lakey Creek.
The
families of John and Lewis Lakey settled along this tributary of Hornet Creek
that came to be named after them in 1881.
In the museum, there is a small pocket watch that was given to Lewis and
Pheby Lakey on their wedding day. ( I'm
not sure if we have it on display right now.)
If I have the story straight, they were married on their way west, near
the Continental Divide. The watch is
said to have started west from Kansas in 1875.
Lewis
and Pheby Lakey, and their nine children, at first lived in a one room, dirt
floor cabin. Even if they would have
had money to buy clothes, there were no stores any closer than Weiser. Phoebe made pants for the boys out of
seamless sacks. Unable to buy shoes,
they often went barefoot, sometimes even in the winter.
Some
of the Lakeys operated a sawmill here, and it has been said that Lewis planted
the first orchard on Hornet Creek.
Pheby Lakey died in 1904 or '05, and Lewis followed in 1911 . They are both buried in the Hornet Creek
cemetery.
One dramatic Lakey family story from the spring of 1894 illustrates the
hazards of the days before good roads.
At the time, there were no bridges on the road up Hornet Creek, and Jake
Lakey, his wife and baby had to cross Hornet creek several times before they
made it home from Council. At one
crossing, the team balked right in the middle of the swift, muddy water. Just as Jake got out to urge the team
forward, the raging torrent tipped the buck board over, throwing Mrs. Lakey and
their baby out into the swift water.
Jake jumped toward them in time to catch the baby, and Mrs. Lakey was
able to save her self by grabbing a hold of Jake's coat. By making a desperate effort, Jake was able
struggle to the shore with his family intact.
Their panicked, wild-eyed horses were swept away to their deaths,
lunging and kicking frantically to escape a broken tangle of buck board and
twisted harness.
A donation came in from Jay Thorp
this week. You may remember that, some time back, I mentioned that Frank
Thompson was looking for Jay. The
History Corner got the two old friends in touch. That was the second time this happened. If any of you are curious about what became of an old
aquaintance, let me know, and I'll mention it in this column. There are people from all over who subscribe
to the Record, and may know how to get in touch with that person.
Also, a very nice donation arrived
from "The Royal Order of the Golden Neckyoke Leatherhood", as a
memorial in memory of Lila Downey, who was a charter member of the
organization. Thank you, on behalf of the
community and those who knew Lila.
The letter along with the check was signed by Harold and Opal
Smith. Harold did some growing up in
the Bear area, and wrote quite an interesting book about mountain man, Jim
Summers. His book is in the Council library.
Thanks also to those others who
contributed this week. Every dollar
helps and is very much appreciated.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,750... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with he name of the person
in who's honor the contribution was made.
Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
Don’t forget my slide show Friday
night at 8:00 ;.m. in the Council Valley Free Library meeting room.
10-13-94!
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The spot with the most concentrated
amount of history along our Oct. 22nd tour route might be the place where the
Wildhorse road branches from the Council - Cuprum road.
Long before the arrival of settlers,
Indians used this general location as a favorite campground.
In
the late 1800's, as many as 400 head of cattle ranged the Seven Devils
area. They were allowed to roam the
mountains with little herding. One of
the cattlemen who had stock here during that time was John McGlinchy. The McGlinchy family trailed cattle from
their ranch near Payette to this area for the summer. They maintained a camp here which included a cabin that stood
just to the north east of the current cattle guard. A pile of stones from the old chimney is still in evidence.
Imagine what an isolated place this must have been in those days before there
was a road anywhere near it. John
McGlinchy owned Zim's hot springs north of New Meadows for a time. He sold it in 1904.
Byron and Nancy Davis bought this
land from McGlinchy in 1890, about the time that the Kleinschmidt grade was
built and mining really got started in the Seven Devils. Byron had been a scout for many emigrant
wagon trains coming west, and later drove freight wagons between Umatilla
Landing and Boise City. Byron's older
brother, Tom Davis, came to Boise City in 1864, and planted the first orchard
and some of the first shade trees. When
he later gave his orchard to the city for a park, he asked that it be named
after his wife. That's how Julia Davis
Park was established.
The Davises built a big, two-story log
house here on a stone foundation.
A daughter that was stillborn is
buried on the bench east of the road junction.
For a while, this location was known as "Old Davis" because it
was the old Davis place.
By
1912, a log school house had been built near the Davis place. It was called the Crooked River school. The school continued through the late 1920s,
but by 1927, the attendance was only 4 students. This lack of students was probably what led to the closure of the
school soon afterwards.
In the fall of 1931, Lee Zink, who
had the mail contract from Council to Cuprum, bought the school building. He moved it a short distance, and converted
it into a half-way stage station for winter use. Otto Russell lived here for a time, tending the horses that were
sometimes used to relay the mail on that part of the stage line. Even though a
truck was used on the mail route by this time, the roads were not well
maintained in winter, and horse drawn sleds often had to be used.
An illustration of just how bad
things could get on the mail route had occurred just two winters before Lee got
the mail route. In the winter of 1929, Zink's predecessor on this route, Frank
George, had set out for Cuprum with his mail truck, but had to abandon it after
shoveling through snow drifts for several hours. He finally borrowed a team and sleigh and continued on. That team became too tired from wading the
deep snow, so he borrowed another one.
With relentless dedication to getting the job done, he wore out five
teams of horses by the time he reached Cuprum at 12 o'clock that night. By the winter of 1932, Zink used two other
men to relay the mail to Cuprum. Zink
took it to Old Davis, Oscar Russell took it to Bear, and Toby Warner carried it
on to Cuprum.
In late 1938, the Boise - Payette
Lumber Co. (later called the Boise Cascade Corp.) sat up a portable sawmill
here. A small community sprang up in
conjunction with the mill, with a cook house, office building, tool shed, gas
and oil house and eight portable houses.
The company originally planned to saw logs here, then haul the rough
lumber to Council. From there, it was
to be shipped by rail to Emmett for finishing. A
small dam, which is still in evidence, was built to form a log pond, but there
wasn't a adequate amount of water to
consistently serve that purpose very well.
The plan was abandoned, and the company decided to build a sawmill at
the present mill site in Council.
Before the portable mill was taken down, the timbers for the framework of the first Boise - Payette
sawmill in Council were sawed here. The Council mill burned down in 1958, and
was replaced by the present mill.
In late 1939, Andy Anderson, a
logging contractor for the Boise - Payette Company, arrived in the area, and
set up his headquarters here. Soon,
another school was started here for the children of his logging crew. Katie Marble was probably the first
teacher. School was conducted in
one half of on of the portable buildings, and the teacher lived in the other
half.
After
only few years, the logging operation moved on, and the community was
dismantled. A number of the houses were
moved to Council and set up west of the railroad tracks. Some of the present houses are remodeled
versions of these previously portable homes.
The big tour is set to begin at 9 AM
on the morning of October 22. Meet in
the Council library parking lot. Find a
friend to share a ride with if you can.
I've discovered that the road will be good enough for most cars. Bring a lunch and your camera. It's going to be a memorable day of seeing
the locations of historic stage stops, mines, homesteads, schools, graves, town
sites, geology, etc. Because we are
raising money for the museum addition, a minimum $5 per person donation is
requested. If you have any questions,
call me. 253-4582
10-20-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Who are you?
Think about how you would answer
that question. Most of us might include
something about where, and how, we were raised. We might mention major events in our lives at certain ages that
made us who we are today. Without knowing how someone grew up, you can never
completely know them.
Without knowing how and why a
community or town grew up, you can never fully know it either.
So why is the town of Council
located where it is? This place was the
intersection of major trails that
connected the areas north and south of here.
One trail went up Hornet Creek to the Seven Devils area. Another went up the main Weiser River
valley, and was used by miners and pack trains to reach Warren. The third leg of the trail connected the
other two branches with all the country to the south. I'm not sure if the trails were created by Indians or whites, but
I would guess they were Indian routes, adopted by whites. Apparently, the intersection of these trails
was right in front (east) of where
Ruben's is now.
I think the trail toward Hornet
Creek angled to the northwest, around the western base of the hill, and then
turned west, crossing the Weiser River about where the bridge is now. Later, Moser Avenue and other streets were
laid out at right angles, and the more direct, original route of the trail in
town was obliterated.
I'm not sure about the trail that
went north, up the main valley. It may
have skirted the south edge of the hill like Illinois Ave. does now, and turned
north around the east edge like Galena does.
I base this on the fact that Galena street was the road leading north
out of town up until about 1920. It
seems like I read somewhere that the area just north of the hill was quite
marshy, and caused problems with the road.
Can anybody confirm this? Call me.
Why was this valley settled when it
was? It is the last valley up the
Weiser River, and is also separated from the lower valleys by the geographic
barriers of the steep, narrow canyons
along the river and the hills on either side.
It also has a smaller amount of farmable land than any of the lower
valleys. That's why it was the last to
be settled, starting for all practical purposes in 1876, eight years behind the
Indian Valley and Cambridge areas.
The Seven Devils played a major role
in the development Council. The mining
activity there furnished employment, and a market for a variety of products,
including locally grown food. But the
thing that really made it possible for a town to blossom here was the railroad.
In those days, the railroad was
almost literally the life-blood of a community. You have probably watched old western movies about how the fate
of communities and individuals hinged on where the railroad was built. This was no Hollywood fantasy. Towns in this area, such as Salubria,
Meadows and Roseberry virtually vanished after the tracks bypassed them. The railroad was the only dependable way to
move people and goods. Without it,
Council would have been nothing but a wide spot in the road, practically cut
off from the rest of the world. The
need to transport ore from the mines of the Seven Devils was the major motivation for building the
railroad into the Council Valley.
This weekend you can see the places
that steered Council toward its destiny.
Like obsolete, discarded
foundation stones of our community, the crumbling mine shafts, rotting cabins
and rusting steam boilers lay scattered through the mountains. If only they could talk ... the stories they
could tell.
Join us Saturday morning at 9 AM in
the Library parking lot. Come along on our tour and hear some of the stories.
Learn about your community and the places that made it what it is today. Bring
your car. Sahre a ride if you can. Bring a picnic lunch, a camera, binoculars,,
etc. The roads are good enough for most cars. We are asking for a donation to…
10-27-94 missing…
11-3-94?
Quick riches from the earth was the
dream of many around the turn of the century.
While the Seven Devils were stirring with excitement in this area, there
were other places that sang the siren's song.
One of those was an extremely remote region of the Yukon Territory on
the Klondike River. The story of the
Klondike gold rush of 1898 is almost
beyond belief, and is much to long to go into here. In short, a journey of incredible hardship
was necessary to make it to the gold region.
Three reckless young men from the Indian Valley - Salubria area, Wylie
Anderson, Erwin Mickey and Jeff Saling, set out for the Klondike in March of
that year.
In
early April, they reached the point in the trail called Chillkoot Pass. At that time of year, it was a steep incline of snow, several
hundred yards long, climbing up to the border between Alaska and Canada. Canadian Mounties were stationed at the top
to enforce the rule that every person had to have enough provisions to survive
the journey to the Klondike. It usually
took more than one exhausting trip to get one's gear and supplies to the top of
the pass. Twenty four hours a day there
was a shoulder-to-shoulder line of men (and a sometimes even a few women)
climbing up the icy steps that were carved into the hill.
One fateful day, there was a
rumbling on the mountain above the trail, and a mass of snow and ice hurtled
down the hill, burying the trail and everyone on it. About 100 people were killed.
One of the victims was Jeff Saling.
His companions, Anderson and Mickey, immediately returned home -
thoroughly disillusioned.
Two years later (1900), there was a
similar gold rush to Nome, Alaska. Gold
nuggets had been found on the beaches there, and it caused imense
excitement. My grandfather, Jim Fisk,
was an experienced metal worker, and earned his passage to Nome on a steamship
as the steamfitter on board the ship.
He said that even before the ship docked, men were jumping over the
sides and dashing up to the beach, expecting to pick up hands full of nuggets.
Meanwhile (1900), in Council, the
long awaited railroad was coming, and
it caused as much excitement and uproar as any gold rush. Several hundred men were in the area,
building the railroad grade. Buildings
were going up right and left. Downtown
Council went from a few stores and a blacksmith shop gathered around a town
square to looking like a real town in a very short time. New people were moving in faster than the
old timers could keep up. As was often
was the case with new railroad towns, part of that influx was an element of
society that Council could have done without.
On a Friday night in January of
1900, the owner of one of the new
hotels in Council gave a dance to celebrate the opening of his
establishment. Dan Moore was
"calling" the dances - deciding whether the next tune would be a
waltz, a shoddish, etc., and calling the movements if it was to be a square
dance. Sam Harphan, undoubtedly
influenced by the liquid refreshment provided for the occasion, became angry
with Moore for calling the wrong kinds of songs. The obnoxious Harphan kept harassing Moore throughout the evening
until, finally, it came to blows.
During their tussle, Harphan pulled
a revolver and leveled it at Moore. The
explosion of the shot rocked the room.
The startled crowd, their ears ringing, turned to see Mrs. Fisher
wincing with pain. The bullet has
missed Moore and hit her. Moore pulled
his own pistol, and shot twice, killing Harphan on the spot. The paper didn't say how seriously Mrs.
Fisher was wounded. Evidently, the law
took no action toward Moore, since it was obviously an act of self defense.
Only five months later (June of
1900), another malcontent caused a similar incident in Council. Charles Bowman had been hanging around the
saloons of Council for two days, imbibing freely in their stock and trade. One of the establishments that Bowman had
patronized was the Headquarters Saloon, owned and operated by George
Bassett. The saloon was said to have
also had a restaurant in connection, and prostitutes upstairs.
Before he was finished with his
holiday on the town, Bowman discovered that he was flat broke. Feeling that the saloon must have taken
advantage of him, he went approached the bartender and demanded a refund. The bartender refused, and Bowman left. A short time later, Bowman returned and
repeated his demand, this time at gunpoint.
The Cambridge Citizen newspaper noted that, "Just at that juncture the bar-tender had business behind
the bar in the region of the floor,..."
About that time, Mr. Bassett
walked in, and Bowman turned the gun on him.
Bassett, evidently prepared for this turn of events, leveled his own
weapon and fired. Bowman was hit in the
stomach, and one arm was shattered at the elbow . Dr. Loder was called to the scene, amputated Bowman's arm and did
what he could for the man, but the wounds were too serious. Bowman died a day or two later. Apparently, the law took a similar view of
this shooting.
Bassett later opened a second
Headquarters saloon in Decorah. It was
the opulent sin palace that Winifred Brown Lindsay remembered seeing when she
was a girl, after the saloon had closed down.
For those of you who went on our tour Saturday, I have figured out that
Decorah really was on the wider flat just around the corner from the sign where
we stopped. Bassett's saloon, from
Lindsay's description, was on the right (east) side of the road, and had a lawn
that extended back to the creek.
The Mining District tour was a big
success. Forty - five people came
along, with 13 vehicles. There were a
couple people from Weiser and Payette, at least three from Cambridge and three
from New Meadows. In spite of dire
predictions of rain and / or snow, it was a beautiful (but a little chilly)
fall day. The icing on the cake was
that the tour raised more money for the museum than I had dared to hope:
$431.00! Thanks go to all of you who
took part in the tour, especially to Kevin Gray and Gayle Dixon for their help
and generosity. Our fund now stands at
about $2413.00 Stay tuned.
11-10-94!
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
This week I'm going to back up to
more or less the beginning, and start a series of articles.
We
are all immigrants here in Idaho, but some of us have been here a few thousand
years longer than others. The first
humans wandered across the Bering Strait land bridge from north east Asia to
North America at the end of the last ice age.
The archaeological evidence is still being collected and evaluated, but
so far seems to indicate that the first
humans arrived in what is now Idaho in the neighborhood of about 14,000 years
ago. One site in Southern Idaho contains
human artifacts dated at 17,000 years ago, but this date is not universally
accepted.
During the first era after human arrival here, it appears that this part
of Idaho was used lightly by people who mostly passed through it. For a long time, the climate for these
early Idahoans was cooler and wetter than it is now. Most of their activities centered on the valleys along the Snake,
Boise and other major rivers. Then,
about 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, the annual precipitation began to decrease and
the temperatures rose. This brought a
climate something like we have today.
Much of southern Idaho became a desert.
Because water was more abundant here in the higher valleys along the
upper Weiser River, they became more populated.
The oldest directly dated native
burial site in western Idaho was discovered
on the DeMoss ranch at the southern end of the Meadows Valley in
1985. I think it was Craig DeMoss who
was digging out a spring with a backhoe (a standard archeological tool for
dedicate work) to get more water to flow, when he started seeing human
remains. The Indian graves there are
estimated to be about 6,000 years old.
By the time the second group of
immigrants arrived on this continent, this time traveling west from Europe, two
general groups of people had established themselves in what is now Idaho. To an extent, the two native groups were
separated by the natural geographic barriers of Hells Canyon, the Seven Devils
mountains and the rugged country along the Salmon River. To the north of these boundaries, was the
"Shahaptian" or "Plateau" culture, which primarily
consisted of the Nez Perce tribe. To
the south, was the Basin culture, composed mostly of the Shoshoni tribe. The west
central edge of Idaho south of the Snake River, and eastern Oregon was home to
the Paiute tribe.
The
Shoshoni, made up of several subgroups, were an offshoot of the Comanche tribe,
and the two tribes had a common language up until sometime between 1700 and
1800. In his journal of a wagon trip
across Idaho in 1853, Henry Allyn spelled out, phonetically, the way that the
Shoshoni pronounced the name of their tribe as "Shaw-shaw-nee".
The Shoshoni as a whole were often
referred to as the "Snake" Indians.
There are several stories as to why they came to be called by this name,
but the most plausible one claims that a hand movement the Shoshoni used in
"saying" their tribal name with sign language was a wiggling motion
reminding one of a snake.
Interestingly, I saw a Western movie on TV recently, involving Comanche
Indians. A Comanche in this movie used
a snake like movement in saying the name of his tribe in sign language. I'd like to know if this was based on
reality. It makes sense, considering
the Comanche's shared linguistic history with the Shoshonis.
The
names given to various Shoshoni subgroups can be confusing because they have
been called different names by different people. Whites often had trouble translating Indian names, and many times
uncaringly came up with a bastardized terms that were "close enough",
or they simply made up their own names for the natives. One of these names for the poorest of the
Shoshoni who managed to survive in the deserts of southern Idaho was
"Diggers". Many of the tribe
names that are used today, including "Nez Perce", are non-native
labels bestowed by whites.
Aside
from the standard name of "the people", used by all tribes in
whatever language they spoke, even the Indians themselves were not consistent,
by white cultural standards, in what they called themselves. Sometimes it depended on where they were and
what they were doing at the time. For
instance, when northern bands of the Shoshoni were in the mountains where they
often hunted mountain sheep, they called themselves "Tukadeka" (Sheep
Eaters).
In general, the Indians in the
northern part of the Shoshoni territory were called "Northern" or
"Mountain" Shoshoni. The
Mountain Shoshoni group most commonly known as the Sheep Eaters were made up of
scattered groups who ranged across the Seven Devils and Salmon River
areas. They survived by constantly
moving from one place to another in small family groups, over a large
territory. During the summer, they
roamed the headwaters of the Weiser, Payette, Boise, and Salmon Rivers, and
wintered in lower elevations such as along the main Salmon and Snake
Rivers. Big Bar, in the upper Hells
Canyon, was a favorite wintering spot.
When Charlie Warner farmed at the mouth of Kinney Creek along the Snake
River in the early days, he found old sun-bleached mountain goat and mountain
sheep horns that Indians had left hanging in the brush there.
The
Indians who spent a great deal of time in the general Weiser River drainage,
were sometimes called the Weiser Shoshoni or "Weisers" by
whites. They were not necessarily a
completely separate group from the Sheep Eaters, and in some old accounts are
referred to as such. The Weisers
traveled in small family groups during the summer, but often had a common
winter camp at Indian Valley, or near the mouth of Crane Creek.
To
some extent the Shoshoni shared the northern and western edges of their
territory with the Nez Perce and the Paiute tribes. On the north, the Nez Perce sometimes hunted and fished in the
Seven Devils, Hells Canyon, and the upper reaches of the Weiser and Little
Salmon Rivers. As a result of contact
with the Nez Perce, the Weisers adopted some elements of the Nez Perce
life-style, such as heavy dependence on Salmon and Steelhead as a food source. The interaction was generally, but not
always, cordial. Over the centuries
there were times when the Shoshoni and Nez Perce fought each other.
Relations
between the Shoshoni and their Paiute neighbors to the west was also generally
friendly. The Paiutes that often lived
with the buffalo hunting Shoshonis of Idaho and Wyoming became known as
"Bannocks".
I would like to thank Helen
Robertson of Payette for a nice donation made in the memory of her late
husband, Fred Robertson. Fred passed
away 20 years ago at the Robertson's cabin at Cuprum.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2,490... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the
person in who's honor the contribution was made. Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID
83612. Make your check out to the
Winkler Museum.
11-17-94
History
Corner
As with most native Americans, the
life-style of the Mountain Shoshoni can be divided into at least two eras:
before the horse, and after the horse.
Before the Weiser Indians acquired the horse (probably around 1750),
they were a quite different people from the classic romanticized image we have
of the "noble red man". In
the summer, they lived in woven grass mat lodges, or temporary shelters made by
placing deer hides or other skins over a frame of willow branches. Their style
of dress was simple and plain. It's
hard to imagine Indians without fancy beadwork, but before Europeans introduced
trade beads to Native Americans, the Weisers used porcupine quills, what sea
shells they could acquire through trade, and other natural materials to
decorate themselves.
Another item that has become
synonymous with Native Americans is the bow and arrow. But it was not until only about 1,000 years
ago that they acquired this weapon. Until that time, the atalatal was the only
means they had of throwing a projectile.
The projectile was dart that was a little like a cross between an arrow
and a light spear. Most of the so
called "arrow heads" that we find today were actually points used on
atalatal darts. Arrow points were
generally smaller, and are sometimes misnamed "bird points" by people
who find them today. After they
acquired the bow and arrow, Shoshoni bows made of wood and laminated with
mountain sheep horn were highly prized among Indians all over the West.
The source for much of the obsidian
that the Shoshoni used for projectile points came from Timber Butte, north east
of Emmett. When highway 95 was rerouted
down the north side of Mesa Hill in the 1970s, a locally used Indian quarry for
stone tool materials uncovered when the cut was made though the small hill just
south of the Middle Fork bridge.
Before
the horse, the Shoshoni eked out a subsistence by hunting primarily small game,
and making optimum use of well over 100 species of plants. They sometimes used poison tipped arrows,
had snow shoes, and used dogs for hunting and as pack animals.
Winter was always a challenge to
their survival. One of the first, life
saving foods that could be harvested when spring arrived was the root of the
arrow leaf balsam root, sometimes locally known as sunflowers. The first run of Salmon was also a vital,
early-season food source. The Weiser
River was a major salmon spawning stream, with several species running up the
river at different times over the summer.
The Shoshoni would gather at various locations along the Weiser to
harvest the fish, generally catching them in nets. Two other staples of the Weiser Indian's diet was dried
chokecherries and service berries. They
returned to this area to pick these berries up until the early 1900s.
In
the mid 1700s, the Shoshonis acquired horses, most probably from their Comanche
cousins to the south. The Nez Perce
acquired their first horses from the Shoshonis. Although some have claimed the Nez Perce acquired horses from
plains tribes, this seems improbable.
The Shoshoni were more closely tied to the Nez Perce, both socially and
geographically. Plus, there is a Nez Perce story of how they got their first
horses from the Shoshoni and took them back over a trail through the Seven
Devils.
After
the Shoshonis got horses, they were able to travel much farther, hunt big game
animals more often, and meet socially in larger groups. For the Weiser Indians the horse brought
more frequent contact with the Nez Perce, plus new contacts and trade with more
distant tribes. As many other tribes
had, the Shoshoni adopted many of the elements of Plains Indian life-style
including living in hide tipis, wearing more stylish clothing such as feathered
headdresses and war decorations, and practicing certain dances of Plains
origins. In general, between the coming
of the horse, and the arrival of the white man, they enjoyed a period of
greater prosperity than they had ever known.
The
more conservative, isolated Sheep Eater groups who lived farther back in the
mountains, did not adopt many of the new ways.
Because of the harsh terrain, they didn't even make much use of the
horse. Although they spoke the same
language as other Shoshonis, they retained an older, slower style of
speech. The other Shoshoni groups
thought of these Sheep Eaters as being quite backwards. Max Pavesic, the archeology professor at
BSU, says the Shoshoni felt toward these Sheep Easters a little like we would
feel about ignorant hillbillies.
Stay tuned.
11-24-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The first white people to enter Idaho were
those of the Lewis and Clark expedition on their way west in 1805. On their return journey from the coast in
1806, a party was sent to the Salmon River from their camp near Kamiah to gather
fish. The party did not go far toward
the Seven Devils beyond the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers, but
mentioned that both rivers appeared "to enter a high and mountainous
country".
Lewis and Clark asked some of their Indian
guides to draw a map for them, showing the principle rivers of the region. When the Indians obliged, their drawing
showed a great river flowing across Southern Idaho and swinging north to near
where the expedition was camped. Lewis
and Clark called this body of water "Lewis's River", but it later
became known as the "Snake River" because of the dominance of the
"Snake" Indians along its course in southern Idaho. In making their own map of the North West to
take back to President Jefferson, Lewis and Clark drew in other rivers, based
on native descriptions, and named the various rivers after members of their
party. The Weiser River was named after
Peter Weiser (or
"Wiser",
as Lewis spelled it). There was some
confusion later as to the origin of the name when a well known trapper named
Jack Weiser became one of the first white men to trap in the Weiser River
area.
The first whites to venture close to
Council came west with an expedition sent by John Jacob Astor. Astor expanded his fur company interests to
the north west coast in the spring of 1811 by establishing fort Astoria near
the mouth of the Columbia River. Aside
from the limited exploration of Lewis and Clark, the area inland from there was
unknown territory to whites. Astor knew
that the Columbia was somewhat navigable, and if he could find a route from the
head waters of the Missouri River to the Columbia he would be several jumps
ahead of everyone else in exploiting the new territory.
The same year (1811), Astor hired Wilson
Price Hunt, to locate such a route.
After reaching the Henry's Fork of the Snake River in October, Hunts
expedition made dugout canoes from cottonwood trees, and proceeded in these
crude boats down the river. By the time
the Hunt expedition reached a spot near the present site of the town of Burley,
they were thoroughly defeated by the river.
They found they could no longer ride out the rapids, and often could not
climb out of the canyon to go around them.
The party, which consisted of 65 people, including a seven months
pregnant Indian woman and her two children (ages 2 and 4), had lost much of
their gear, and was virtually without food.
The party split into five groups.
Three main groups continued north and west, each trying a different
route.
The group led by Hunt cut north to near
present day Boise, then on to where the town of Weiser would later be
established. From there, they proceeded up the Weiser River, then up Mann Creek
to its head, and back to the Snake. As
they continued down the river toward Hells Canyon, on the 6th of December,
Hunt's party rejoined one of the other groups from the original
expedition. Here, Hunt was informed
that the mountains on the west side of Hells Canyon seemed impassible, but that
the remaining party under Donald McKenzie had continued north on the east side
of the river. All three divisions of
the expedition had seen no game, and was on the brink of starvation.
It seems strange that the Hunt expedition
saw no deer along the Snake River as they approached the Hells Canyon area in
that December and January. That area
now has been the wintering ground of great herds of deer for many decades.
Hunt decided to try a route north through
the Weiser River valleys to reach the Columbia River. This route made sense, even with our present knowledge of Idaho
geography. These valleys are the least
mountainous way to reach the Salmon River drainage from southern Idaho. This may well have been why the Weiser River
was so familiar to the Nez Perce that Lewis and Clark encountered. However, the Shoshoni that Hunt encountered
along the Weiser convinced him that the snow was too deep in this
direction.
Hunt then tried to get a Indians to
guide him over an alternate route toward the west. These natives must have thought Hunt was out of his mind to be
trying such a journey in the dead of winter, and they wanted no part of
it. After much arm twisting, and
several gifts, Hunt was able to convince one of the Shoshoni men to guide his
party over the Blue Mountains and on to the Columbia. The route they followed, with slight changes, later became a
portion of the Oregon Trail.
One has to wonder why the snow would have
been too deep to the north of the Weiser River drainage. The highest point, between the Weiser and
Salmon Rivers by modern road is between Price Valley and New Meadows, and is
not significantly higher in elevation than Council. From there, a trip down the Little and main Salmon Rivers would
have been hampered by relatively little snow.
If the main trail used by natives to reach areas to the north was a route
resembling the Boise - Lewiston Trail route through the Seven Devils, then it
would indeed have been impossible to have made such a journey in winter.
12-1-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Donald
McKenzie led the group from Wilson Price Hunt's expedition that had forged
on north along the east side of the
Snake River. McKenzie was a rugged
Scotsman from Canada. Weighing over 300
pounds, this red-headed giant had tremendous physical strength and endurance,
and was so energetic that he earned the nick name "Perpetual
Motion". He was very experienced
in the fur business, and had a natural ability to lead men. McKenzie was later to become governor of the
Territory of Manitoba, Canada.
McKenzie's
party of ten men had no horses or food.
As they struggled along the snowless breaks of the Snake River, they
took a route high up on the ridge tops.
Although they could often see the river far below them, they suffered
terribly from thirst. Try as they
might, they could find no game to shoot.
Desperate for food, the men dug out an old beaver hide from one of the
packs, and ate it.
Finally,
probably near the Seven Devils Mountains, the weakened and exhausted group was
caught in a snow storm. Their situation
seemed utterly hopeless. Finding a
sheltered place, they sat down and tried to resign themselves to certain
death. It was then that one of the men
looked out through the swirling blizzard, and beheld a sight that must have
made him think he was hallucinating.
There, not far up the hill, was a bighorn sheep! The animal was humped up under a rocky
overhang, seeking shelter from the storm just as they were. It must have taken almost all the strength
the man had left to make his way to a spot where he could get a shot at the
sheep. He managed to drop the animal
where it stood, which was fortunate.
Had the sheep been able to run any distance in that steep country, the
men may well have been too weak to follow it.
It's
hard to imagine the elation these men must have felt. Their lives were
saved. No one knows just where this
fortuitous event occurred; it would be interesting to know the spot. Not doubt the men of the McKenzie party
would have thought it appropriate to erect a monument on this location.
After
a difficult journey that totaled 21 days, the McKenzie group reached the
confluence of the Salmon and Snake Rivers.
Historians have speculated the course taken by these men, and to make a
long story short, nobody really knows.
They probably followed what would become known as the Boise-Lewiston
Trail part of the way, but it is doubtful that they traveled through the most
rugged part of the Seven Devils. They
probably cut to the east, and may have traveled through some part of the Rapid
River drainage. They may even have gone
father to the east through Price Valley and hit the Little Salmon before the
main Salmon. At any rate, on the Salmon River they encountered Nez Perce
Indians who took care of them, and helped them continue down the Salmon, and on
to the Snake and Columbia Rivers. They
arrived at Fort Astoria in February, about a month ahead of Hunt.
In
1813, John Reid, a former member of the McKenzie's group from the Hunt
expedition, returned to the mouth of the Boise River to establish a trapping
camp. With him was the Indian woman,
Marie Dorion, her husband and two of her children. Everyone in this outfit, except for Marie and her children, was
killed by Bannock Indians early the following spring.
Donald
McKenzie returned to this same area with a large group in the fall of 1818, to
trap and establish friendly relations with, and between, the Indians of the
region. In this party was Jack Weiser
after whom the Weiser River has mistakenly thought to be named. Also in the group was a Canadian named
Francois Payette, after whom the town of Payette, the Payette River, and the
Payette National Forest are named.
Francois Payette trapped and explored this part of Idaho off and on for
about 18 years, and is said to be considered by some historians as one of the
most important figures in the early history of southwestern Idaho.
At
the time of McKenzie's return to Idaho, there was a great deal of fighting
going on between the Shoshoni and the Nez Perce and other Shahptin-speaking
groups. There was also a constant problem
with vicious Blackfoot war parties raiding deep into Idaho from Montana. After a number of council meetings, McKenzie
was able to bring relative peace, at least between the Idaho tribes.
In
the eastern states, it had been the practice of whites to induce Indians to do
the actual work of trapping, in exchange for trade goods. In the west, however, the male natives
generally spurned trapping as women's work, but by the time McKenzie left the
area in 1821, many of the Shoshoni had begun to trap.
During McKenzie's escapades in the Idaho
area, he wanted to see for himself whether the Hells Canyon route was practical
for travel. About 1819, he and a party
of men pulled a barge up the Snake River, starting from the mouth of the
Clearwater River. After almost two
months of superhuman effort, they actually made it through, but it obviously
was not worth it. Nearly 50 years
passed before anyone was foolhardy enough to venture onto this stretch of the
river with a boat.
The
first recorded mention of exploration of the Weiser River drainage is that of a
trapping excursion led by Alexander Ross in 1824. By 1826, American trappers had penetrated deep into the Weiser
River country as far as Payette Lake, and the Weiser River had become one of
the area's prime sources of beaver pelts.
12-5-94
History
Corner
I got word from the courthouse last
week that they were cleaning house and had some things the museum might
want. The most exciting thing they had
was a stack of Adams County Leader newspapers from 1918 and 1919. Until now, there were only three copies of
1918 Leaders remaining in existence, even on microfilm. Now we have ten more. There were no copies of 1919 Leaders before
this find of 42 out of a possible 52 issues!
The Leader office was moved around
town several times before it ended up where it is now.
In one of
the moves, all of the back issues for 1916 through 1919 that were kept in the
Leader office were lost. Former County Clerk, Matilda Moser, who was
a member of the first family to settle in the Council Valley, was responsible
for initially saving the issues found in the courthouse. She saved her issues of the paper for many years. The courthouse gang also gave us back issues that Matilda had
saved for 1925 and 1948 through 1953.
We will keep them at the museum with some other ones from various
years. The Leader office also has these
years issues on file, and they are on microfilm at the State Library in Boise.
There are lots of records that the
County stores for a few years and then discards. Most of them are pretty boring statistics - records of routine
expenditures, etc. Once in awhile
something interesting pops up. In some
receipts issued to Sheriff Ed Wade during the summer of 1941 there were some
interesting expenses: 100 miles @ 7 cents per mile to investigate "Arizona
cars with wild animals, supposed to the same people that were run out of Canyon
County".
The same mileage rates were paid for
these duties: Investigate two people
"living in adultery" - "let get license at Council" ...
"Move destitute woman from Hornet Creek to Mesa in order to keep them off
Adams County" ... "Clear highway of crippled horse. Reported by Fred Muller." ... "Get
prisoner at Weiser for stealing 1 1/2 ton Chevy truck from Mesa" ...
"Get prisoner at Walla Walla, Wash. and return to Council"
..."Wreck South of Council - L.V. Davis - two trips in cleaning up wreck
and taking party to hospital."
I'll bet what goes on at the sheriffs office nowadays is just as
interesting.
On many of the otherwise
uninteresting documents that were being discarded were the signatures of some
of Council's "Landmarks":
sheriff William F. Winkler = signed as "W.F. Winkler", large,
bold, sweeping across the page ... Geo. A. Winkler = energetic and sweeping, but
not as big as uncle Bill's ... Fred E.
Weed = stylish, moderate in size ... Matilda Moser = classic, flawless script
right out of the penmanship primer ... Sheriff Chester Selby (Loraine Ludwig's
father) = large and easily read ... William Lemon (Leader editor, probate
judge, owner of the Pomona Hotel, and owner of the big ,square, stucco building
next to the Leader office) = signed as "Wm Lemon" with the W and the
L very large and stylish ... Sheriff Frank Yantis = a large, stylish F, plain
Y, moderate size over all.
I thank Mike Fisk and the others at
the court house for thinking of the museum.
If anyone else has "junk" that might be historically
interesting, please let me know.
After my inquiry about an outlaw
corral somewhere in the hills east of Council a few weeks ago, someone told me
about the remains of an old corral and cabin up Camp Crk. Sounded like it is on a ridge on the south
"breaks" of the creek somewhere.
Anybody know the story on this?
Since this column is so fragmented
already, I'll go off on another tangent that is more or less related to
history. This time of year you always
hear a lot about people who "have forgotten the true meaning of
Christmas." In order to understand
the "true meaning" or "original meaning" of something, it
pays to look at its history.
Way back before most religions were
established, people were mighty glad for the time of year when the days stopped
getting shorter and started getting longer.
This happens on or about the 21st of December by our modern calendar. They used to call it the "Ule
Tide" because it was kind of like the low tide of the ocean as it reaches
the lowest point and then starts rising again.
The celebration of this season was about the return of the sun to bring
more light to the world. A few thousand
years later, Christian missionaries decided to subvert this "pagan
nonsense" with their own idea of a return of "the light of the
world". Even though most
historians and theologists agree that Jesus was probably born closer to summer
time, they began to promote the season as the time of year to celebrate of the
birth of their Messiah, Jesus. Since
"The Church" dominated European culture and governments for quite a
period we now have an indelibly established Christian tradition of
"Christmas" in our culture.
There is a similar story behind
Easter. That's why we have such a
strange mixture of eggs, bunnies and sunrise church services.
So if you disagree with the way
someone observes or doesn't observe Christmas, stop and realize that the
tradition is thoroughly man made, and is not the original one. There is no reason why everyone - Jews,
Muslims, atheists and Christians alike - should not make this season special in
their own way.
I hope you have a very merry
Christmas / Ule Tide.
12-8-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
The
next expedition to venture near the Weiser River area was that of Captain
Benjamin Bonneville. In 1832,
Bonneville took a leave of absence from the U.S. Army to lead an exploratory
expedition through the Northwest. Since
claim to much of this territory in the
was in contention between the United States and England, it was
suspected that Bonneville might have been spying for the United States. No one has ever determined whether this was
true or not.
By this time, more outposts had been
established in the vicinity of the Columbia River. After spending some time at a base camp in southern Idaho,
Bonneville set out for Fort Walla Walla.
Apparently Bonneville, like Wilson Price Hunt, was either undaunted by a
journey of several hundred miles in the dead of winter, or else he was not
aware of the rigors of the terrain and climate he was to encounter. He began this journey on Christmas day of
1833, with 3 men, cutting across southern Idaho through the Snake River plain. Upon reaching the Blue Mountains, they
encountered too much snow to continue west.
As they had already traveled part of the way on the frozen surface of
the Snake River, a decision was made to return to the Snake, and continue in
this fashion down the river through Hells Canyon. To their disappointment, the weather had warmed, and the water
had become relatively free of ice except for narrow ribbons along the banks,
and occasional ice "bridges" that spanned the river. In spite of this, they went on, mostly using
the ground along the shore when it was not too steep to do so.
Imagine
what it must have been like for these men when they tested the ice. Picture yourself hundreds of miles from
even the most crude outpost of civilization, in the dead of winter, on the back
of a bug-eyed, snorting horse, as he edges across the rumbling, settling ice,
while untold millions of gallons of water plunges mere inches below you through
the deepest canyon in North America.
What must the nerves of these men endured on that last stretch of
creaking ice before they admitted that it was just too foolish to
continue?
Where
the ice was too thin and rocky cliffs plunged straight down to the water, the
party sometimes climbed far up the side of the canyon. At one point, two of their horses fell into
the river. One of these horses was
rescued, but the other was swept away by the rushing water.
It
is thought that they made it about as far as the mouth of Thirty-two Point
Creek (just across the Snake from Sawpit Creek and Sheep Rock) before the steep
walls of rock on either side made it impossible to continue down the river
bank, and travel on the ice became too risky.
The
party then tried to climb over the mountains on the west side of the river, but
after making it almost to the summit, they could find no way through this
incredibly rugged country. Their only
alternative was to go back down the way they had come, but this proved even
more difficult than the climb up had been.
After an exhausting ordeal, using rappelling ropes, they were able to
get both themselves and their horses safely back to the river.
At
this point, they considered killing their horses, drying the meat for food, and
using the hides to make boats in which to continue down the Snake. Before resorting to this dangerous
alternative, they decided to try once
again to climb over the mountains to the west.
Knowing what we now know about the nature of the Snake River through
Hell's Canyon, can you imagine trying to ride the rapids in a horse hide bull
boat? I would have almost certainly
have been the last mistake Bonneville ever made.
The party back-tracked about four
miles up river where they found a more passable, though still difficult, route
over the summit, and succeeded in reaching the Imnaha River. There, the starved and exhausted group
found some Nez Perce Indians who fed and cared for them, and eventually guided
them to Fort Walla Walla. The Nez Perce
had always been friendly to whites.
Captain Bonneville, as well as Lewis and Clark, noted that the Nez Perce
were among the most friendly Indians they encountered in the West. This tribe continued to befriend white
people up until about 45 years later when their kindness and friendship was
rewarded with murder, imprisonment, and the theft of everything they held
sacred.
Accounts
written by Washington Irving of the hardships of the Bonneville and Wilson
Price Hunt expeditions in the Hells Canyon area were widely read, with the
result that the canyon, and the Wallowa and Seven Devils mountains on either
side of it, were avoided, and remained relatively unexplored by whites for many
years.
About
1834, the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Boise on the Snake River. Two years later, the fort was moved to a location
near the mouth of the Boise River under the charge of Francois Payette.
About
1840, the fur trade started to decline because of low prices in the East. As the white trappers faded from the scene
along the Weiser River, the Indians went back to their old, undisturbed
life-style. However, storm clouds were
brewing on the eastern horizon.
12-15-94 …
12-22-94
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
In
1840, a branch of the Oregon Trail was established over the Blue Mountains, and
by 1843 there was a flood of immigrants coming through the Boise area on their
way to western Oregon. One of the
wagons that came through on this route in the 1840's was that of the Allen
family. Traveling with them on their
way to the present site of Portland, Oregon was their young son, Levi Allen,
who was later to play a key role in the history of the Seven Devils and the
valleys along the Weiser River.
In
1846, the United States acquired what is now the Northwestern U.S. in a
division of territory with the British, and even more settlers came through on
their way to Oregon. Although the
Weiser Indians were not directly influenced by the hordes of people, wagons and
livestock, their neighbors along the Snake found the camp sites they had
carefully used for untold generations destroyed. The camps and streams were filthy from the immigrant's domestic
animals, and the surrounding areas were bare of grass, and stripped of fuel for
fires. The Indians of the arid Snake
River plain, who had already had to struggle to scratch out a subsistence,
"... had to watch their food sources destroyed by whites ignorant of
Indian culture and blind to the delicate balance of the area's natural
resources."
Deprived of their usual sources of
life, the Shoshonis and Paiutes resorted to preying on wagon trains to survive:
stealing horses and livestock. Whites
retaliated, and the situation quickly escalated into full scale war.
In
1854, Fort Boise was abandoned because of this serious "Indian
uprising". For a number of years,
native Idahoans along the Snake River massacred whites at every
opportunity. Aside from futile efforts
by military authorities, most of what is now Southern and Central Idaho was
practically "given back" to the Indians. It was expected the vicinity would remain unsettled for another
50 years except as a stopping point for travelers who dared to pass through on
the Oregon Trail under heavy military protection.
But the discovery of gold along the
Clearwater River started the beginning of the end of this hostile standoff
between the races. I've already written
about the pivotal year of 1862 in this column - Levi Allen's discovery of
copper in the Seven Devils, Goodale's cutoff, Dunham Wright's adventure and the
gold rush to the Boise Basin.
At
this time, most people came to settle or prospect in Idaho from more settled
areas to the west of here, usually via the Columbia River. The town of Boise City was established in
1863. Freight started to be shipped to
Boise from a landing along the Columbia at Umatilla, in a sort of reverse flow
of the usual Oregon Trail traffic of immigrants. It was not until later that central Idaho became a planned
destination for supplies and settlers from points south and east, as "civilization"
filled in the vast unsettled areas in those directions.
I would like to thank Tom Gaston for
a generous donation to the museum. Our
balance is now about $2670.00 This
column is written to promote support for the Council museum. We need at least $10,000 to start our much
needed museum addition project. Please
help. Donations made as memorials will
be acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the person in who's
honor the contribution was made.
Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
History Corner
by Dale
Fisk
If you have seen my slide show, looked at the photo display I put up in the
library, or spent much time studying the pictures in the museum, you have seen
a small, white house that was built in about 1901. It is visible behind the old Haas Bros. / Weed store that I wrote
about a couple of weeks ago, in a
couple of old photos. This house, still
looking very much like it did when it was built, now stands at 104 N Fairfield,
just north of the West One Bank. It is
now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Keith Fish.
The house was built by one of the
giants among early Council citizens - Luther L. Burtenshaw. Burtenshaw was a lawyer, and was known to
his friends simply as "Burt".
For almost four decades, he was an anchor of Council's civic life. If anyone could be called a pillar of the
community, it was Burt. It was hard to
find a community project or organization in which he was not either the leader
or a key player.
Burtenshaw
arrived in Council at the age of 40, just as the railroad reached town and a
new era was beginning for the Valley.
Born in Missouri, he had come West with his parents by ox drawn wagon to
the Willamete Valley in Oregon where he grew up. After being admitted to the bar, he practiced law in Washington
and Oregon before coming to Council.
Burt
and his wife, Nettie had one child, Edward, who was seven years old when the
family set out to find a place to establish a law practice. Upon arriving in Idaho, Burt made the acquaintance
of fellow attorney, Frank Harris, at Weiser.
Harris recommended Council, and the rest is history.
Burtenshaw was a muscular, bear of a
man: stocky, and maybe a little less
than average in height. He was not a
person one would want for a legal adversary, much less an enemy. It was said that he was "A man of
dominant will and personality..." "Short and snappy in manner of
conversation and often harsh in words of reproof and castigation, [but] after
the heat of argument or battle of words he held no grudge and welcomed a return
to friendly tranquility and good will."
Burtenshaw
was regarded by some as being the father of Adams County. He was a tireless advocate of secession from
Washington County, and wrote the bill that created Adams County in 1911. It was Burt who came up with the name
"Adams" for the new county.
He reasoned that since Washington County was named after the nation's
first president, the new county formed from the upper part of it should be
named after the second president.
When Adams County was formed, Governor James H. Hawley appointed
Burtenshaw as the new county's first prosecuting attorney. Burt was reelected to that office a number
of times.
Burt became an expected fixture at
high school graduation ceremonies, which were often held at the opera house
(now the People's Theater). As a
long-time member of the school board of trustees, he handed diplomas to many a
Council graduate. He could often be
counted on to give the oration for these, or many other occasions.
One
thing Burt was renowned for was trap shooting.
He had honed his expertise with a shotgun since he was a young man. While living in Council, he competed in trap
shooting tournaments, often traveling long distances to do so. But he reached his peak as a competitor in
the sport after he was sixty years old.
In 1922, he won first place in more than one Idaho contest, and then
went on to a regional competitions in Pendleton and Portland, Oregon. The next year, there was a "Burtenshaw
trophy" that went to any trap shooter who could win it 3 times. At the age
of 65, Burt won the Capital News "high average medal" for the 1927
Telegraphic Trapshooting Tournament by hitting 192 out of 200 targets. Three
years later (1930), at the finals in Boise, he shot 100 consecutive clay
pigeons without a miss. Out of a total
of 200 shots that day, he only missed three times. The next year, at the age of 70, Burt placed close to the top in
the National Trap Shooting Tournament.
L.L. Burtenshaw became an honorary life member of the Pacific
International Trap Shooting Association, a rare honor which had been bestowed
upon fewer than a dozen people at the time.
Nettie
Burtenshaw was no stranger to firearms either.
She was quite a deer hunter.
After one particularly successful hunting trip in 1914, the editor of
the Leader said of Nettie, "We will bank her against any woman huntress in
the state."
In
1926, Burt ran on Democratic party ticket for U.S. Representative, but lost the
election. Later, in the 1930s he became
Adams County's state senator.
The first World War brought tragedy
to the Burtenshaw household. Their only
son, Edward, had married, become an attorney, and was practicing law with his
father when the U.S. became involved in the War in 1917. Edward, like many other patriotic young men,
soon found himself on the battlefields of France. He made it through the bloody conflict without a scratch, and was
no doubt looking forward to coming home.
But in November of 1918, just ten days before the armistice was signed
ending the war, he died from influenza.
Three and a half months later, and half a world away, his wife gave
birth to a baby boy. He was named
Edward after his father.
It
was over two years before the family could get Edward senior's body shipped
back to the U.S. Finally in June of
1921, Burtenshaws were able to lay Edward to rest under Council Valley
soil. The community rallied around the
grief-stricken family at one of the largest and saddest funeral services ever
held in Council. It was held at the
opera house, which probably held more people than any other building in town,
but it was woefully inadequate to hold
the throng of people who came to comfort one of the town's most loved families.
In
1938, Burt reached the end of his earthly trail, and was buried beside his
son. The Adams County Leader commented,
"The vacant place he leaves in the town and community cannot be filled
because Luther L. Burtenshaw was himself, a character, separate and apart from
other men, an man that will be missed by all who knew him.
We plan to do another anthology
before too long, to raise money for the Museum. Maybe Burt or Nettie will show up there and reveal more about
their lives and what this area was like back then.
Many of you have been reading and
enjoying the History Corner since I've been writing it. I've spent almost every spare minute of the
past four years - hundreds of hours -
researching and writing these stories.
I don't expect to see a penny from it for myself, but I want to ask you
a favor ... not for me, but for yourself, your community and for future
generations. Get out your check book in
the next few minutes, and write out a check to the Winkler Museum ... just for
five or ten dollars ... or more, of course, if you can afford it. Then, the next time you are in the bank, or
at City Hall, give it to the clerk as a donation toward making a permanent
showcase for Council's history that we will all be proud of. It is going to happen. Be a part of it.
History
Corner
This one
may be out of order - don't know the date
This little piece of earth that we
inhabit is a stage upon which countless dramas have unfolded. All around us, in the places we walk or
drive every day, events have taken place that would startle us if we only knew
what had happened there.
In the museum there are several
pieces of mastodon jawbone that were found less than a mile south east of
Council. It is thought that the
earliest people here hunted these huge ancestors of the elephant. Just think what kind of amazing scenes were
"acted out" right here.
Stories from the past can be just
under our feet, or, as in my case right now, just over my head. Right now I'm in the middle of a major
remodeling job on our house. This used
to be a two story house before my uncle Hub remodeled it a couple of
times. Now, I'm putting the second
story back on. For the past few days,
I've been taking out the original second story floor boards and joists to
replace them. I'm finding things there
that fell down between the subfloor and first story ceiling in the time since
the house was built in 1910.
I guess the item I found that
relates back the farthest is a Christmas post card that was mailed to Cora
Glenn in 1913. Cora Sult was the
daughter of Long Valley pioneers. She
married Joel Glenn in 1902. They lived
here, and had this house built.
"Joe" Glenn, as he was known, came to the Council area with
his parents, William D. and Rebecca Glenn
about 1883. After living at
Cottonwood for a short time, I think they settled the place just above me here
on West Fork, where Harold Hoxie lives now.
Apparently, after Bill Glenn died in 1893, his son, Tom Glenn, took over
the place until 1915. After that James
Finn (Ralph's father) owned it, then Bolan Abshire. My mother lived there for awhile when her parents rented the
place. In later years, Vince Schwartz,
and then Tony Schwartz owned it. Now
Scisms have it.
According to Hardy Harp's obituary,
he settled the place where I live in the 1880s. At some point, Joe Glenn acquired it. Many of the ancient apple trees that are growing on this place
were planted by Tom and Joe Glenn in 1912.
Joe and Cora Glenn had 14 children.
I think most of them were born, in this house. The original building was 24 feet square. Can you imagine 14 kids living in a house
that size?
I'm not sure who built this house, but I found a piece of
construction paper in one wall with "H.H. Cossitt and Sons, Council,
Idaho" printed on it. Cossitt was
a builder and lumber yard owner who is credited with building the old school
house that stood on the hill in Council around the turn of the century. He was Adams County's first coroner when the
County was created in 1911.
In 1924, my grandfather bought Joe
Glenn's place and moved his family here from their homestead on the Ridge. During one trip to haul furniture to the new
home, Dad's brother, Sam, was run over and killed by the wagon they were
using. His funeral took place here in
this house, a few feet from where I'm writing this.
Another of the things I found in the
old upper floor was the cardboard cover for an old Edison cylinder record.
The title of the song printed on the end cap was "The Preacher and
the Bear". Dad remembers well the
old phonograph that they use to play those records on when they lived on the
Ridge homestead, long before they ever had a radio. They played some of the songs over and over again.
I also found a sheet of paper
containing "Important Information".
It was "Directions for Assembling - Operating and Maintaining the
Aladdin Kerosene Mantle Lamp".
Another find was a metal lid that reads, "KC Baking Powder, 50 oz.
- 50 cents, Same price for over 30 years."
Other items tell of a time when my
uncle Hub lived here. This is the house
where our County Clerk, Mike Fisk, and his sister, Linda, grew up. I found three Lincoln logs, half a dozen
marbles, a one-piece wooden clothes pin, a few playing cards, illustrations
from kids books from the 1950s or so, and the wrapper from a pack of Camel
cigarettes that Hub used to smoke.
What I found the most of was dirt...
just plain soil from the ground. I
hauled out bucket after bucket full of it - probably 40 pounds or so. There are dozens of mud dauber wasp nests on the rafters, and
it's my theory is that the dirt came from them, built up as they fell down over
the past 84 years. As I swept up the
fine, powdery dust, I was reminded of how my uncle John caught tuberculosis,
when he was a young man, from a neighbor boy who slept up there in the bed next
to his. It cost him a lung. In spite of the fact that I was wearing a
good respirator, I was hoping TB bacteria don't live that long.
As I said, history is all around us
if we take the time to look and learn.
The museum's job is to help you do just that, but we need your
help. Awhile back, the museum board was
thinking about getting a WWII display that the Historical Society would loan
us. Then we got to thinking... where
would we put it? There's no room in the
museum without taking up all the space where the City Council meetings and
other gatherings are held. There really
isn't enough room for the displays that are there now. We have the solution ready to launch as soon
as we get the funds. We need your
donation.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
For the next few weeks, I'm going to
be writing about events that happened between Council and the Seven Devils
Mining District. Some of you went along
on the museum sponsored tour of that
vicinity in 1990. Since then, we have heard nothing but how
much people enjoyed it. Now we are
planning another tour to raise money for the museum. The exact plans haven't been made yet, so keep watching this
column. It will probably be in
September.
One of the most interesting things I
have turned up in my research concerns the first settler in the Council
area. Whenever the subject comes up, it
seems that the Mosers are always mentioned.
The George Moser family, who arrived in the Council Valley in 1876, was
the first family to settle here, but they were not the first non-native people
to make a home here.
As far as I can tell, the first
person to settle in the Council area was a bachelor named Henry Childs. He established a home at a location that
will be on our tour. It was about three
miles up Hornet Creek, where Old Hornet Creek road now forks from the Council Cuprum road. Childs arrived here in 1868, some eight
years before the Mosers.
Childs arrived here, alone, at the
age of about 32. He was a single man
who never married. Just why he came
here is not clear, but he may well have been looking for gold at first. He was known to have been a prospector. At the time Henry Childs arrived in this
area (1868), the Salubria and Indian Valleys were just beginning to be
settled. This was at the tail end of
some very serious Indian conflicts in Idaho, and the trouble wasn't over yet.
Ten years later, in 1878, when Bill Munday and two other Indian Valley men were
killed by Indians in Long Valley, Childs was with a party of miners who were
feared to have also been attacked and killed by the same Indians. A military unit was sent to look for them,
and they were found alive and well.
Childs lived in this area for about
42 years. He served as a justice of the
peace in the mid 1880s. He eventually
moved back to his home state of New York in 1910.
It is because of Henry Childs that
Hornet Creek got its name. According to
one account, the summer that the Mosers
arrived here was a bad one for hornets.
After one particularly bad hornet encounter that Childs had with these
pests that summer, he apparently complained to his new neighbors, the
Mosers. From that time on, the creek
along which Childs had settled was called Hornet Creek. For a short time, the whole Council area was
referred to as "Hornet Creek" since it was the location of the
confluence of that creek with the Weiser River. This was a common practice.
The Fruitvale area was, at first, called West Fork.
Another spot along our upcoming tour
is the location of the Lower Dale school house. It stood near the place where the Old Hornet Creek Road comes
back onto the Council Cuprum Road. The
school was built in 1906. It was called
the "Lower" Dale school to distinguish it from the school at
"Dale" farther up the road.
The school at Dale became known as "Upper Dale" as a
result.
The last mention that I can find of
the Lower Dale school being in operation was 1942. I don't know when it finally closed. I hope someone will call me and fill me in. I would really like to know. And when was it torn down? (Call me:
253-4582) Also, there are some pictures
at the library of some kids in front of the Lower Dale school, with their
teacher, Olive Addington. The photos
may have been taken in the early 1920s.
We would really like to identify these kids. If you went to this school or knew people who did, please go into to library see if you can
help.
Since forest fires are on our minds
lately, I can't resist throwing out an amazing story I was just reminded
of. The fires near McCall have been
burning for a couple weeks now, and have consumed 50,000 to 60,000 acres, last
I heard. In 1910, a fire burned for
only two days in northern Idaho and western Montana ... an burned THREE MILLION
ACRES. It covered an area 160 miles
long, and fifty miles wide. Four towns and
a number of mines and mills were destroyed, and over 100 people were
killed. It was the worst fire in the
history of North America.
Hey! I got some great news
today. The Council Exhibit Committee
(quilt show) is donating $300 dollars to the museum fund. Thank you!
Now doesn't that make you feel guilty if you haven't donated yet? I know you plan to. It doesn't have to be a lot. If everybody in the area would just kick in
the amount it would cost them to go out and have a hamburger, we would have it
made. If mailing is easier for you,
send your donation to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612.
Be sure to watch for more info on
the Council - Seven Devils tour. It
will be one of the most fascinating days you have ever spent.
History
History Corner
by Dale
Fisk
You have probably stopped to read
the sign at the old stage stop on the summit between the Hornet Creek and
Crooked River drainages. This spot
along the route of our upcoming tour is known as "Kramer" or "Summit". The Summit designation is obvious. The name Kramer comes from Peter and Martha
Kramer who came to live here at least as early as 1899. It was in November of that year that Pete
got the mail contract between Council and Curprum.
By 1900, a combination saloon and
hotel called the Summit House was doing business here, run by the Ross Brothers
- probably Dick and James, but I'm not sure.
Dick Ross had a homestead just west of Kramer, and the Creek there is
named after him. Dick was the City
Marshal in Council in 1909, and a pair of brass knuckles that he confiscated
from a trouble maker is on display in the Museum. James Ross briefly owned the
Overland Hotel which, until the fire or 1915,
stood where the Ace / Grubsteak building is now.
By 1901, Pete Kramer had a stage
leaving Council six days a week at 7 AM and arriving at Cuprum about 6 PM. It also went on to Landore and Decorah. This schedule varied over time. For a while, the stage traveled from Council
to the Devils on Mon., Weds. and Fri.,
stopping at Summit (which was about halfway to the mining district) for
the night, and continuing on the next day.
I think another stage took passengers the opposite direction, back to
Council, on a similar schedule. At
various times, there were also stage stops at Lick Creek (where the OX Ranch
headquarters are now) and at Bear.
At its peak of activity, Summit was
quite a busy place. On the west side of
the road there was the Kramer house, which doubled as a hotel. Martha Kramer cooked for the guests. Also on that side of the road was the post
office, saloon, store and bunk house.
Some of these probably shared a common building. On the east side of the road was a log barn
and corrals for the horses, wagon sheds, a livery stable and blacksmith
shop. Dances were often held at Summit,
and people would come from miles away.
Pete Kramer was a slender, dark
haired man. He was born in Germany
of Danish parents, and had a heavy
accent. More than one source has said
that he was a man who liked liquor. It is said that by the time the stage
rolled into its destination, he would sometimes be obviously drunk. His passengers were, in general, mostly men,
and at times, they were also pretty well inebriated.
Over the 23 years or so that he was
in business here, Pete Kramer had various drivers, routes and vehicles. In 1904, it was noted that his main rig was
a four-seated mountain spring wagon, built a little on the Concord coach
pattern, like the ones in the movies.
One of his wagons held up to 12 people.
His wheeled vehicles were generally pulled by four horses. In the winter, sleds were used, pulled by
two horse teams.
The only pictures I've seen of
Kramer's stages show open-top vehicles.
It must have been an incredibly dusty ride in the summer when dozens of
ore and freight wagons used the Council - Cuprum road. There is one photo in the museum of Kramer
with a load of passengers in front of the old Pomona Hotel, and the caption
notes that all in the coach were coated with dust.
Eventually, Kramer got contracts to
deliver mail all the way from Council to Black Lake and Iron Springs, and down
to Homestead along the Snake River.
Stage drivers made $35 a month.
A few of the drivers, aside from Pete Kramer himself, were Norman
Nelson, Roy York, Ralph Wilkie, the notorious Tommy White and Fayette Davis.
Fayette Davis was the son of Byron
and Nancy Davis, who settled the place where the Wildhorse road branches
off. Fayette's wife, Mary, was the
first postmaster when a post office was established at Kramer in 1907. (The
post office closed in 1910.) Fayette
ran the saloon there for a time.
During the winter of 1906, Kramer
and Bob Barbour went together on a deal to haul 3,000 tons of copper ore from
the mines to the railroad at Council.
They hired 50 teams and sleds for the job. They wanted to have as many as 75 teams hauling ore, but more of
the right kind of heavy sleds were hard to come by. It was reported that it took the sleds four days to make the
trip. I assume they meant round trip.
By1920, things had pretty well fallen
apart. The mining boom had ended. Autos and trucks were replacing the horse
and wagon. Pete and Martha Kramer were
divorced that year. Two years later
Pete sold out and moved to Hillsboro, Oregon.
In 1923, Martha apparently married a man named Stevens. M. D. Shields got the place after Kramers.
Just a couple of minor corrections
from last week. It was an Indian who
volunteered to go bring Anna Hanson back when the Indians took her. He advised Rasmus not to go. And it was Soren that was in school when
Mrs. Hanson learned English, not Bill who came along later. Also, I'm told Mr. Sevey's first name was
Loring.
We had a pretty good bunch at the
slide show Friday night. Everybody
seemed to enjoy it, and almost $60 were raised for the museum. My sincere thanks to those of you who turned
out. There were some people who
couldn't make it that night, so I plan to show the slides again at some point.
Believe it or not, the Council -
Seven Devils tour is still on. There
are only two Saturdays that would be practical: Oct. 22 or Nov. 5. The museum board has yet to pin it
down. Tell ya what... if you are
interested in the tour, give me a call.
253-4582 I'm starting a list so
we can get organized. It will be an all
day tour. It will be a fund raiser, so
there will be a charge. If you have a
big vehicle, like a suburban, and could take a couple extra passengers, that
would make things go more smoothly. I
hope the seniors can get a bus load to go along. I was just reading that a similar tour in 1968, with Winifred
Lindsay as one of the guides, took about 200 people along!
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,952... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the
person in who's honor the contribution was made. Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID
83612. Make your check out to the
Winkler Museum.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Guess what? It's on! October 22, we will be taking our Council to
Seven Devils Mining District Tour.
If you have been following this column for the past few weeks, you know
some of what lays in store on the tour.
The mining district played an essential role in the history of this
area. There are places along the road
that you have seen as you drove past, but never knew the story of what happened
there. Once you learn, that place will
never be the same to you again.
Here's an example. Last Saturday, Anna, Blaine and I went on a
tour of the early events in the Nez Perce War, north of Riggins. It was guided by local historian, Ace
Barton. He showed us a nondescript
bench where a house sits beside highway 95 that I have driven by a lot of
times. It was the place where Mr.
Devine, the first victim of the war, was killed with his own rifle by Nez Perce
warriors. On up the highway, we saw
several other scenes of violence that are right along the road. I had heard the stories before, but had
never known just where things happened.
For our tour, we will meet in front
of the Council library on the morning of the 22nd. Mark it on your calendar.
The exact time, whether the museum will provide a lunch and whether we
will charge a set price or ask for donations will be determined by the time you
read this. Watch this column next week
and look for posters around the area.
Unfortunately, elk hunting season will still be on that weekend, but it's
just about our last chance to do this before it might snow up there. We encourage anyone who can take an extra
passenger to do so, in order to save on unnecessary vehicles. Some ride sharing can be arranged as we get
organized on the morning of the tour. A
vehicle other than a low-to-the ground car would be advised.
Here's another spot along the way
that you will see on our tour: Just
about a half mile past the Kramer stage stop at Summit is the former site of
the Rooker sawmill. W.S. Rooker, a
former business man and then Wild Horse rancher (1904 - ?), built a mill here
in 1926. Although it was sometimes
called the "Crooked River Sawmill", it was actually on Dick Ross
Creek, a branch of Crooked River.
Early pioneers of Wild Horse built the
original road out of that canyon to this point along the Council - Cuprum
road. At the time, the Council - Cuprum
road was across the flat from the present road, on the west side of the flat.
Rooker's
loggering crews and mill workers lived in tents until the mill was running and
could provide lumber. Then "lumber
jack shacks" were built all over the flat. The mill employed more than 30 men until it burned down in the
fall of 1935.
The
summer before the mill burned, a notorious accident happened here. Frank Fanning, who was about 75 years old,
was working underneath the mill, probably cleaning out sawdust and pieces of
slab wood that had accumulated there.
Not realizing he was so near the whirling circular saw above him, he
stood up right underneath it. Blood and
hair sprayed the air as the saw cut through Frank's skull and into his brain
cavity. Miraculously, he was not
killed. In fact, the next week, Dr.
Thurston announced that aside from having a metal plate where part of his skull
used to be, Fanning would be "normal again after a few weeks." Frank lived another 22 years, dying in a
Weiser nursing home in 1957.
Another event that happened at the
Rooker mill, was that my maternal grandparents met here. My grandmother, Mae Baker - Kite, was a cook
for the crews as the mill was being built in 1926. My grandfather, Russell Merk, was on a logging crew, but was
hired to build an addition to the cook house where grandma was working.
If you are interested in going on
the tour on the 22nd, please give me a call.
This is not a necessity, but it will enable us to do better advance
planning. 253-4582
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $1,962... we need at least $10,000 to
start our much needed museum addition project.
Please help. Donations made as
memorials will be acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the
person in who's honor the contribution was made. Please send contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID
83612. Make your check out to the
Winkler Museum.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Soon after Idaho Territory was established, the valleys along the
Weiser River began to be settled. The
first non-natives to live along the Weiser were William and Nancy Logan who ran
away from their parent's homes near Baker to get married about 1863.
At the time, Old's Ferry was about
to be established to cross the Snake River at Farewell Bend about 12 miles
below the mouth of the Weiser River.
The Oregon Trail crossed to the west side of the Snake River at Fort
Boise, near the mouth of the Boise River.
The Logans figured that wagons
traveling the Oregon Trail would soon be continuing along the east side of the
Snake until they reached the easier and safer crossing provided by the new
ferry.
As things
turned out, they were right, and they
took advantage of the fact. The young
couple built a house of willows and mud along the new route near the mouth of
the Weiser River, and operated a successful road house for a short time.
When Thomas Galloway and Woodson
Jeffreys arrived at the present site of Weiser in 1864, the area was nothing
but sagebrush desert. Galloway opened
a stage station and supply house, and generally catered to the traveling public. The location soon became known as "Dead
Fall". In 1866, Jeffreys
established the first post office here, under the name "Weiser Ranch". The post office was closed in 1870, but
reopened in 1871 as "Weiser".
The location changed official title again in 1878 or 1880 to
"Weiser Bridge".
All of these activities took place
at what is now the east end of the town of Weiser, close to the Weiser
River. The name "Weiser
Bridge" derived from the fact that there was now a bridge here across that
river. After the railroad arrived in
1882, the main part of town shifted to
the west, to its present location. In
1883, the name was changed permanently back to "Weiser". The original section of Weiser was sometimes
referred to as "old town".
Before hordes of fortune seekers
started occupying Idaho, fighting between Indians and whites had been mostly
restricted to the area along the Oregon Trail.
But after the non-native invasion of Idaho in 1862, the friction spread
over a wider area.
During
the 1860s, whites in Northern California, Nevada, Eastern Oregon, Idaho and
Montana were in a virtual state of siege as Indians rampaged anywhere they
could. The government tried a
combination of treaties and military force to stop the depredation. At first, nothing seemed to work. Resentment toward the Indians grew to the
point that statements were openly made in public newspapers advocating
genocide. In 1867, one upstanding
citizen recommended inviting all the Indians to a feast containing strychnine
to poison every man, woman and child of them.
Finally, in 1868, after a series of military confrontations referred to
as the "Snake War", tensions were somewhat reduced.
Meanwhile, the loop in the Oregon
Trail to Olds Ferry had brought large numbers of emigrants across the mouth of
the Weiser river on their way farther west.
This undoubtedly helped bring the Weiser drainage to their
attention. Many of them must have felt
like the children of Israel wondering in the desert after months of traveling
through mostly desolate, sagebrush wasteland.
By the time they got this far west, it was late in the season. The land would have been baked dry by the
summer's heat and punctuated only occasionally by narrow strips of green along
the rivers. As they trudged along,
mile after mile, they must have grown weary of seeing land that was devoid of
trees other than scattered Juniper.
When they reached the mouth of the Weiser River, the scenery would still
have been the same depressing desert drab, but far off to the north they would
have caught a glimpse of forest-clad mountains. The word that there was a lush valley somewhere in that
direction, surrounded by wooded hills must have peaked their interest.
With the winding down of Indian wars in the general area, the idea
of ending their journey and settling in a mountain river valley prompted some
of them to investigate the valleys along Weiser River. More than a few families continued on to
eastern Oregon, settled down briefly, and then backtracked to this area.
Mann Creek, and the valley it formed, was the first farmable
ground north of the flat land near the mouth of the Weiser River. Although not along the Weiser, it became the
first settled land along the main line of travel up that river. My guess would be that an Indian trail
followed a similar path to the present highway to avoid the narrow canyon just
south of present day Midvale. From very
early on, wagon trails to reach the upper Weiser River valleys went up Monroe
Creek, then over into Mann Creek and on into Middle Valley.
The
next valley up the Weiser River acquired the name "Middle Valley"
because it was between the upper and lower valleys along the river. The first settlers came here in 1868, but
the actual town of Midvale wasn't started until 1903. The first bridge across the Weiser River (other than the one at
its mouth) was built at Midvale, on the site of the present bridge. The first road to points north crossed the
river here and proceeded through the "sand hills" to the north east.
The next valley up the river was just north
of the sand hills, and began to be settled about 1868. The community of Salubria was established
here, a little over a mile south east of the present site of Cambridge. It was granted a post office in 1870. The location was named Salubria because it
was said to be "salubrious", which basically means "pleasant and
beneficial to ones health". The
building of an actual town of Salubria began with the first store, which was
erected in 1885. Salubria was the only
town in that vicinity until Cambridge was established along the railroad when
the tracks reached the valley in 1900.
Almost no remnant of Salubria remains to mark the spot today. To reach the site of the old town, turn
south at the power station just this side of Cambridge. Salubria was at the first intersection south
of the highway.
The
next valley up the Weiser, where the Little Weiser River joins the main river,
was more or less an extension of the Salubria Valley. It was called "Indian Valley" because the Weiser
Shoshoni often wintered there. The
Salubria and Indian Valley areas began to be settled at about the same time,
about1868.
About
the time the first settlers began to inhabit the Salubria and Indian Valleys in
1868, the first non-native person to establish a home in the Council area
settled on Hornet Creek. He was a 32
year old bachelor named Henry Childs.
Just what enticed Childs to this area is not exactly certain, but he was
known to have done some mining and trapping.
He built a home and did some farming about 2.5 miles up Hornet Creek
from the present site of Council. His
place was located where the Old Hornet road now branches from the Council -
Cuprum road and goes across to the west side of the creek. Hornet Creek was named after a nasty
encounter that Childs had with a nest of hornets while he was clearing brush.
The
Salubria and Indian Valleys, and even Middle Valley, were referred to as the
"upper valleys" or the "upper country". The Council and Meadows Valleys were later
included as part of the upper country.
Early upper country residents referred to the Weiser area as the
"lower country". This
tradition continues today, and the terminology has evolved. New-comers hearing an upper country person
say they are going "down below" are often confused until it is
explained that this generally indicates a trip to anywhere between Weiser and
Boise.
??????
From
1862 on, some miners started traveling up the Weiser and Payette Rivers to
reach the mining areas around Florence and Warren. As the area around Boise City grew, the Weiser River route
through the Council Valley became a principle avenue of travel for pack trains
carrying supplies to the gold camps at Warren.
This route was easier to travel than the more direct but torturous
terrain along the Payette River. The
Weiser River trail was also clear of snow earlier in the spring.
Old
timers who frequented the Council Valley in those early days told of huge
groups of Indians gathering in the Council Valley. Perry Clark, a member of the Idaho Territorial Legislature and
later an Indian Valley school teacher, described what he saw near the present
town of Council. He said that from on
top of the little hill just north of present day downtown, he could see
"... many hundreds of Indians and thousands of head of Indian horses at
one sight, literally covering the valley as a blanket." In the early 1870's, Perry, who never
actually lived here, named the place "Council Valley" because of the
Indian "Councils" held here.
The
word "council" is, or course, a European term, and probably doesn't
fit the principle nature of the native gatherings. The Weiser Indians spent most of the year roaming in independent
family groups, and had little use for political organization. The Shoshonis were fond of festivals, and
held large gatherings at least once a year where they would, among other
things, hold council meetings. But
trade was probably the most important function of the gatherings, enabling each
group to acquire items that couldn't be found in their own local area. The next priority was probably having a good
time. At these festivals, the Indians
would engage in competitive games, like gambling and horse racing, and
generally celebrated the beginning of the salmon runs.
Before
1862, the main annual Indian rendezvous was held in the Snake River Valley in
the general vicinity between the mouth of the Boise River (near Parma), and the
mouth of the Weiser River (near Weiser).
Held in the early summer, it would last for a month or more.
After
the introduction of the horse to Native Americans, members of more distant
tribes began to attend the festive gatherings on the Snake River, and it became
one of the biggest annual native gatherings in the Northwest. It must have been an incredible sight:
thousands of Indians with their camps spread out across the valley, surrounded
by enormous herds of horses.
Smaller
festivals were evidently held in the Council Valley during that time. Alexander Ross, a trapper who explored this
area in 1824, reported encountering such a native gathering at a location on
the Weiser River that would seem to indicate the Council Valley. Although it is thought that he grossly
overestimated their numbers, he reported seeing about 4,500 Indians with about
half that many horses, and 900 teepees.
After
the sky seemed to open up and rain white men around the Boise Valley in 1862,
the big native festival was relocated to the more remote Council Valley to
avoid contact with Whites. This is why
Perry Clark and others saw so many Indians here. This area was chosen partly because it had been relatively
unaffected by the storm of white activity all around it. In addition, Eagle Eye, the most influential
leader in the area, was able to maintain peace between the various Indian
groups.
Although
the Shoshoni band who roamed the Weiser River drainage was composed of
independent groups, they did recognize Eagle Eye as their principle
leader. Born sometime during the fur
trade era (1820s and 30s), he would have been in his 40s or 50s when white
intrusion began in 1862. Eagle Eye was
very influential in avoiding native conflict, or even contact, with Whites.
The
Nez Perce name for the Council Valley is said to have been
"Kos-ni-ma" (pronounced Quashnima).
The term indicates "red fish" or salmon. The festivals here peaked about 1872 when
about 800 Umatillas (Cayuses), 500 Nez Perces, 75 Klikitats, and 1,125 Shoshoni
and Bannocks... a total of about 2,500... gathered here. About 1876, the arrival of the Mosers to
settle here, the battle at the Little Big Horn, and then the Nez Perce and
Bannock Wars brought an end to the Indian gatherings here.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
I mentioned the 1919 newspapers that
the courthouse gave to the museum. That
year was an interesting time. The First
World War had just ended in Europe, but the joy of the end of killing was
dampened by the awful knowledge that it was not the end of dying. People were still dropping by the thousands
... and not just in Europe, but right in our own home towns.
The war had been the most horrendous
the world had ever known, thanks to new inventions like airplanes, tanks,
machine guns, submarines, trench warfare and poison gas. But another blow followed the war like the
second half of a combination punch. A
plague spread across the nation that, by 1919, had killed almost six times as
many people as the number of American soldiers that had died in the war. It was Spanish Influenza... and it killed
millions around the world. In the
Council area alone, 16 citizens were claimed by it.
It had started before the war had
even ended, in 1918. Reports came in
that thousands of flu cases had appeared at Army bases across the U.S.
Minnie Zink, who had a son in the
war, ran a hospital of sorts in Council.
It was in her big square house on the corner of Railroad Street and
Central Avenue. ( That's the spot where Dennis and Bea Maggard live now.) Minnie's daughter, Mary Zink, and F.H.
Morrison were kept busy nursing flu victims until they came down with it
themselves.
Leo Rainwater ran a grocery store in the building in which
Sam Nightengale now has his TV and appliance store. Rainwater had another store on that location when the big fire of
1915 wiped it out, along with half the business section. He built back on the same spot. Leo was known as a tireless worker, but in
November of 1918, shortly after the armistice of November 11, he became run
down and was put in the Zink hospital with a bad case of influenza. By the end of the month, he was dead. He was only 34 years old, and left a wife
and baby behind. The store was sold
shortly afterward to pay debts.
It was not actually the flu that
killed most, people, but complications that caused: usually pneumonia .
Council area schools were closed;
churches stopped holding services; the People's Theater shut its doors. All public gatherings were banned. In January, 1919, Ida Selby (age 40) and her son, Ray (age 20) died from the flu on
the same day. Ida's other son, Chet,
(Loraine Ludwig's father) was still in the army in France.
Whether by coincidence or from the
flu, Teddy Roosevelt died that month.
In Weiser a public policy statement
read, "In the hope of stamping out influenza, the Weiser City Council, in
conjunction with the school board, has ordered that all absentees from school
shall be reported by teachers and that investigation, looking to quarantine,
shall immediately follow such reports.
Police officers are authorized to call a physician to investigate any
case of suspected influenza that has not been reported. Violaters of quarantine will be vigorously
prosecuted."
Meanwhile, in Council, Public
gatherings were allowed sporadically, as waves of the epidemic came and
went. Eventually, three quarters or
more of Council school kids had already had the flu, and the school was set to
reopen. When it did, families that had
not had the flu in their household were not required to send their children to
school. The County Leader newspaper reported, "... the Health Officer
shall visit the schools each morning for purpose of inspection and, further,
that teachers shall watch closely for any appearance of illness on the part of
pupils in order that if any suspicious cases appear they may be immediately
cared for."
By February, 1919, the paper had an
Official Notice by Board of Health on the front page. It said that the Spanish influenza epidemic seemed to be on the
wane in the Northwestern U.S., but: "All cases of sickness in any way similar
to influenza must be reported and a physician called AT ONCE. Failure to do this is a misdemeanor
punishable by fine." "All cases of Influenza shall consider
themselves in rigid quarantine, the quarantine extending not only to the person
sick but to ALL MEMBERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD for at least one week following the
outbreak of the disease."
"Rooms occupied by Influenza patients must be thoroughly
disinfected with formaldehyde at the time that quarantine is lifted."
Over the next couple of years, even
a few cases of the flu around Council caused scares that closed schools and
public meeting places. In 1920, there
was the flu spread across Idaho, but it was not as serious as the year before. But in the spring of 1922, it was bad enough
to be called an epidemic again. The
Council school, churches and other public places closed temporarily.
Some time back, I wrote about
Council attorney, L.L. Burtenshaw. You
may remember that his, son, Edward, died of the flu just days before the
armistice was signed. After reading the
1919 papers, the picture becomes even more tragic. The official War Dept. telegram bearing the news of Edward's
death said that he had died on Oct. 6.
But the Burtenshaws had just received a letter from Edward dated Oct 20,
saying, "... I am still in the land of the living ... and ... am well and
feel fine." The family thought
that he must really be dead, and that the date must have been wrong on the
notice ... but the nagging doubt before they learned for sure must have been
terrible. To aggravate their pain, just
over two months after the death notice came, a letter arrived at the home of
Carney Johnson, a Midvale boy serving in France and who was officially reported
as having been killed in action. The
letter was from Carney saying that he was actually alive and well. A few weeks later, Edward's wife gave birth
to their son.
Stay tuned.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
A while back, a couple of my History
Corners were about wildlife in this area.
Last week I had an interesting conversation with Jerry Thiessen who is
researching a book on Idaho Wildlife.
He wanted information about when the first elk were released in this
area. I was able to provide him with
some info on their release in the Meadows Valley in 1915.
Until I talked to Jerry, it was my
impression that elk were not found in the Weiser River area before they were
planted here. It turns out that there
were scattered, small herds of elk in the Weiser and Payette River drainages when
the fur trappers came here in the early 1800s.
When these mountain men traveled in large groups, as they did with the
Hudson's Bay Co. expeditions, they often killed as many elk (or any other food
animal) as they could when they had the opportunity. They never knew when the next chance would be, so they stocked
up. Travelers on the Oregon Trail
helped finish off the elk population when they passed though, sometimes roaming
miles off the trail in search of meat. As
a result, the elk in this part of Idaho were gone by the 1850s. By 1885, it was feared that elk would
become extinct in Idaho.
I had always wondered if reports of
grizzly bears in this area were true or not.
Some of them probably were. The
salmon runs here would have provided a perfect food source for them. Jerry's guess is that there were probably
not too many because they need a large area for habitat. Black bears, on the other hand, were
probably very common.
I had read that Big Horn Sheep were
abundant in the Seven Devils before they were killed out. Jerry says they may have been the most
common animal in the State in the early days.
There were also antelope in the
Indian Valley area, and probably in Meadows Valley during some parts of the
year. They were very common in Baker
and Malheur Counties in Oregon.
The Winkler family reported seeing
many white tail deer around Council when they came here in 1878. White tails were sometimes called
"Willow Deer" or "Brush Deer" because they liked the cover
and feed that willows provided. The
river bottoms along the Weiser River used to be covered with dense thickets
of willows and cottonwood trees - prime
white tail habitat.
The story of what happened to the
white tail habitat in this area was repeated in many other places. First, livestock ate back some of the
willows. Thorn brush (Hawthorn) began
to be more dominant because livestock preferred the more tender willows. Then, settlers cleared the bottom lands for
farming. When the willow thickets
disappeared, so did the white tails.
Before the government organized to
suppress forest fires, fires were more frequent but mostly burned the
undergrowth, not the trees. This left
much less brush in the forests than there is now. Because of this, there were fewer deer there, particularly mule
deer.
Bitter brush has always been a prime
source of feed for mule deer. This
large, sage-like bush that is so common here now (sometimes called buck brush),
was not common except in very rocky places where fires could not easily reach
them. Bitter brush is not at all
tolerant of fire. Willows are fire
resistant, sprout very quickly and grow in moist ground. That's one reason the river bottoms remained
brushy until they were cleared.
Over the years, as fires were less
common, the brush in the hills increased and so did the mule deer. Their peak population was reached in the
1960s. (Remember when we could buy two
deer tags and shoot either sex?) The
brush is probably why white tail deer are becoming more common here now too.
All this is probably an
oversimplified version of the story, but it gives the general idea.
Last week a very generous memorial
donation was made in memory of Jay Quilliam by the "Royal Order of the
Golden Neckyoke". This group, of
which Jay was a charter member, is a "vintage collection of veteran
farmers who, at some time, planted and harvested with horses." Much thanks. Jay was one of the nicest people and best story tellers that I've
ever met.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2,770. We need at least $10,000 to start our much needed museum addition
project. Please help. Donations made as memorials will be acknowledged
in this column, along with the name of the person in who's honor the
contribution was made. Please send contributions
to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612.
Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Before I begin this column, I
apologize for using the term "white" so much to indicate someone
other than a Native American / Indian.
Even though the word is not always correct (not all pioneers, settlers
etc. were Anglo-Saxon), it has become deeply ingrained in American
culture. Sometimes there are simply
places where "white" is the only word that gets the meaning across
without going to ridiculous lengths to be politically or technically correct.
All
during the fighting of the 1860s, the Weiser Indians had mostly stayed to
themselves in the more remote mountains of their territory. Even so, they were falsely accused of numerous
atrocities. Typical of the mind-set of
the time, Eagle Eye acquired an
unearned reputation among many whites as being a murderous savage.
In
1867, based only on rumors, the Weiser Indians were declared to be
hostiles. A scouting party was sent from
Fort Boise to find them, but Eagle Eye moved his band into the Salmon River
mountains before the troops arrived. At
the Indian's abandoned campsite along the Weiser River, the soldiers found
footprints measuring seventeen and one-half inches long. The newspapers made big news out of this,
and the legend of "Bigfoot" began.
(There actually was a hostile Indian named Howluck in the Owyhee
mountains at this time that was called Bigfoot.)
In
1868, after false reports that the Weisers had been causing trouble, soldiers
were sent from Fort Boise to capture Eagle Eye's band. The Weisers were forewarned and moved north,
but the troopers caught up with them near the present site of Riggins. The forty-one Indians in the group,
including Eagle Eye, were arrested without incident and taken to Fort
Boise. Among their possessions was a
pair of moccasins over sixteen inches long, stuffed with rags and fur. Apparently, these were the source of the
fake footprints seen the year before.
After
a personal meeting with the governor of the Idaho Territory, Eagle Eye was able
to convince him that the Weisers were peaceful and would cause no trouble. The Indians were released, but public
pressure to put them on a reservation continued. At this time, the number of members of the Weiser band
fluctuated between 40 and 100 individuals.
Eagle
Eye had no intention of living on a reservation. He had seen how other Indians had faired who had surrendered to
this fate. Some of them were so
destitute that they had resorted to begging on the streets of Boise. Eagle Eye let it be known that if the
government would leave his band alone, they would live in peace without relying
on support from the government. The
newly arrived settlers in Indian Valley also didn't want the Weisers removed
from their area. They realized that
Eagle Eye's peaceful group provided them with some degree of protection from
more hostile natives that were roaming the countryside.
For
the next few years after the Snake War of 1868, there was little fighting
between whites and Indians in Idaho, but there was constant friction. Groups of heavily armed Indians roamed
freely throughout many parts of Idaho and Oregon. And they were not all well behaved.
All
during the 1860s and 1870s, there was continual hue and cry to put all Indians
on reservations. But the management of
reservations was a bureaucratic quagmire, and the money sent from Congress to
support impounded natives was pathetically inadequate. To keep the reservation Indians from
starving, they were allowed to leave the reservations and fend for themselves
for extended periods.
In
1873, the Modoc Indians in south western Oregon chose to fight rather than
return to their reservation. The
resulting Modoc War instilled deep apprehension in both whites and natives in
Idaho. Everyone realized that the
situation here was teetering on the brink of the same kind of disaster.
Even
though Eagle Eye's band kept a low profile, they were the target of a great
deal of white resentment because their territory was the site of larger and
larger intertribal gatherings. As
tribes from outside the Council Valley began to visit this last place of refuge
in growing numbers, some of the outside Indians stayed permanently. In spite of the odds against peaceful
coexistence, Eagle Eye was able to maintain relative tranquility between the
whites and all the natives who visited, or lived, in his area.
In
March of 1874, Eagle Eye was ordered to bring his band in to the Fort Hall
reservation. He refused, and because of
a lack of funds, the authorities were unable to enforce the order.
The next year (1875), the Wallowa band of
the Nez Perce tribe was ordered to surrender to reservation life, and their
lands were opened to white settlement.
This was the band of which Chief Joseph was a member, and was the last
of the free roaming bands of the Nez
Perce. The Wallowas refused to come in, but the government was still too
under-funded and disorganized to do anything about them or Eagle Eye.
The
following summer (1876), settlers on the upper Weiser heard rumors through
local Indians about a big Indian victory over the horse soldiers. The battle had supposedly occurred very
recently in the buffalo country east of the Rocky Mountains. Days later, vivid accounts came from Boise
of how Indian savages had slaughtered Custer's valiant Seventh Cavalry on the
Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory.
How the Weiser Indians had received word of this battle before local
whites had heard about it left the settlers feeling uneasy. News of the Custer massacre only accented
the fears of Idaho whites, and deepened their resolve to rid the Territory of
Indians.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2670.
One of the things that makes history interesting is seeing how different things were in the past. And one thing that has changed around
Council is the way people make a living.
A lot of homesteaders came here with
what seemed like a vague idea of how they were going to survive. I wonder if many of them really knew what
they were in for. It seems like they
sometimes selected land that had no chance of
growing enough to supply an income.
To survive, a lot of them took whatever odd job was available whenever
it was available. Come to think of it,
there are people who move here now with the same approach, so maybe things
haven't changed much in that regard.
At the turn of the century, it was
said that the principle industries of the area were farming, stock raising,
mining and lumbering.
"Lumbering" centered on small sawmills scattered about the
vicinity. Of course all the work was
done with hand tools and horses, with the exception of the saw and carriage at
the mill itself. It hardly resembled
the modern industry we know today, which
started in the late 1930s with the advent of practical chain saws. Even so, lumbering provided a good many
local, seasonal jobs.
In the early days, it seemed like everybody and his dog around
Council had a mining claim somewhere.
In 1890, Idaho ranked third in the nation for total income from
mining. Montana was in first place,
followed by Colorado. Local claims
were worked whenever the owners had the time.
Frank Mathias and Lewis Winkler spent so much time at the Golden Rule
mine, up on the South Fork of the Salmon someplace, that it was pretty much
their second occupation. All winter
they mostly did blacksmithing, but in the spring they would disappear for the
summer.
Placer miners had to get to their
claims as early as possible in the spring so that they could take advantage of
the available water flow in nearby creeks.
Water was needed to wash the gold out of the ore. Often times, on mountain claims, the water
would only last a short time in the spring before it dried up. This type of work must have been wet, muddy
and cold early in the season.
At one time there were actually coal
mines on the Middle Fork of the Weiser River.
The first mention I found of one was in the spring of 1895, when Ed
Barbour was reported to have discovered a vein of coal there, "...six
miles above Farleigh's old mill".
He found pieces of coal that measured eight inches square.
In 1899, the Salubria Citizen paper
noted coal deposits on Crane Creek and Middle Fork. It said that the Middle Fork coal had been used by local
blacksmiths for several years. That
same year, the Seven Devils Standard reported that a coal vein had been found
on Rapid River near Pollock Mountain.
It was said to have been "between bituminous and anthracite"
in nature, and burned readily.
In 1905, The Weiser Semi-Weekly
Signal reported that Ben Shaw, C.A. Barber "and others" had found a
four foot wide vein of coal near the warm springs on Middle Fork. It said a big slab of "absolutely pure coal" measuring 4' X 4' X 8' was
found far down in the canyon a number of years before, and many had been
looking for where it came from on the hillside above. In January of the 1909, Charley Whiteley and John Kesler were working
the mine.
Does anybody have any idea where
these coal deposits were? Has anyone
heard of Farleigh's sawmill on Middle Fork, or know where it was? And while I'm on that general area, somebody
told me about a corral somewhere in the hills between Cottonwood Creek and Mill
Creek that is said to have been used by outlaws (?). If you have any info on any of these, please let me know.
253-4582
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2,413..
HC -
1-22-95
Human beings are an interesting
species. When the first non-native
people came to the West, they acted as if they had no concept of the idea that
natural resources like timber, grazing, game animals or land had any kind of limits. Like kids in a free candy store, they ate as
much as they could as fast as they could.
It took a few decades for the stomach ache to set in. Now, people have started running full speed
in the opposite direction: don't cut any timber, kill any animals, graze any
grass ... don't do anything that isn't "natural". And spend six million dollars replacing the
wolves that our grandparents paid to have eradicated. I guess it would be more accurate to say they are "adding
to" the wolves that are already replacing themselves.
Trying to instantly turn around the long - time, fundamental
practices of a society in this way is like throwing a ten ton truck into
reverse at 90 miles per hour. The only
comfort to be found is in knowing that social tends often to go to extremes
before they settle on a more sensible compromise somewhere in the middle. So there is hope.... eventually.
Last week, we were all shocked to
hear that the Boise Cascade mill will be closing. Talk about a Landmark.
Some of us can't remember a time when a mill wasn't there.
It all started in the fall of1938,
when the Boise Payette Company bought fifty-three acres from Bill Winkler on
which to build a mill. The paper
reported, "It is said that the
life of the local plant during the time of cutting the adjacent timber will be
approximately twelve years. If, after
that, the Meadows timber holdings should come to this plant, the life of the
local plant would be indefinite." "When this operation was originally
planned, the company had no idea of remilling and storing its lumber at Council
but had planned to truck haul the lumber from the [portable] mill in the woods
[at Old Davis on Crooked River] to Council, load it on cars there and ship it
to Emmett for remilling."
"Neither the present roadbed or bridges between Council and Crooked
river and Bear will stand the heavy traffic required by this operation."
By the summer of 1940, the mill was in
operation. The mill, the new technology
and the aggressive logging activity of the company brought a growth spurt to
Council. The population expanded as
many new families moved in. About a
dozen portable houses were moved to Council from the camp at Old Davis to house
these new arrivals. The houses were put
on land the company bought on the west side of the railroad tracks where
remodeled versions of some of them continue to be used today.
Mechanized
logging had started in the 1930s, but the Depression had put a damper on many
business ventures. In spite of
shortages of manpower and other basics during World War II, the demand for
lumber and the momentum of the Boise Payette Co. was high enough to sustain a
boom in the Council area. After the
war, two critical factors came together to start a new era in the timber
industry.
First,
the housing boom that followed World War II created an unprecedented demand for
lumber. Second, by that time, chain
saws, logging trucks, crawler tractors and other machinery needed for modern
timber harvesting had evolved to the point of being fairly dependable and
available. In the old days, it had been
a monumental task to build a road into the mountains to harvest timber. With "cats" miles of roads could
be built with relative ease. Because
logging had been on a comparatively small scale up until this time, there were
vast roadless tracts of virgin timber on every side of the Council Valley. Within only three or four decades after
1940, most of the Payette National Forest (except for Wilderness Areas) was logged
at least once, and the majority of the roads now in existence on the Forest
were built.
As
modes of transportation improved and the area centralized, the timber industry
followed the same trend. Most of the
small sawmills scattered around the country disappeared as it became more
practical to haul logs to big mills like the one in Council.
The
Council sawmill, and its associated logging operations quickly became a vital
anchor of the local economy. In 1957,
the Boise Payette Company merged with the Cascade Lumber Company of Yakima,
Washington, and adopted the name by which we know it today: the Boise Cascade
Corporation.
The
next year, (1958) the fire siren sounded in Council in the middle of the night,
and local citizens were stunned when they peered out their windows. The sawmill was engulfed in flames! The loss of this prominent part of the
community was unthinkable. But a new
mill that sported all the newest technology arose from the ashes, and it became
even more of a source of pride than the old mill.
Now, the community faces the
unthinkable once again. Looking at the
big picture, the fifty-five year period from 1940 to 1995 has been a short
one. Eventually, the pendulum will find
its equilibrium, the emotionalism and ignorance will subside, and a sustainable
way of managing the forests that is balanced with the needs of people will
emerge...maybe. There is an enormous
fly in the ointment.
At the time the mill was first
built, there were just over 2 billion people on earth. That number has more than doubled to about
5.7 billion. The number of trees big
enough to cut has not grown, or has even decreased. In another 50 years, the world's population is expected to double
again if we don't wise up.
I apologize for climbing on my soap
box, but I'm absolutely convinced that overpopulation is the most serious
problem we face - not just in the future - not just in the "third
world" - right here in Council, right now. The whole ball of wax - the salmon issue, the sustainable forest
issue, and every other environmental problem is either directly caused, or
greatly exacerbated, by more people needing more natural resources of which
there are continually less. There is no amount of recycling, replanting or
conserving that can possibly keep up with the suicidal growth rate we now have.
History
Corner 3-30-95
by Dale
Fisk
It
was almost midnight as Edgar Hall approached the outskirts of Boise City. His horse stumbled and almost fell as the
exhausted animal struggled to keep going through the blackness. The bottoms of Edgar's pant legs were stiff
with dried, lathered horse sweat. He
had been in the saddle for 16 hours without a rest. The bones in his backside felt like they had cut completely
through the muscles to rub relentlessly against the hard leather seat of the
saddle, and his legs ached for relief.
He had left Indian Valley at 8:00 AM that morning, and the only thing
that had kept him going for the past 100 miles was the hope that Sylvester
Smith was still alive, and that Edgar could send a doctor to him in time.
The August 22, 1878 issue of Boise's
newspaper, the Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman, was filled with accounts of various
military units in pursuit of hostile Indians all over the West. Almost as a casual side note, there was a
brief remark among the outlying-area news items. It said mail carrier, Solan Hall, had reported that Indians had
stolen three horses at Indian Valley.
This simple announcement would turn out to be opening sentence in one of
the most violent and tragic chapters in the history of Adams County.
About
a day and a half after the routine news of William Munday's stolen horses was
printed, the quiet slumber of the troops at the Boise Barracks was disrupted
about midnight by an exhausted, young man.
It was Solon Hall's 19 year old son, Edgar. He said that a doctor was badly needed. Three men had been killed by Indians, and a fourth victim was
lying seriously wounded at Calvin White's cabin at Salmon Meadows (now called
Meadows Valley).
The story of the "Long Valley
Massacre" has been retold and expounded until the real, factual details of
the event may never be known. There was
only one eye witness who survived the massacre, and he left no first hand
account. It is known that the chain of
events started on Saturday, August 17, 1878 when Indians stole some horses at
Indian Valley. Stories of the number of
animals that were taken range wildly, from three horses to sixty. Whatever the number, William Munday seems to
have been the principle victim of the crime.
One
improbable account of a possible contributing factor in the thievery was an
incident that reportedly occurred earlier that summer. About 70 Indians under Eagle Eye's
leadership were said to have been camped at Indian Valley near the farm of Tom Hailey. The Hailey place was south east of
"downtown" Indian Valley, at or near the present Atkins ranch. Hailey was said to have had an Indian
wife. The Indians were "holding
pow-wows" in the evenings, on a hill near the Hailey house. Hailey told them "If you don't stop
that, the Whites will kill every last one of you." So they stopped, but "kept plotting
against the whites". Because of
this, a grudge was supposedly initiated against Hailey and/or whites in
general.
Spelling in those days was not
standardized as it is today. This
applied to names as well. The name
"Hailey" was also spelled "Healy, Healey, or Haily" in
various accounts.
Solon
Hall and his sons, Edgar and Abner (Abby), farmed at Indian Valley and carried
mail on the 125 mile route between there and Warren. William Munday was the Postmaster at the Indian Valley Post
Office. His name could also be spelled
"Monday". His house was at or
near what is Ralph and Scotty Yantis's place now. If you remember, in a recent History Corner I told how the
panicked settlers had gathered at Munday's place before they built a fort,
during the Nez Perce War the year before.
One account says that Munday was
working for Solon Hall at the time the horses were stolen, harvesting hay or
grain. Munday reportedly left his team
tied to a wagon for the night, and they were gone the next morning. Ellis Snow's account said that Munday owned
a reaper drawn by four horses, and was cutting Hall's grain. He said the horses were stolen after they
had been turned loose to graze for the night.
Munday
was said to have been friends with certain Indians, and that he had hired them
to help on his farm. It is doubtful
that the horses were stolen by these natives.
The Indians were probably one of many wandering fragments of hostile
bands from outside the area that simply took advantage of the opportunity for
the time-honored Native American practice of stealing horses from an enemy.
To be continued next week.
This column is written to promote
the Council Museum. We are raising
money for a badly needed addition to our current space. (Our bank balance is now up to about
$3,350.) Please help by making a
donation at City Hall, mailing a check to Box 252, Council, or by dropping
something into the "Pennies for the Past" jars around town. You don't have to put your pennies into
rolls. We can do it for you.
Hey! We had a great turnout at the
slide show Saturday night. Thanks. Hope you all enjoyed it.
Bob Thompson sent photocopies of
pictures of Placer Basin and more. He
also sent a list of people he remembered working there. Thanks Bob!
I also got a call from people in Riggins who will let us copy their
photos of Tamarack taken in 1915.
Fantastic!
We finally met with the state
archivist concerning the photo project.
I can't emphasize enough how important this project is. For one thing, we are using your tax
money. That's where the Idaho Humanities
Council grant funds came from = about
$3500. To accomplish what needs to be
done, we need your help. We need new
pictures that I know are out there.
This is the best chance we will ever have to preserve them. One photo we are looking for is one of Dr.
Gerber. Surely somebody has a good one.
Also, we need to recopy some of the
photos that you have already let us copy.
Here is why. First, this time we
will be using a much better camera for higher quality copies. Second, the negatives will be processed and
stored in a way that will preserve them for the next hundred years and more, so
that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will have the priceless heritage
that we treasure.
The reason we haven't announced a
time and place to bring pictures, etc. is that we need to wrap up a few loose
ends first. In the mean time, please
find your old pictures - even ones not so old.
We are also interested in old, home movie footage, and are following up
on some leads on that. If you have any
questions or comments, please call me at 253-4582.
History
Corner 4-21-95
by Dale
Fisk
After interviewing Sylvester Smith
at White's Cabin at Meadows, Parker's volunteer group set out for the ambush
site. For reasons unknown, Capt. Drum
had not yet arrived at the site, even though his unit was much closer and knew
about the attack at least a day earlier than the volunteers.
Parker's group found 14 empty cartridges
scattered around the bodies of the victims; their cartridge belts lay empty
beside them. The rifles contained only empty shells. This evidently was all the ammunition the men had with them, as
it seemed obvious to Parker and the others that the Indians had not disturbed
the bodies at all to steal anything. It
appeared that the Indians had left in a hurry immediately after being unable to
find Smith.
Figuring that the army troop would
arrive soon and bury the dead, the four followed the trail of the Indians for
two days and nights, until a heavy rain storm wiped out any sign of the
tracks. They returned to the battle
site, and found that the army had buried the bodies and inscribed the names of
the victims on a rock above the common grave.
Along with the names, were the date of the ambush (August 20, 1878)
under and image of crossed rifles. A
hand carved on the rock pointed to the grave.
Parker's group must have been
completely out of rations, because they dug discarded bacon rinds out of the
fire pits left behind by the army, and ate them. The next day, Parker's group found the troop, spent one night
with them and then went on to White's cabin to check on Smith. The doctor had left for Boise the day
before, leaving the assurance that his patient was recovering so well that he
"could not be killed with and axe".
The four then returned to Weiser.
Captain
Drum later reported what he had found at the massacre site. He said that the bodies of the slain men
were about sixty yards from the spot where they had been killed. He continued:
"The bodies had been thrown together
in a pile by the Indians, but had not been scalped or mutilated. At the moment of attack Munday had been shot
dead by a bullet through he heart and had fallen from his horse, leaving his
gun hanging to the horn of the saddle.
The gun was found where it had been dropped by Munday's horse when he
ran from the scene. Groseclose was fatally shot soon after dismounting and his
horse fell into the hands of the Indians, but being a vicious and refractory
animal the horse escaped from them and was afterwards found running in the
hills some distance from the scene of the murder and was with difficulty caught
and brought in. Tom Healy made a fight
with the Indians, from behind the rocks where he first took up a position, as
three empty cartridges were found at that spot.
Parker
reported that at least some of the horses had been killed, saying, "The
carcasses of the horses were far apart in the valley."
Smith
had said that there had been at least 75 Indians in the group that attacked his
group, but Drum found sign of only fifteen at the most, and maybe as few as
only five.
Drum's unit followed the Indians trail at least eight miles past
the ambush site. Here, at
"Pearsall's Diggins", they found the bodies of two prospectors who
had evidently been killed the day after the Munday ambush, by the same Indians. One man was a Mr. Wilheim from Idaho
City. Not description was given as to how
or where his body was found, but the Statesman printed a grizzly account of the
second victim, Daniel Crooks of Mount Idaho:
"Crooks was found some distance
from the spot where the two were first attacked, lying in the grass on his
back. The grass was beaten down all
around him, as if a violent struggle had taken place. He had been shot through the body, and the last shot, which
seemed to have been given where he was found, was in the head at close range,
tearing completely of the frontal part of the skull and brain. He still held a rope in his hand and was
probably running to get his horse,..."
Many
years later, Bill Winkler gave the distinct impression that Three Fingered
Smith knew exactly who at least four of the Indians were. They were supposedly Eagle Eye, War
Jack(Shoshoni), Chuck (Lemhi Shoshoni) and Booyer (Blackfoot). Winkler said that, after spending "some
years" in Wyoming, Smith traveled about the country, locating and killing Chuck and Booyer. Apparently he couldn't locate War Jack or
Eagle Eye.
I find Winkler's story very
improbable. All during the
investigation, there was no indication that anyone involved had a clue as to
the identities of the Indians. The only
guess was made by General Howard, at
Walla Walla. He believed it was hostile
Nez Perce (returned from Canada) from White Bird's band who had done the
killing. One would think that if Smith
knew who had murdered three of his friends and neighbors, he would have
immediately informed Captain Drum and anyone else who could bring them to
justice. Aaron Parker met with Smith
again only five years after the massacre (1883) and interviewed him a second
time. Again, either Smith evidently said
nothing about who the Indians were or about his having wreaked revenge on them. If he had, Parker would certainly have
included it in his account.
It is no surprise that Eagle Eye was
a prime suspect, as he was usually blamed for almost every real or imagined
native depredation that occurred within a weeks ride. Ironically, there were eye witness reports that Eagle Eye had
been killed in the battle with the Umatillas just the month before this
massacre. These reports were
false.
Old time Indian fighter Ewing Craig
"Pinky" Baird, who was an independent Indian scout during this time,
and who was later a Council resident, boasted to Bill Winkler that he had
personally shot and killed Eagle Eye sometime after the Long Valley
Massacre. Baird bragged that he had
shot the Indian in the back while the man was getting a drink from a
stream. Either Baird coldly executed
an Indian that he thought was Eagle Eye, or he was a bald-faced liar. Eagle Eye
died of natural causes years later.
Whether or not Baird actually believed he had killed Eagle Eye, he went
so far as to give Charley Winkler a pair of moccasins that he claimed Eagle Eye
was wearing at the time he killed the chief.
These moccasins are now in the Winkler Museum in Council.
Sylvester
Smith eventually recovered from his wounds, but his health was never the same
again. He probably wasn't actually
known by his nick name "Three Fingers" or Three Fingered" until
sometime after the Long Valley Massacre.
He received this title after an accident. Visiting with a friend, Smith had one foot on the bottom rail of
a fence, with his hands folded together, resting over the business end of his
muzzle-loading shotgun. His foot
slipped off the rail, his knee hit the hammer of the gun and it went off. When the smoke cleared, the middle two
fingers on each of Smith's hands were gone.
In 1929, the Sons of Idaho
organization mounted a plaque on one of the rocks at the massacre grave
site. Part of our photo project, which
is funded by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, will be to get some
good photos of the grave site that were taken at about the time the plaque was
placed there. I've been told the grave
and markers are about 200 yards north east of the Cascade Reservoir dam. If anyone has better directions, give me a
call. I would like to find the spot.
We have finally set a date for our
open house and photo session at the museum.
We will be holding two afternoon - evening sessions from 1:00 PM to 8:00
PM on consecutive Fridays, May 5 and 12 at the museum. Please bring your photos
at that time to be copied. If you will
not be able to do this, please call me and make other arrangements. If anybody has a light table (copy stand)
that we could use for a couple weeks to copy photos, please call me. (253-4582) Stay tuned for more info.
History
Corner 5-5-95
by Dale Fisk
If you are reading this on Friday,
May 5, the museum board is at the museum copying old photos, talking to people
about the stories behind the pictures they bring in and generally having a good
time while working very hard. Come on
in, whether you have photos or not.
We'll be here from 1 PM until 8 PM, and the same next Friday, the
12th. I have a cassette tape recorded
to go with the slide show about Council's history, so if you want to see it,
you can on either Friday. It's a half
hour long.
I have to tell you about the
wonderful photo discoveries so far in this project. Last week, I stopped at the Weiser Court House and saw Lisa
McKnight, the great granddaughter of Frank
Harris. Harris was an attorney and
judge in this area in the early days. Lisa
has a photo album with pictures of Frenchy David and his daughter, the inside
of the Blue Jacket Mine with men at work, views of Landore that I had never
seen, and more. She said I could copy
any of them I liked. I felt like a kid
in a candy store.
The next day, I visited with Willard
Bethel in Boise. He is June Childers's
brother, and a great guy. He was born,
and spent many of his formative years, at Fruitvale. He had a few great photos, including area pioneers such as Bill
and Jane Harp, Miles Chaffee and George and Martha Robertson. He also gave me the name and number of
someone who probably has more.
Then I spent several hours looking
through the files of the State Historical Library and Archives. I had done this before, and found over 60
photos that we don't have and are relevant to our local history. This time, I went through a set of files I
hadn't noticed before, and found bunches more.
Maybe the most interesting one was of Sylvester "Three
Fingered" Smith, the man who survived the Long Valley Massacre that has
been the subject of my last few articles.
It is a very poor photo, but what an exciting find! We are working on a trade between the
Historical Society and our museum for copies of some of these pictures.
It is really sad to think about all
the wonderful pictures that have been lost over the years. I find mention of them once in a while in
the old newspapers. Here are a few
examples.
In the Idaho Citizen newspaper, Aug
7, 1891, there was mention that "Professor Rhodes has taken many photos of
the Seven Devils recently." The
same paper, in 1896, said, "Photographer, D. Marsh, of Weiser, is in
Council where he will remain about a week." We may have some of his photos in our collection. The Weiser Signal, July 16, 1904, talking
about happenings in the Seven Devils, said, "Every eight days, Stuart
French, the official photographer of the company, takes views of the town
(Landore) to keep tabs on the splendid progress." We probably have some of those too.
One that makes me very curious is a
reference in the Council Leader, Apr
30, 1909. It mentions a
"folder" published by the Pacific & Idaho Northern Railroad with
articles and photos about the area between Weiser to Long Valley. What I wouldn't give for a copy!
In the Council Leader, Fri. July 2, 1909: "P. Van Graven,
Weiser photographer took some fine photos of the Council area last
week." In the Council Leader, Fri. July 2, 1909 it was mentioned that W.T.
Colvin has purchased the Rocky Mt. photo car, and "will be a permanent
stand hereafter at Council." Does
anybody know what that was about?
In the Adams County Leader, Jan 23,
1931, it was reported that Frank Peters brought big timbers through town for
the new bridge across the Weiser river at the mouth of Cottonwood creek, from
Pole Creek with 2 four horse teams and special sleds. W.F. Winkler took a good photo.
If we have those in the museum, I don't remember seeing them.
Just about everyone has seen the
1911 or 1912 picture of Adams County's first officials standing in front of the
first court house. J.D. Neale was the
superintendent of schools at the time and was in the photo. Years later, in 1936, Neale said, "I am always impressed with the brutal
frankness with which myself and my friends there have their likenesses recorded
for posterity."
The Adams County Leader, July 21,
1939 said that the July 10 issue of
Life magazine featured a photo of "Hell's Canyon". Anybody have a copy of that issue?
There is a picture of Council in the
library, and at the museum, that was
taken from an airplane. We didn't know
exactly when it was taken, but I ran across info on it in the Adams County
Leader for Feb 6, 1948. The photo was
on the front page. It was taken by
Howard Jeppson (formerly of Council) and Fred Ulrich of Boise in January of
that year.
Speaking of old photos and losing
them. Right now would be a good time to
get out your pen and write the names of the people on the back of your family
photos. So many times, the older
members of a family die and leave old pictures that nobody knows anything
about. Please don't let this happen to
the priceless legacy you have to leave your descendants. Go through your old pictures, write who,
where and when on the back of them, and while you're at it pick out the ones
that should be copied for the museum.
History
Corner 5-12-95
by Dale
Fisk
Jim Camp told me something very
interesting about the Long Valley Massacre site. It's underwater. No
wonder I couldn't find it. I knew that
the Cascade Reservoir was only created fairly recently (1950s?). Jim says he's pretty sure that the remains
of the men killed in the ambush were moved to another location. I have seen photos of a metal plaque (placed
there in 1929) and of a marble headstone (placed when?) with the names of the
men on it. The head stone was surely
moved to the new grave site. If anybody
has some information about this, especially the location of the new grave site,
please let me in on it. This is such a
dramatic story, that it would be nice to know.
We're making great progress on the
photo project. We have copied about 75
new photos so far, and we know of more that will be brought in. I went to Geneva Barry's house last week and
copied a bunch of pictures concerning Indian Valley history. She has one of her relatives standing in front of Solan Hall's old house. The Lindsays bought Hall's house in
1881. It stood about where Geneva lives
now, at 700 Indian Valley road.
Geneva told me a little about how a
number of women from this area went to work in defense plants in Seattle and
Portland during WWII. During this 50th
anniversary of the end of the war, most of the attention is, of course, going
to the men who sacrificed so much.
Geneva's story is an interesting example. She left two small children behind in 1942, and went to Seattle
to work in a sheet metal plant. She
assembled air ducts for airplanes. Then
she worked as a welder at a ship yard in Portland for about two years. She said jobs were scarce in this area, and
the jobs that a person could find, didn't pay much. I think she said they were paid 72 cents an hour in the defense
plants, and that was pretty good money at the time.
Geneva is related to the Lindsays,
Linders, Haworths and Mannings of Indian Valley. Mel Manning brought in some great pictures of the Mannings and
other Indian Valley people, places and events.
We copied some of the rodeo at the Adams County fair that was held in
Indian Valley in, I think it was the 1920s.
The "arena" seemed to be an open field with no fence around
it, and the ground looks very hard to get bucked off onto. Some of the pictures of area cowboys of the
time look like they came right out of Hollywood.
Speaking of the Mannings, one of the
best stories to go with a photo is the one that goes with a picture of Edward
Manning. He is said to have been the
one who is responsible for bringing the first crab grass to this area. He raved about the hardiness and nutritional
value of this new variety of grass, and bought enough to plant 40 acres. Well ... it certainly is hardy. Thanks Ed.
Hank Daniels brought in some prints
and slides of Council in the 1960s.
Remember when the drygoods department of Shavers was a bank? Remember the old Ham's Texaco station? Unfortunately, Hank didn't have a good one of
the Texaco station. We have a good one
of it in about 1925, but we would like
a later one too. Doesn't ANYBODY have one?
A couple people have mentioned
having old home movies of the Council area.
The most exciting one was shot during the 1930s, and includes the Adams
County Rodeo. We are going to look into
how to preserve or copy or get still photos ... or ? ... from these. Anybody have any ideas or experience with
this? We would sure like some info.
We are still looking for some
pictures that we know are out there somewhere because they have been published
in the local newspapers. One is a view
of the town square with the "Addington Auto Company" in the
background. It shows a large group of
people planting the locust trees there in 1917 on New Years day. Please, somebody help us find this one! The text under the picture says that it came
from "the Addington collection at the Council Library", but the library
certainly doesn't have it now. It was
printed in the Record - don't know what issue.
All I have is the cut out clipping from the paper.
Another one that we absolutely must
find shows the McMahan school at Fruitvale in 1907. It was brought to the Record by Millie Bethel - don't know what
year, but it was January, and Don Mentor was the Council Mayor. It's not important when it was in the paper,
but I hope somebody can tell me who has this photograph now.
Another one is of Council's main
street (Illinois Ave.) looking west in 1913 or1914. It shows the Weed store, Freehaffer's restaurant, Rainwater's
grocery, and the whole north side of the street from there west to where
Shavers is now. It ran in the Record
twice, and was brought in by Lydia Bokamper.
Please help us track it down.
We will be at the museum again this
Friday (May 12) from 1 PM to 8 PM copying photos that you bring in, and
generally gathering info and working on our photo project. Bring in your photos or just drop by to get
in on the fun. If you have photos that
are in an album, we can copy them without taking them out or harming them in
any way.
Don't forget about donating anything
you can to our museum improvement project.
The pennies are still rolling in.
If this were a contest, the Seven Devils cafe and the Library would be
neck and neck as to which penny collection jar received the most money so
far.
I took my slide show to the fourth
grade class last week, and they put together a donation of $9.67 for the
museum. Then Jeremy Stoker brought me
another $1.50 on his own.
Our bank balance is now close to
$3800. Our very sincere thanks to all
of you who have given to this cause, in whatever amount. It is very, very appreciated.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
I'm sad to say that Council has lost
another Landmark: Bert Rogers, publisher of the Adams County Leader.
The first newspaper in this area to
regularly print Council news was the Weiser City Leader, established in
1882. It changed names and ownership
several times over the years, but is essentially the same "Signal"
paper as is printed there now.
The next was the Idaho Citizen,
beginning in 1891 at Salubria. It soon
became the Salubria Citizen, and when Cambridge was established, the paper
moved there and became the Cambridge News.
It is also still in business.
The first paper in what is now Adams
County was the Seven Devils Standard at Cuprum in 1898, published by C.W.
Jones. Jones was a man with big dreams
who didn't seem to stick with anything very long. He sold out to D.C. Boyd in February of 1899. The Standard was shortly taken over by R.E. Lockwood
and Frank Edlin. The paper lasted
through July 1902 when it was moved to Meadows to be published as the
"Eagle".
In the meantime, C.W. Jones is said
to have established the town site of Decorah in late 1900. If Jones did indeed establish Decorah, he
apparently had no grandiose plans to ride this horse to fame and fortune, and
bailed out very early in the game. By
1902, he was in Council, busily publishing the "Advance" newspaper,
in head to head competition with L.S.
Cool's "Council Journal" which
had been established in October 1900.
The Journal office was located on the north west corner of Moser Avenue
and Main Street. By 1905, Cool had
acquired the Advance. He published this
paper in his home across Main Street and north of his former address. This house later became the first Adams
County Courthouse in 1911, and still later, it was Bill Winkler's home. The Advance ceased publication when Cool
left Council for Weiser sometime in 1905.
Council had no paper for a few
years, until in October of 1908, the first issue of the Council Leader was
published by Ivan M. Durrell. It was a
four page paper until 1910, when it became eight pages. Much of it was preprinted material that was
syndicated to many papers, and contained national news and advertisements. In 1911, the paper became owned by
stockholders in the community under the name " The Council Publishing
Company". An attorney named James
Stinson joined the Leader staff as editor, with Durrell as manager.
At this time, there were two other
newspapers in the newly-created Adams County: the Meadows Eagle and the New
Meadows Tribune. They were joined the
next year by the Fruitvale Echo, and all four worked hard to promote their
respective communities as the only one fit to become the center of government
for the new county.
In 1912, Stinson was replaced by
Fred Mullin who had been publishing the Long Valley Advocate. It is unclear where the Leader office was
until this point, but in November of 1913, it was moved to a little building on
the alley behind Dr. Brown's new brick structure on the north west corner of
Galena Street and Illinois Avenue.
Mullin was fond of editorializing,
and had an acid pen when provoked. An
in-print feud developed in 1914, between Mullin and William Freeman of New
Meadows who was running for political office.
Freeman finally ordered Mullin to cancel his subscription, writing,
"Kill it! Pie it! Hell box it! Anyway to relieve me." To which Mullin replied, "The above pus
runs from a sore in the Meadows valley that has been lanced and he wants to
represent us in the state legislature."
In 1915, the Council Publishing
Company was dissolved, and the paper was sold to Fred Michaelson who also
served as an Adams County probate judge.
Michaelson had run a paper in Sauk Center, Minnesota where he employed a
young man named Sinclair Lewis. Lewis
later went on to become one of the best known authors in the U.S. It was Michaelson who changed the name of
the "Council Leader" to the "Adams County Leader".
Unfortunately, all the issues of the
Leader from mid 1915 through 1919 that were kept in the newspaper's office were
lost when the office was moved to another location in town. Most of the 1919 issues have been replaced
recently, from those kept by Matilda Moser at the Courthouse. But the others, aside from a few, scattered
issues, are a priceless window into the past that is gone forever.
By 1920 the Leader was the only
paper being published in Adams County.
That year, the office was moved to an apartment house at __ Michigan
Avenue. This big, old, square, stucco building is still standing, and can be
seen in old photos from as early as 1912. It is rumored to have housed
prostitutes in the apartments upstairs during Council's wilder days.
In May of 1922, the paper was sold
to E.E. Southard. He started printing
the first comic strips to appear in the Leader. In 1926, the paper was purchased by William Lemon, another
gentleman who served as a probate judge for the County.
When
the Pomona Hotel was sold at public auction in 1928, Lemon bought it and moved
there with his newspaper. During the
depression, the paper almost went under.
It was reduced to its former size of four pages for a few years. In 1937, the present Adams County Leader
office building was constructed at 105 Michigan Avenue, just south of its old
headquarters (the big stucco building).
In
1937, Lemon leased the paper to his right-hand man, Carryl Wines. Wines ran the paper until 1944, when Lemon
sold it to F.E. and Harriet Rogers of Long Beach, California.(Adams County
Leader, Aug 4, 1944)
FIND WHEN F.E. DIED, THAT'S WHEN
BERT STARTED HELPING HIS MOTHER. SHE
RETIRED FROM ACTIVE PUBLISHING IN __ .
NOTE BURT'S ACCIDENT,ETC.
Bert took over the Leader in 1948, and has run the presses ever
since. As far as I know, it is the last
publication of any kind to be still using the old lead type machines that were
antiques long before now. Bert may have
been the last person who really knew how to run one. How he kept the old machinery running, when replacement parts
must not be made anymore, has to be a story in itself.
Our heart-felt sympathy goes out to
Shirley and the family. Bert will be
missed.
If anyone has old copies of the
Leader for these missing dates, mid 1915 through 1918, please PLEASE let me
look at them. The Leader has been one
of the main sources of information for the history that I am writing. Also, any old clippings about local history
from any source would be very welcome.
Some of you have already contributed invaluable pieces of information
like this, and you have my sincere thanks.
Pictures are also very important.
Fran Caward just sent a wonderful photo of Dora Black and another of
Dora and Billie. Bob Thompson, an old
Fruitvale boy (now in Spokane), called last week to say he is sending photos
of the Placer Basin mill and
buildings! He says hello to all his old
friends here.
This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2770.
We need at least $10,000 to start our much needed museum addition
project. Please help. Donations made as memorials will be
acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the person in who's honor
the contribution was made. Please send
contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
History
Corner 2-8-95(?)
by Dale
Fisk
During the Bannock War, a
significant wagon train reached Boise.
This group of immigrants contained more people who would become pioneers
of the Council Valley than any single group before or since. It also must have been one of the most
complexly interrelated groups. Among
the crew were:
Hardy and Rena Harp, and their two small sons
William and Jane Harp, and two sons
Sam Harp (single)
16 year old Elizabeth Harp
George and
Martha Robertson (Martha was the sister of Hardy, William, Sam and
Elizabeth Harp)
James
Copeland and his very pregnant wife, Ida
George A.
and Letitia Winkler and their children:
George M.(1856-1920), Mark (1858-1921),
William F. (1866-1939), Lewis (1867- 1952), James (1869-1956)
The group was bound for the Council
Valley, enticed there by the presence of the Keslers. Martha Kesler (Alex's wife) was Letitia Winkler's sister and Ida
Copeland's mother. When the group had
reached Missouri, George M. Winkler (George and Letitia's son) and Elizabeth
Harp had eloped and gotten married before returning to the caravan. Now, the Robertsons, Harps, Copelands,
Keslers and Winklers were all related to each other through one marriage or
another.
Since Boise was the last real
outpost of civilization in the general area, the Harps and Robertsons decided
to stay near there until they could decide for sure where they wanted to
settle.
The Winklers and Copelands rolled
into the Council Valley on August 6, 1878.
The worst of the Bannock War was over, but the settlers here were still
spending time in the fort. When Ida Copeland gave birth in a small log cabin
near the fort in September, William Copeland became the first white child to be
born in the Council Valley. Edgar Moser
has sometimes been credited with this distinction, but he was not born until
about four months later, in January of 1879.
The first white girl born here was Matilda Moser, in 1881.
It is interesting to note that about
this time the Council area was often referred to as "Hornet" or
"Hornet Creek". This seems
reasonable, since it is at this point along the Weiser River that Hornet Creek enters
it.
Lucy McMahan said, "In 1877 the settlers met to name
the valley. The majority wanted to call
it "Moser Valley", but Mr. Moser objected to the name. So they decided to call it Council
Valley,...". The next year
(1878) the Postal Department allowed "Council Valley" as the official
name of the post office here.
George Moser's nickname was
"Buckshot", and some early residents referred to the town by that
name, even long after the it was officially named Council in 1896.
I would like to thank Mary Owens for
a donation in memory of Ed Kesler. Thanks
Mary. Our fund stands at about $3,240.
The Pennies for the Past drive is kind of fun, and is bringing in a
pretty good haul of them - about $50 worth so far. Keep 'em comin'! So far,
none of our grant applications have panned out, but ACDC may be able to get a
good chunk of money from Farm Bill funds. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Don't forget the slide show Saturday
night (25th) at the library at 8 PM. I
guarantee you will learn some interesting things you didn't know about the
history of this town.
Our plans to make plans with the
state archivist didn't pan out last week (twice), so we are trying again today
(Friday, 24th). We kind of have to wait
until we meet with him to start our photo gathering campaign. The short version of the story is that we
got a grant from the Humanities Council to copy and preserve historic
photographs. Please start digging them
out of the closets! This is our big
chance to do it right. Remember, we are
especially desperate for old Fruitvale photos.
There don't seem to be any of the old stores. We need pictures of people, places, events .. anything relative
to Council's history up to the present.
Next week starts the only real story
of Indian vs Settler violence in the history of this area. Don't miss it.
History
Corner 2-13-95
by Dale
Fisk
The year after the Moser's arrived
(1877), two more families settled in the Council Valley: the Whites and
Lovelesses.
Robert
and Ellenor White and their children had traveled West with the Mosers, but had
spent the winter in Boise before continuing to Council Valley. Robert later became Council's first
Postmaster, first school teacher, and probably the first justice of the peace.
Zadock
Loveless was a widower who came here with his son Bill. They took up a parcel of land that joined
the north end of the Moser property.
Lucy McMahan, an early pioneer of the area, said that Loveless built the
first house in Council in 1876, but didn't live here until 1877.
The new families had barely settled
into their new locations, when a storm of terror blew in from the north.
The following story is purely
fictional, although the names, ages, places and background events depicted here are true to the facts as
recorded.
George Reibolt was dog tired and
sagged wearily in the saddle as he rode into the Council Valley. He had been riding all night in a desperate
effort to get to Boise as soon as possible.
As Reibolt approached the Moser
place, there was a wagon and team out front. Sixteen-year-old Lewis Harrington sat in the shade of the
wagon and watched the rider approach.
Lewis's nine year old brother, Robert, and their younger sister, Mary,
were playing along the creek about a hundred feet south of the Moser cabin. George dismounted in front of Lewis.
"Son, will you water my horse
for me?" Lewis took the
reins. "Make sure he drinks
slowly, and not too much. He's pretty
hot," George added. Lewis was
irritated that the man would think he needed to be told how to take care of a
horse. After all, he was practically a
grown man.
George turned toward the cabin as
two men sauntered out to greet him.
Introductions were made all around.
The younger man, who appeared to be about forty, was Reil Harrington. Harrington, a widower, had come to Indian
Valley with his four children the year before.
His oldest boy, James, had not come with them today on this trip to
examine some potential homestead land on Hornet Creek. George Reibolt had never met George Moser,
but he had certainly heard of him.
"You look like you're in a
devil of a hurry, George," Moser
said.
"Yes Sir, I am." Reibolt handed him an envelope. "I left
Warrens late yesterday, and I need to get this to Governor Brayman as soon as
possible."
Moser unfolded the letter, and, with
Reil looking over his shoulder, began reading.
The first sentence sent a chill up his spine and almost made him drop
the letter: "The Nez Perce Indians are on the warpath." As he read on as quickly as he could, his
anxiety grew. Names and locations of men, women and little children who had
been murdered seemed to go on interminably.
Worst of all, it was obvious that the savages were heading SOUTH. One statement referring to the little town of
Mount Idaho jumped out at him:"It is greatly feared that the entire
Settlement has been annihilated...."
Moser and Harrington finished
reading the letter and looked up silently at Reibolt as if they wanted him to
say it was all untrue. Instead, he
added to their fears.
"It gets worse," he
started hesitantly. "Cavalry
troops had a fight with the savages in White Bird canyon, and got beat pretty
bad ... lost 36 men. The hostiles are
headed this way, and the soldiers can't stop 'em."
The shaken men abruptly wrapped up
their conversation, and Reibolt went on his way south. Reil Harrington gathered his children into
the wagon and hurried along the rough wagon trail in the same direction. The word was spread quickly, and soon the
Whites, Lovelesses and Henry Childs followed Reibolt and the Harringtons.
-
Some of the early "information" that spread about the Nez
Perce war was untrue or exaggerated, but is included because it is what the
settlers heard. The last statement,
attributed to Reibolt, is from a letter sent to Governor Brayman from Milton
Kelley of Indian Valley, and sent on to Boise with Reibolt. Although it was initially reported in the
letter that 36 soldiers had been killed at Whitebird, there were really 34
killed and four wounded. No Indians
were killed until later battles.
When the Council Valley settlers arrived at William Munday's
farm (at or near the present home of
Ralph and Scotty Yantis), they found about 20 to 25 women and children, and
about that many men, gathered in a confused state of panic.
Among this congregation was the
family of Alex and Martha Kesler, and Alex's brother, Andrew. They had arrived in the Salubria Valley
about a year earlier. Only about
two thirds of the men had guns, and ammunition was very scarce. George Reibolt continued on to Boise,
accompanied by Edgar or Abner Hall. They
carried letters from the local citizens in which they practically begged
Territorial Governor Brayman to send 100 well-armed citizens, 25 more guns for
local men, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
On the outside of one letter, was penciled, "Those Indians are
blood thirsty. They are getting all the
supplies and Liquor they want and will jump on fresh horse and come here in 36
hours after they leave Salmon if they come this way."
The
fear that Council and Indian Valley settlers had of Indians during this time is
hard to overstate. The morbid details
of the Custer disaster, that had occurred almost exactly a year earlier, were
still a common topic of discussion.
Indians were pretty much roaming wherever they pleased all over the
Territory during this time, and now there was serious concern that Eagle Eye's
group would join in the fighting and slaughter every white person they could
find.
The
fear of Indian attack in this part of the Territory almost invariably
proved worse than the actual danger. According to Indian Valley lore, in one
tragic case, it was fatal. Margaret
Hall was left home alone at Indian Valley a great deal of the time because her
sons (Edgar and Abner) and husband (Solon) were often gone, carrying mail. She was hysterically afraid that Indians
would attack her at these times. In
1877 her fear overcame her and she took her own life rather than live with such
horror. Such stories are not altogether
uncommon in the history of the West.
More than a few pioneer women felt overwhelmed by feelings of being
trapped and alone in the middle of nowhere.
Again, I'm sad to note to passing of
another Council Valley Landmark. Ed
Kesler was, if I have my facts straight, the great grandson of Alex Kesler,
mentioned above. He will be
missed. Ed was involved with the museum
as much as his health would allow during the past couple of years. This column is written to promote
support for the Council museum. The
current balance in our account is about $2,900. We need at least $10,000 to start our much needed museum addition
project. Please help. Donations made as memorials will be
acknowledged in this column, along with the name of the person in who's honor
the contribution was made. Please send
contributions to P.O. Box 252, Council, ID 83612. Make your check out to the Winkler Museum.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Human beings are an interesting
species. When the first non-native
people came to the West, they acted as if they had no concept of the idea that
natural resources like timber, grazing, game animals or land had any kind of
limits. Like kids in a free candy
store, they ate as much as they could as fast as they could. It took a few decades for the stomach ache
to set in. Now, people have started
running full speed in the opposite direction: don't cut any timber, kill any
animals, graze any grass ... don't do anything that isn't
"natural". And spend six
million dollars replacing the wolves that our grandparents paid to have
eradicated. I guess it would be more
accurate to say they are "adding to" the wolves that are already
replacing themselves.
Trying to instantly turn around the long - time, fundamental
practices of a society in this way is like throwing a ten ton truck into
reverse at 90 miles per hour. The only
comfort to be found is in knowing that social tends often to go to extremes
before they settle on a more sensible compromise somewhere in the middle. So there is hope.... eventually.
Last week, we were all shocked to
hear that the Boise Cascade mill will be closing. Talk about a Landmark.
Some of us can't remember a time when a mill wasn't there.
It all started in the fall of1938,
when the Boise Payette Company bought fifty-three acres from Bill Winkler on
which to build a mill. The paper
reported, "It is said that the
life of the local plant during the time of cutting the adjacent timber will be
approximately twelve years. If, after
that, the Meadows timber holdings should come to this plant, the life of the local
plant would be indefinite." "When this operation was originally
planned, the company had no idea of remilling and storing its lumber at Council
but had planned to truck haul the lumber from the [portable] mill in the woods
[at Old Davis on Crooked River] to Council, load it on cars there and ship it
to Emmett for remilling."
"Neither the present roadbed or bridges between Council and Crooked
river and Bear will stand the heavy traffic required by this operation."
By the summer of 1940, the mill was in
operation. The mill, the new technology
and the aggressive logging activity of the company brought a growth spurt to
Council. The population expanded as
many new families moved in. About a
dozen portable houses were moved to Council from the camp at Old Davis to house
these new arrivals. The houses were put
on land the company bought on the west side of the railroad tracks where
remodeled versions of some of them continue to be used today.
Mechanized
logging had started in the 1930s, but the Depression had put a damper on many
business ventures. In spite of
shortages of manpower and other basics during World War II, the demand for
lumber and the momentum of the Boise Payette Co. was high enough to sustain a
boom in the Council area. After the
war, two critical factors came together to start a new era in the timber
industry.
First,
the housing boom that followed World War II created an unprecedented demand for
lumber. Second, by that time, chain
saws, logging trucks, crawler tractors and other machinery needed for modern
timber harvesting had evolved to the point of being fairly dependable and
available. In the old days, it had been
a monumental task to build a road into the mountains to harvest timber. With "cats" miles of roads could
be built with relative ease. Because logging
had been on a comparatively small scale up until this time, there were vast
roadless tracts of virgin timber on every side of the Council Valley. Within only three or four decades after
1940, most of the Payette National Forest (except for Wilderness Areas) was
logged at least once, and the majority of the roads now in existence on the
Forest were built.
As
modes of transportation improved and the area centralized, the timber industry
followed the same trend. Most of the
small sawmills scattered around the country disappeared as it became more
practical to haul logs to big mills like the one in Council.
The
Council sawmill, and its associated logging operations quickly became a vital
anchor of the local economy. In 1957,
the Boise Payette Company merged with the Cascade Lumber Company of Yakima,
Washington, and adopted the name by which we know it today: the Boise Cascade
Corporation.
The
next year, (1958) the fire siren sounded in Council in the middle of the night,
and local citizens were stunned when they peered out their windows. The sawmill was engulfed in flames! The loss of this prominent part of the
community was unthinkable. But a new
mill that sported all the newest technology arose from the ashes, and it became
even more of a source of pride than the old mill.
Now, the community faces the
unthinkable once again. Looking at the
big picture, the fifty-five year period from 1940 to 1995 has been a short
one. Eventually, the pendulum will find
its equilibrium, the emotionalism and ignorance will subside, and a sustainable
way of managing the forests that is balanced with the needs of people will
emerge...maybe. There is an enormous
fly in the ointment.
At the time the mill was first
built, there were just over 2 billion people on earth. That number has more than doubled to about
5.7 billion. The number of trees big
enough to cut has not grown, or has even decreased. In another 50 years, the world's population is expected to double
again if we don't wise up.
I apologize for climbing on my soap
box, but I'm absolutely convinced that overpopulation is the most serious
problem we face - not just in the future - not just in the "third
world" - right here in Council, right now. The whole ball of wax - the salmon issue, the sustainable forest
issue, and every other environmental problem is either directly caused, or
greatly exacerbated, by more people needing more natural resources of which
there are continually less. There is no amount of recycling, replanting or
conserving that can possibly keep up with the suicidal growth rate we now have.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
During the Bannock War, a
significant wagon train reached Boise.
This group of immigrants contained more people who would become pioneers
of the Council Valley than any single group before or since. It also must have been one of the most
complexly interrelated groups. Among
the crew were:
Hardy and Rena Harp, and their two small sons
William and Jane Harp, and two sons
Sam Harp (single)
16 year old Elizabeth Harp
George and
Martha Robertson (Martha was the sister of Hardy, William, Sam and
Elizabeth Harp)
James
Copeland and his very pregnant wife, Ida
George A.
and Letitia Winkler and their children:
George M.(1856-1920), Mark (1858-1921),
William F. (1866-1939), Lewis (1867- 1952), James (1869-1956)
The group was bound for the Council
Valley, enticed there by the presence of the Keslers. Martha Kesler (Alex's wife) was Letitia Winkler's sister and Ida
Copeland's mother. When the group had
reached Missouri, George M. Winkler (George and Letitia's son) and Elizabeth
Harp had eloped and gotten married before returning to the caravan. Now, the Robertsons, Harps, Copelands,
Keslers and Winklers were all related to each other through one marriage or
another.
Since Boise was the last real
outpost of civilization in the general area, the Harps and Robertsons decided
to stay near there until they could decide for sure where they wanted to
settle.
The Winklers and Copelands rolled into
the Council Valley on August 6, 1878.
The worst of the Bannock War was over, but the settlers here were still
spending time in the fort. When Ida Copeland gave birth in a small log cabin
near the fort in September, William Copeland became the first white child to be
born in the Council Valley. Edgar Moser
has sometimes been credited with this distinction, but he was not born until
about four months later, in January of 1879.
The first white girl born here was Matilda Moser, in 1881.
It is interesting to note that about
this time the Council area was often referred to as "Hornet" or
"Hornet Creek". This seems
reasonable, since it is at this point along the Weiser River that Hornet Creek
enters it.
Lucy McMahan said, "In 1877 the settlers met to name
the valley. The majority wanted to call
it "Moser Valley", but Mr. Moser objected to the name. So they decided to call it Council
Valley,...". The next year
(1878) the Postal Department allowed "Council Valley" as the official
name of the post office here.
George Moser's nickname was
"Buckshot", and some early residents referred to the town by that
name, even long after the it was officially named Council in 1896.
I would like to thank Mary Owens for
a donation in memory of Ed Kesler. Thanks
Mary. Our fund stands at about $3,240.
The Pennies for the Past drive is kind of fun, and is bringing in a
pretty good haul of them - about $50 worth so far. Keep 'em comin'! So far,
none of our grant applications have panned out, but ACDC may be able to get a
good chunk of money from Farm Bill funds. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Don't forget the slide show Saturday
night (25th) at the library at 8 PM. I
guarantee you will learn some interesting things you didn't know about the
history of this town.
Our plans to make plans with the
state archivist didn't pan out last week (twice), so we are trying again today
(Friday, 24th). We kind of have to wait
until we meet with him to start our photo gathering campaign. The short version of the story is that we
got a grant from the Humanities Council to copy and preserve historic
photographs. Please start digging them
out of the closets! This is our big
chance to do it right. Remember, we are
especially desperate for old Fruitvale photos.
There don't seem to be any of the old stores. We need pictures of people, places, events .. anything relative
to Council's history up to the present.
Next week starts the only real story
of Indian vs Settler violence in the history of this area. Don't miss it.
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
I've been interrupting the
chronological flow of these articles with things that come up. This week, I'll get back to where I left
off. You may remember I was telling
about the Indian wars in Idaho in the 1860s, then how they subsided about 1868,
and the Weiser River Valleys began to be settled.
I mentioned Henry Childs, who was
the first known settler in the Council area.
Another old bachelor, who lived farther up Hornet Creek than Childs, was
John Mulligan. It isn't known just when
he arrived here, but it may have been before the first family arrived in 1876.
By 1870, the heyday of placer mining
in Idaho Territory was over, other
occupations pulled ahead, and the population shrank from its previous high of
20,000 down to 15,000.
All
during the 1860s and 1870s, there was continual hue and cry to put all Indians
on reservations. But the management of
reservations was a bureaucratic quagmire, and the money sent from Congress to
support impounded natives was pathetically inadequate. To keep the reservation Indians from
starving, they were allowed to leave the reservations and fend for themselves
for extended periods.
In
1873, the Modoc Indians in south western Oregon chose to fight rather than
return to their reservation. The
resulting Modoc War instilled deep apprehension in both Whites and natives in
Idaho. Everyone realized that the
situation here was teetering on the brink of the same kind of disaster.
Even
though Eagle Eye's Shoshoni band along the Weiser River kept a low profile,
they were the target of a great deal of white resentment because their
territory was the site of larger and larger intertribal gatherings. As tribes from outside the Council Valley began
to visit this last place of refuge in growing numbers, some of the outside
Indians stayed permanently. In spite of
the odds against peaceful coexistence, Eagle Eye was able to maintain relative
tranquility between the whites and all the natives who visited, or lived, in
his area.
In
March of 1874, Eagle Eye was ordered to bring his band in to the Fort Hall
reservation. He refused, and because of
a lack of funds, the authorities were unable to enforce the order.
The
next year (1875), the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce tribe was ordered to
surrender to reservation life, and their lands were opened to white
settlement. This was the band of which
Chief Joseph was a member, and was the last of the free-roaming bands of the Nez Perce. The Wallowas refused to come
in, but the government was still too under-funded and disorganized to do
anything about them or Eagle Eye.
The
following summer (1876), settlers on the upper Weiser heard rumors through
local Indians about a big Indian victory over the horse soldiers. The battle had supposedly occurred very
recently in the buffalo country east of the Rocky Mountains. Days later, vivid accounts came from Boise
of how Indian savages had slaughtered Custer's valiant Seventh Cavalry on the
Little Big Horn River in Montana. How
the Weiser Indians had received word of this battle before local whites had
heard about it left the settlers feeling uneasy. News of the Custer massacre only accented the fears of Idaho
whites, and deepened their resolve to rid the Territory of Indians.
(I can't remember who told me the
story just mentioned. If anyone can
give me the name of an old timer from whom they heard this, I would feel better
about including it in my book. Call me:
253-4582.)
The
family of George and Elizabeth Moser was the first white family to settle in
the Council Valley, arriving in the fall of 1876. When the Mosers first arrived at the present site of Council,
they camped along a tiny creek, a short distance west of where the creek flowed
between a small, rocky knob and a larger hill that sat, somewhat conspicuously,
in the southern part of the valley.
This camp site was in what would someday be the west side of Council,
just west of the present intersection of Moser and Railroad streets, near where
the train depot later stood. The fact
that much of the area was a jungle of brush indicated that there was good farm
land underneath.
Near
this location, there was a fork in the well-worn trail through the valley. The west branch was an Indian trail that
went up Hornet Creek, and on to the Seven Devils Mountains. Even though copper deposits had been found
in the Seven Devils fourteen years earlier, there was little or no mining
activity there when the Mosers arrived.
The main trail, probably also originally and Indian path, was being used
by pack trains going on north to Salmon Meadows (later called Meadows Valley)
and the gold mining country around Warren and Florence. There were still no wagon roads this side
of Indian Valley at that time, but the trail north was well traveled. Since Warren had swollen to a population of
about 5,000, pack trains of up to 100 animals sometimes traveled this
route, just to supply the town with flour from Cuddy's mill near present-day
Cambridge.
Soon,
the Mosers built a log cabin (and another one shortly afterwards) just north of
the creek and south west of the hill.
The cabins were about where Ruben's is now, west of the town square
(park). In one old photo, it looks like
one of the Moser cabins may have stood right in the middle of what is now Moser
Ave. Their homestead encompassed most
of what would become the west side of Council, including the town square,
Courthouse hill and the land on which the schools now stand.
You may notice that
"Moser" Avenue is generally misspelled as "Mosher" on the
street signs. This mistake was made at
least as early as 1899 by an engineer who drew the first plat of the town. He spelled it right every time in the plat
text, but when he wrote it on the map itself it was wrong. Elizabeth Moser didn't notice it for a good
reason - she was illiterate. She signed
the document with an "X".
Every time the plat was copied from then on, engineers simply duplicated
the names from the old plat. This is
why we have lived with this insult to Council's first family for almost a
hundred years now. Every editor in
every newspaper within a hundred miles of here has ignored this stupid mistake
and printed it as "Moser" when referring to this avenue. I think it's about time the name of the
avenue was spelled correctly.
To remind you just what the plan is
at the Council museum, if we can raise $10,000, Evea Harrington Powers will
match that amount so that we will have $20,000 to improve the museum. We have plans drawn up and approved to build
an addition onto the City Hall building where the museum is now housed in very
a crowded space. We have about $2,900
so far. We have applied for several
grants, but none have come through.
I would like to thank Carlos and
Ella Weed for a very generous donation.
Carlos reminded me of the fact that your contribution to the museum is
tax deductible if you itemize. I hope you will think about helping with the
project by donating. A museum with a
higher profile in the community is the single most cost effective thing Council
can do to increase its tourist trade.
If you are serious about improving Council's economy, get behind this
plan. If ever we needed this, it is
now. We can sit and cry about our bad
luck, or we can stand up and pull together.
Mail contributions to the Winkler Museum, Box 252, Council, ID 83612.
History
Corner 5-26-95
by Dale
Fisk
On Saturday, Anna, Blaine and I went
on a ride with the Backcountry Horsemen.
We went through some beautiful country along the West Fork of the Weiser
River that has some interesting history.
Unfortunately, much of the history that I have on this specific area is
sketchy, so I would appreciate help from people who know more about it.
Some of the riders unloaded at what
has been known during my lifetime as the Harvey and Hazel Harrington place on
West Fork. It used to be known as the
old Bridgewood place. I don't know much
about James Bridgewood or his family.
They were here in 1913, and the Leader said they moved here to stay in
the spring of 1915 from Mountain Home.
The Bill Bear family lived on this
place a few years later. Bill had a
daughter named Frieda who was remembered as having a beautiful singing
voice. She sang at Fruitvale literaries. Literaries were common in the days before TV
and radio. People would get together at
the local school house and entertain each other with popular songs and the
recitation of long poems like "The Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight" and
"Picture on the Barroom Floor".
I'm going to tell you about a tragic
event about the side of life that is pretty much avoided (for good reason) by
local historians. In talking to Heidi
Bigler Cole, and other people who know about local history, I keep hearing
"... that's not the whole story, but it gets scandalous, and their
relatives are still living here."
If someone were insensitive, they could undoubtedly write a whole book
on the subject. Anyway, story of Frieda
Bear is one in which "scandal and shame" led to her death. She became pregnant by a young man from a
well known Fruitvale family of the time.
She tried to abort the pregnancy herself, and died - probably from
bleeding or infection.
At the beginning of our ride, we
crossed the river near the mouth of Rocky Gulch, and passed near the old Ryals
homestead. William Ryals married Laura
Robertson, and they had a cabin there just after 1900. The cabin was just north of the mouth of
"Ryals Gulch" on the west side of the West Fork. Their son, Everett (Mel Ryals's father), was
born in 1904. William worked away from home much of the time. When he was gone, Laura was apprehensive
about the mountain lions in the area, and sometimes had her sister, Millie
Robertson (later Bethel) come spend the night with her. William died of what
may have been stomach cancer at the age of about 29, when Everett was about
four years old. Laura was better known
as being married to her later husband, Jim Ward.
We rode up Muckenstrum Canyon, and
stopped for lunch at the old Muckensturn homestead. Lee Muckensturn and his son, Frank, lived here, apparently up
into the 1930s. Local people pronounced
their name as "Muckenstrum" and the canyon is still known by that
name. La Dell Merk thought their was a
second son. Anybody know about
that?
On top of the ridge west of the
river, somewhere just south of where the power line now cuts across, we went right by the old Fred Aiken
homestead. What a dry place this must
have been. Aiken was a World War I vet
who told stories about his experiences.
The whistling sound that enemy shells made as they plummeted toward the
trenches, and the boom when they hit the earth, was stamped indelibly on his
memory.
During prohibition, Fred drank
several alcohol - laden substitutes for liquor to get inebriated. Among his favorites were lemon and vanilla
extract. Sometimes, he would take a wagon and team to Council by
way of Hornet Creek, and come back intoxicated to the point of being
semi-conscious. Occasionally, his horse
would get him as far toward home as the Marks place. They would bring him in an give him a place to sleep until
morning, when he would go on home.
Lemule Haines, a man with one wooden
leg, homesteaded just to the west of Aikens's. Haines had several sons. At least one of them became blind from
drinking the rot-gut moonshine that they made.
Another son died from it.
As we rode south, back down the
ridge toward the river, we could look down on the old Farlien place. Denny Rice built the house there, and Scisms
own it now. Jacob Farlien, and his
sons Dan, Henry (Hank) and Bill, lived on the east side of the river, north of
Rocky Gulch. They were well known house
builders in this area around in the early part of the century. Jacob died in 1913
A meadow along the river that is
known by some as the "Dillon Flat" is farther up the West Fork, and
we didn't see it on our ride. This spot
was owned in the early 1900s by Benjamin (B. J.) and Lena Dillon. Both Dillons were school teachers around
Council about 1903. They married here
about that time, then moved to Hagerman, Idaho, returning to teach here in
1906. They probably established their
homestead on the West Fork at that time.
The couple lived in Cambridge for a short time shortly after 1909 while
Mr. Dillon apparently moonlighted as a preacher in the Council and Cambridge
areas. By 1911, the Dillons were again
living here.
Ben was also an attorney, and was
once described as "...one of the ablest speakers in the county
..." In 1912, he became the first elected Adams County
Prosecuting Attorney. He resigned from
this office in 1921.
Lena Dillon taught at the McMahan school house, at least
during 1911, 1912 and 1922. Her maiden
name was Wiffen, and her sister, Lillian, was married to Art Wilkie.
We were hunting mushrooms there a
couple weeks ago, and noticed that there are a bunch of blackberry bushes still
there at the Dillon place, and one lonely apple tree. The Fruitvale Echo newspaper reported that the Dillons had as
many as three acres planted to potatoes here in 1912. Where the house must have stood, there are the rusted remains of
a Majestic brand cook stove and a set of bed springs.
I would appreciate hearing from
anyone who can add to this knowledge about the people I've written about here.
253-4582
Don't forget about the nice quilts
that the Worthwhile Club made that are being raffled off to raise money for the museum. The quilts are on display in the window at
Shaver's where you can buy tickets.
I keep forgetting to tell everyone
that your donations to the museum are looked upon very favorably by the Idaho
tax code. You get a 50% tax credit for
donations up to $100 (maximum total) on your Idaho taxes for contributions to
educational entities such as historical museums. In other words, a $100 donation to the museum could only mean $50
out of your pocket. What a deal!
History
Corner 5-19-95
by Dale
Fisk
All the recent talk about state's
rights reminds me of another time in America when people were outraged at the
Federal Government for some of the same reasons as they are now. It resulted in the biggest loss of life in
this country that ever came before or since.
More Americans were killed over this issue than all those who lost their
lives in the First and Second World Wars combined plus every other U.S. war in
history thrown in. In just three days
of this conflict over state's rights, almost as many men were killed as were
lost in Vietnam.
Of course I'm referring to our Civil
War. Slavery was one of the issues that
led up to the war, but think about one obvious fact. Why would anyone give their life for something they already
had? Slavery was perfectly legal in
every state that rebelled against the Union.
Slavery didn't become a major focal point of the conflict until Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclamation half way through the war, as a tactical
maneuver designed to cause chaos in the South.
Then, as now, one of the main issues
was that many in the South saw the government as an overbearing bureaucracy
that was dominated by city people who didn't know or care anything about life
in the South, i.e. - Northerners who represented a more urban and
industrialized way of life. But enough
about that.
I have to note the passing of a true
Landmark in the Council Valley - Fred Lappin.
He was a fine man. His father
was one of the first fruit growers here, and Lappin Lane is named after the
family. Fred ran the ranch that Rich
Anderson has now, for many years .
Our photo session Friday was
great. We started copying photographs
just after 1 o'clock and didn't really get a break until we quit at 8 PM. We copied about 120 photos! It's hard to pick favorites, but Galen York
should get a prize for bringing in the only known photo of the Middle Fork
school. Galen also had pictures of teams
and scrapers building the Lost Valley Reservoir Dam.
Other photos included one of a
sawmill crew at Tamarack in 1915, the Shaw and Harrington families, the old
Congregational church (the one before this one), the Adams County rodeo in
1949, Ike, Lillie and Herbie Glenn, and many more.
Bobbie Darland brought in a photo of
a young Dr. Dora Gerber, our former resident Dentist of many years. This was in keeping with the fact that the
Idaho Historical Society delivered some of Dr. Gerber's equipment to the museum
that day. They brought her old chair, a
white cabinet full of instruments, and boxes containing some other interesting
devises, tools, denture making supplies, and ... a big box full of
wicked-looking drill bits.
An boy did the stories start to
fly! Almost everybody who came in had a
story to tell about their experiences with Dr. Gerber. The general consensus was that she did not
mind inflicting pain.
My own memories of her come from
early childhood. The anticipation of
the ordeal while in the waiting room was almost as bad as the actual
drilling. She only had the old
fashioned, slow, grinding drill that felt like your skull was going to vibrate
apart. One of the most welcomed news in
my young life was that my parents were going to take me to Weiser to a dentist
that actually used novocaine to deaden my teeth before he drilled them!
People say that she did use
novocaine for procedures other than simple drilling and filling. But that doesn't mean it was always used
effectively. Many of you know what a
good story teller Dick Parker is, and I can't do justice to his talent, but
basically the story goes as follows.
Dick had a couple of teeth that were bothering him. Dr. Gerber took a look at them and said
(almost with what seemed like delight in her voice) something to the effect
that he could kiss those teeth goodbye.
The way she injected the novocaine was absolute proof in Dick's mind
that speed and efficiency don't equal tender, loving medical care. The whole dose entered his gum in about half
a second. The good doctor immediately
brought out her pliers and wrenched the teeth from their sockets. Dick said that about the time he walked out
the front door, the novocaine took effect.
On the positive side, people say she
made some of the finest dentures to be found anywhere. I hear that her assistant, Mrs. Rubottom,
was a valuable asset in this regard.
There are still people wearing dentures that were made at Dr. Gerber's
office. Her prices were also very
reasonable.
It must have been in 1980 that the
Health Department closed Dr. Gerber down.
The Historical Society was called in to take her equipment. I'm not clear about how they could legally
take it, but her methods had become pretty unsanitary. Even her fellow animal lovers probably
didn't appreciate being worked on with dogs, cats and chickens wandering about
in the same room.
The guys from the Historical Society
said that while they were hauling her equipment out the door, she kept trying
to grab things out of the various cabinets, etc. It was a sad end to the career of a genuine pioneer.
As near as I can gather, she came to
Council from Kendrick, Idaho in the 1940s.
Her office was on the north end of the upstairs of the old Drug Store /
Doctor's office building that now houses the Ceramic shop. (On the north west corner of Illinois Ave.
and Galena St.) She was born in 1889, and would have been about 80 years old
when she was forced to retire. She lived to be over 100.
She had a gold mine somewhere up in
the Salmon River country. She spoke the
Nez Perce language, and someone said that it was the Indians who told her where
to find the gold deposit.
I would like to put together more
information about Dr. Gerber so that we can have some to go with a display
about her and her work for the museum someday.
We also need more photos of
her. The only one we have shows her
long before she came to Council. I
would also like to collect more stories and information about her. We know that she has at least one daughter
that is said to live in Alaska. If
someone has her address, please get it to me.
I would like to point out that we do
not have room for any of the dentist equipment, and it was crowded in along
side the already crowded items in the museum.
This is just one example of the kind of thing we face because we simply
are out of room. The addition to the
museum for which we are raising money will help solve this problem. We need your help. Donations can be dropped off at City Hall, mailed to me at box
252, Council, or put in one of the Pennies for the Past jars around town.
6-2-95
I'm still getting conflicting
accounts about the location of the Long Valley Massacre grave site. If I find it, I'll let you know.
The
next year after the massacre (1879) there were several murders along the Middle
Fork of the Salmon River, and Sheep Eater Indians were accused of committing
them. Troops were sent into the area
from Boise to capture the "hostiles". The Army spent four months struggling through the rugged country
just trying to locate the Indians.
Over sixty army mules or horses were lost; most of them killed by
falling off the trail on precipitous mountainsides. Ironically, on August
20, exactly one year to the day after the Long Valley Massacre, one of the
cavalry units sent after the Sheep Eaters rode into a very similar, fatal
ambush. One soldier, Private H. Eagan
was killed. This pathetic
four-month-long campaign that became known as the "Sheep Eater War",
managed to round up a total of 15 warriors and about 36 women, children and old
people.
It's interesting to note that among
the captured Indians were two men that were later rumored to have been involved
in the Long Valley Massacre: "Tamanmo" (or War Jack) and a Weiser
Indian named "Buoyer". War
Jack was listed by Lieut. Brown, in his journal, as being part Bannock and part
Nez Perce, and that he claimed to be the successor to Chief Eagle Eye. His wife and children were also
captured. Brown said that Buoyer had
only been in the area for about a year, and did not know the country well.
In
the early 1880's some Indians still roamed the Idaho mountains. Most were
eventually captured, or they surrendered, and were sent to the Fort Hall
Reservation. Small groups of Weisers
were allowed to leave the reservation from time to time to hunt, fish and
gather berries in their old territory.
This practice continued into the early 1900's. Many of the old timers around Council when I was a kid remembered
Indians coming through here. An Indian
woman took a liking to Ike Glenn (Georgiana Parker's father) and tried to buy
him from his parents.
Two
small groups of Weiser Indians under Eagle Eye and Indian Charley, secretly
established permanent homes in a very secluded, out-of-the-way valley south of
Long Valley, west of the Payette River, near present day Banks, Idaho. These families built cabins, raised gardens,
and planted fruit trees. By combining
both white and native life-styles, they were quite self-sufficient. Eagle Eye and Indian Charley were each able
to die here, as they had lived: in peace.
I ran across an interesting item in
the Salubria Citizen newspaper for June 19,1896 quoted from another Idaho newspaper, the "Index": "Eagle Eye, chief of the Dry Buck
Indians is dead, and the tribes are making a powerful lamentation over his
remains." It said they put his
body in a pit for 10 days, and were taking it out and burning it. The paper blatantly made the claim that
Eagle Eye, "was a leader of the band that killed Monday, Haley and
Groseclose in Long Valley about 16 years ago."
It
would seem that the type of unobtrusive settlement that Eagle Eye's group had
established would have been an ideal solution to "the Indian
problem". For many years, whites
didn't even know they were there. But
when they did find out about them, the dark side of human nature raised its
ugly head. Even though the Indians
filed for rights to their land under the Homestead laws, they were eventually
coerced into giving up even this last fragment of their homeland. About 1900, the last remaining members of
this group of free native people was imprisoned at the Fort Hall and Lemhi
Reservations.
For
native Americans, the concentration-camp existence they were forced to live
under must have been almost impossible to bear. In their culture, everything sacred, everything that gave purpose
and meaning to their lives was based on their relationship with mother earth,
from who's arms they had been ruthlessly torn.
What cultural values could they pass on to their children when almost
every value they understood had been made irrelevant? It seems bitterly ironic that a culture that outwardly professed
spirituality, but was really based on rampant materialism, brutally crushed a
culture so totally immersed in deep spiritual values.
Today,
the wrong that was done to the natives of this country is almost
insidious...the stories of their lives mostly unknown... but their former
presence here underlies everything that has followed them. The places where we
now live, work and play, were all a precious legacy handed down from native
fathers and mothers (Landmarks) to sons and daughters for more than 100
centuries longer than the blink of an eye that our European culture has been
here.
Imagine
a time line, with each foot representing 1,000 years. Going backwards from the present to a point14,000 years ago,
about when the first Americans arrived here, the line would be fourteen feet
long. Columbus arrived on this
continent only six inches ago. Idaho
Indians got horses about 3 1/2 inches ago.
And the Mosers arrived to settle the Council Valley less than 1 1/2
inches ago.
You may remember my saying how where
we live now is like a stage where many unknown dramas have been acted out. Maxine Hallett found an arrow head on the
ground just outside her Coleman apartment last week. What stories lie behind it will never be known, but it represents
volumes of fascinating tales that lie literally under our feet.
History
Corner6-9-95
by Dale Fisk
Settlement
of this area didn't stop during Nez Perce, Bannock or Sheep Eater Wars. I mentioned Calvin White in the Long Valley
Massacre story. It was he who
discovered Three Fingered Smith lying wounded near Payette Lake.
White
was the first settler in the Meadows Valley, and had only arrived there the
year of that massacre and of the Bannock War (1878). He was born in Boston in 1833, and started out his long and
eventful career when he was just a boy, going to work on sailing ships. He followed the sea until he was 30 years
old, traveling all over the world. He
apparently got gold fever and wound up in the Boise Basin during the heyday of
that area in 1863. There is a portrait
of Cal White, taken during this time, in the files at the State Historical
Library.
At
a social occasion near Falk's Store in the Payette Valley, White met, and
quickly fell in love with Lydia Hopper, a girl from a wagon train headed
west. After the train moved on, Cal
caught up with it near Baker, and the two were married on the spot. This whirl wind romance apparently worked
out. They eventually had nine children.
After
living briefly in Garden Valley and Horseshoe Bend, Cal moved his family to
Indian Valley about the time of the Nez Perce scare in 1877, and then moved to
Meadows the next year, perhaps before the Bannock War heated up.
If
you remember, by 1878 there were only a few families in the Council
Valley. It was that fall that Robert
White (no known relation to Calvin) became the first postmaster in this area
when a post office named "Council Valley" was opened. The "office" was nothing more than
a small box containing mail that he kept under his bed in his home just north
of the present town. There were no
individual post office boxes. People
may have followed what was sometimes the custom in those types of situations in
which each family looked through the box for their mail. So much for privacy.
When
Calvin White made his move from Indian Valley to Meadows, the Meadows Valley
was known as "Salmon Meadows".
The name later evolved to "Meadows Valley". At the time, there was no road north of the
Council Valley. White and his partner,
W.C. Jennings took the first wagon through between the valleys. They followed the Weiser River bottom,
crossing the river repeatedly as the canyon narrowed. They finally gave up this tactic just beyond Starkey. From there, they climbed up onto the ridge
tops north and west of the river. Their
exact route is unknown, but they reportedly passed through Lost Valley and
Price Valley.
Soon
afterwards, White and some of the
settlers in the Council Valley, built a crude wagon trail between the
valleys. The route went over Fort Hall
Hill, then dove into the brushy canyon and forded the river 37 times between Glendale and Tamarack.
The
White family established the first home (not counting Packer John Welch's
layover cabin) in Meadows Valley, as well as the first store and post
office. Cal was the first postmaster
and carried mail between Indian Valley and Warren. Calvin White died at the age of 94 in 1927.
As
nearly as I can tell, it was in 1879 that William Rayle Harrington, as well as Rufus
Anderson, came from Indian Valley to settle on Hornet Creek .
It
was during this time, before Weiser became established enough to have
well-stocked stores, Council Valley residents often went to Boise or Baker City
for supplies. A trip to Boise and back
took from ten days to two weeks. Even
after a wider range of supplies were available in Weiser, it was still a four
day journey round trip with a wagon.
In 1882, the Oregon Short Line
Railroad reached Weiser. The company
was building tracks from Ogden, Utah to Huntington, Oregon to meet a line
coming east from Pendleton, Oregon.
Having a railroad as close as Weiser was a boon to the people of the
Council Valley. It meant that they were
that much closer to a real shipping point ... that much closer to being
connected to the outside world. Thanks
in large part to the closer proximity of the railroad, the population of the
Council Valley area rapidly grew throughout the 1880s.
I
got a call from Fred Thompson, a former Fruitvale resident (Bob's brother) on
Saturday night. . Fred now lives in
Bishop, California. He said he has a
picture of the Bill Bear family that I mentioned as having lived on the West
Fork. He plans to send us a copy of it
and some other picutures. It's great to
here from people who used to live here and who either still get a Council
paper, or have a clipping of the History Corner sent to them. I hope any of you out there will keep in
mind that we are still looking for old photos of this area. Don't hesitate to write to me at Box 252,
Council or call (208) 253-4582. Also,
if you have other things like scrap books or other information that can add to
the story of this area, I am very interested in seeing them.
Don't
forget our fund drive to improve the museum.
Things have been awfully quiet on that front lately. Save your pennies too! Our fund is about $3782 right now.
6-16-95
This week, I have the great pleasure
of announcing the most significant development concerning the museum since the
launching of our fund drive. The museum
project will be receiving $7,000 that ACDC
applied for from Farm Bill money!
This money will boost our funds over the top of the $10,000 that we need
to match Evea Powers's pledge to equal that amount. This means that we can go ahead with final plans to expand the
museum!
The museum belongs to the town of
Council, and a general plan for the addition was approved by the City Council
some time back. There are still some
important arrangements to be made as to exactly how the museum activities and
city activities will each compliment the function of the other. Hopefully, these loose ends will tie up
easily and the project will get underway soon.
Even though this means we have
reached a goal that we have been working very hard toward for several years, it
doesn't mean we will stop raising funds entirely. The amount we have nailed down should get the addition built, but
we will still encounter some expenses as we move and improve the displays. Basically, the more money we have to work
with, the better job we can do of making Council a better place to live.
Last week, I ended this column by
mentioning the rapid growth in the Council area in the 1880s. In another History Corner some months ago, I
wrote about how the town almost got established north of where it is now. The first two post offices, the first store
and the first organized school were located on Galena Street (which was the
road through the valley) about a mile north of the present town.
The first business in the Valley was
the Moser home, which was located about where Ruben's is now. They often housed and fed travelers in their
cabin. The next business was probably a
blacksmith shop established in 1884 by Frank Mathias. Frank and Clista
Mathias's homestead encompassed much of what is now the east side of
Council. Their home was at or near what
was, until very recently, 303 North Galena street where Fred York's house
stood. The blacksmith shop was just
south of it on the same (east) side of the road
By 1885, their were about 300
settlers living in the Council Valley.
Activity in the Seven Devils had picked up with arrival of Albert
Kleinschmidt. There were enough
settlers living in the Cottonwood Creek area south of Council that a post
office, called "Rose", was established there that year
In
the spring of 1885, this "news" item from the Council Valley appeared
in the Weiser City Leader: "There
is a new town in this valley, which already has two saloons and a blacksmith
shop; they will probably call it Snortville, or Spitfire. There is a young lady in Council who loans
twenty dollar pieces to all parties who can give good security." One of
the hallmarks of 19th century newspaper writers was heavy doses of inside jokes and good-humored leg
pulling. Part of this item in the
paper, especially the part about the young lady, may have been exaggerated or
even untrue. Nevertheless, it does
indicate the beginnings of a town, as opposed to a scattered community. The speculated names for the town were
probably based on local nicknames.
Robert White's nickname was "Uncle Snort" because he was such
a story teller. The identity of the two
saloons is a mystery, unless someone dispensed liquor out of their home, as
there were no saloons here at that time.
John Peters came up from Weiser to
establish the first store in the Council Valley (at the location I mentioned
north of the present town) in 1888. By
this time, so many new families had moved into the Valley that the Weiser paper
said the Council Valley was "... cultivated clear up to the timbered
foothills.
Plans are being made to have an old
fashioned booth at a couple of upcoming local events, partly to promote and
raise money for the museum. The events
are the Arts and Crafts Festival at the Quilt Show on June 24, and the big
fund-raiser for Council scheduled for August 5 & 6. Some help is needed from people in the
community. A small, horse-drawn wagon
may be needed if one hasn't been found by then. Also needed are: old-style
"prairie" type dresses, bonnets, etc. for costumes ... two small, old-fashioned trunks ... and a
small, old-fashioned table. The
dresses, etc. can be dropped of with Nadine at the General Store in Council. Also, volunteers are needed to help with the
booths. If you can help with any of
these things, please call Irene Dodge (253-4711) or Mary Sterner
(253-6930).
6-19-96 The Jim Summers story,
continued from the last two columns.
Last week I wrote about a fight with
Indians that involved Jim Summers and a man named Rattlesnake Jack in 1880. Rattlesnake Jack's, real name was B.E.
Said. His earthly career had a colorful
end when he was shot and killed by a Weiser deputy sheriff only two years
later, in1882. Jack got drunk in a
Weiser saloon one evening, and started getting extremely obnoxious. The sheriff's office was notified, and a
deputy was dispatched. When the deputy
tried to arrest him, Jack pulled his revolver and shot at the deputy. Several shots were exchanged, and the deputy
retreated to get bigger artillery. When
the deputy returned to the saloon with a shotgun, the gun battle continued but
soon ended when Jack received a mortal wound to his chest. The editor of the Weiser newspaper said that
when Rattlesnake Jack was sober, he was a quiet, industrious and inoffensive
citizen. (Weiser City Leader, Nov 4, 1882)
Rattlesnake Jack was buried in a
location that was evidently not in an organized cemetery. Almost twenty years after his death, his
grave was inadvertently disturbed. It
was in late 1898 or early 1899 that the railroad began construction of the line
to Council. As the line was being built
from the main line at Weiser, Jack's remains were accidentally dug up by the
grading crew. An enterprising Weiser
business man acquired the bones and put them on display for the "enjoyment"
of his customers.
Jim
Summers only lived about 13 years after the shootout with the Indians. Toward the end of his life, cancer had
completely destroyed his right eye, and he wore a handkerchief to cover it. He was in pain much of the time, but didn't
complain about it much.
In 1889, the Weiser Leader reported
that Summers was is dangerously ill at Pine valley, Oregon, and that there was
little hope for his recovery. "He
lost one of his eyes several years ago, the effects of which he never
recovered. He has been under medical
treatment for 6 months . . . now paralysis has set in."
Apparently,
Jim recovered enough to return to life on Cuddy Mountain. In September of 1893, he was found dead there. According to James Thorp, his grandfather
was the one who discovered Jim's body.
Mr. Thorp writes: "My grandfather was riding for cattle on Cuddy
Mountain and came upon an apparently abandoned camp, but upon investigation
discovered the body of Jim Summers.
Further investigation turned up several head of horses, corralled or
tethered, that were in bad shape for lack of feed and water. He turned the animals loose and buried Mr.
Summers. This in itself was a feat as
my grandfather was a one-armed man."
In his recollections of local
history, Frank Harris said that two prospector friends of Jim's found Summer's
body. Harris said that as they
approached a small grove of quaking aspen, they saw Summers's lying dead among
the trees. They buried him near that
spot.
Summers was alone when he died, so
the exact date of his death was never known.
He was 56 years old.
Jim
Summers's grave is shown on Forest Service maps, and is located right beside
road #234. To reach Jim Summers' grave, turn west from the main Council -
Cuprum road just before the old Hornet Creek Guard Station, and take road
#055. For the most part, this road was
built in about 1924 to reach the Cuddy Mountain mines, the remains of which can
still be seen along its route, about 8.5 miles from the Council - Cuprum
road. This rocky road is shown on maps
as a four wheel drive road, and it is that.
At the top of the mountain, road #234 turns north along the ridge
top. The view here in all directions is
heart-stopping: especially that of the Pine Creek Valley in Oregon and the Snake
River canyon far below to the west.
Summers's grave, marked with a marble headstone, and fenced with poles,
sits right above road #234, about 3 miles from where it branches from #055. A modern cabin and corrals are located here
as well. The total distance from the
main road is about 13 miles.
Ron Hillman told me that Helena Schmidt
told him that Summers is actually buried down the canyon below the grave
marker. I haven't questioned Helena
about this yet, but if anyone knows
about a different grave location, please give me a call.
HISTORY
CORNERS
11-1-96
to 10-30-97
11-1-96
In 1901, construction was started on a
gravity-operated aerial tramway which to carry the ore three quarters of a mile
from the Summit mine to the mill below Black Lake. The unsupported span over the lake was 1,500 feet, and was
thought to have been the longest single span in the world at that time. The cable for the tram was freighted to the
Lake in one long piece, on two wagons.
Anna Adams said that the crews worked almost a month "...jacking it
up over high dive, [and getting it strung out] from the mine to the mill across
the lake."
After
a crew worked all winter to finish the mill, it began operating in May of 1902,
with about fourty men employed, including those in the mines. The first bullion from the mill netted
$5,000 after it was shipped to the gold mint in Denver.
The
tramway was not completed before the mill started production, and the ore was
probably hauled to the mill by wagons.
By the time the mill shut down for the season in November, the tram was
in place, but didn't operate properly.
It was supposed to run by gravity, with
the weight of the loaded ore buckets pulling the empty ones up. The Meadows Eagle announced, "The Salzer-Ford company has been
compelled to assist their gravity aerial bucket tramway with water power. The long span across Black lake seems to be
too much for the gravity system."
The next year (1903), the operation
was really rolling, with sixty men employed.
After the first eight days of operation in March, the mill yielded forty
pounds of gold. This was in stark
contrast to the copper mining part of the district, which was suffering a
depressing lull..
Robert Barbour, the famous
moonshiner, was the first Postmaster at the post office that was established at
Black Lake on September 18 of that year.
(Barbour was succeeded by John Nelson, a cook, who held the position
until the post office was discontinued in October of 1907.)
By
October, the Black Lake mines had produced $75,000 in gold. But the year was to end on a very sour
note. It started when a shortcut was
taken in processing the ore. The wet
ore was initially put through a drier before it was crushed. It was discovered that the ore didn't need to
be dried to process properly, so the mill shut down, and a conveyor belt was
built to bypass the drier. After this
was done, the mill processed wet ore for one afternoon, and then shut down.
The next morning was October 31 -
Halloween. At 5:30 AM, the men awoke to
someone yelling, "FIRE!".
Smoke and flames were pouring out of the mill. A mad dash by all hands was made for water hoses. Careful plans had been laid for just such an
emergency, even to the extent of placing the water hydrants inside the mill so
that they would not be frozen in case of a fire during cold weather. The only problem was, the fire was also
inside the mill, and it was too hot for
anyone to enter. By despirate work, the
men managed to save the bunk houses, stores and sawmill that were only a few
yards away, but in a matter of minutes, the mill was little more than ashes.
It
was thought that the most probable cause of the fire was spontaneous combustion
caused by damp ore mixed with lime.
But there was a rumor that someone nursing a grudge against the Fords
had set it. Thomas Nelson, editor,
the Cambridge Citizen newspaper had his own explanation. He said, "There has always been an unseen
force holding back all kinds of progress in the Seven Devils, which may in a measure
account for the burning of the Ford mill."
Regardless
of the origin of the fire, operations at Black Lake came to a grinding
halt. Since the first snow would fall
any day, it was too late in the year to rebuild, and the camp was abandoned for
the winter.
The
Black Lake mill was only insured for $20,000 - just one fifth of what it had
cost to build. In spite of their
losses, the Ford brothers were not defeated, and immediately started making
plans to rebuild.
More next week.
11-8-96
Construction on a new mill at Black
Lake started in the summer of 1904, and
took only ninety days to complete. In
the process, a water-powered electrical plant was installed and all the
buildings were wired for electric lights. This time some fire hydrants were
placed outside of the buildings.
By early fall, the mill jumped into
full production, processing 75 tons of ore per day - a 50% increase over the
capacity of the old mill.
It must have seemed that editor
Nelson. might have been right about an "unseen force" haunting mining
efforts the Seven Devils when misfortune soon struck again. Only $25,000 in gold had been produced
before a worker accidentally dropped a sledge hammer into the ore crusher,
badly damaging it. Again, the entire
operation was shut down.
While
repairs were being made to the crusher, another blow came. Nick Klosaner's saloon and Bob Barbour's
store (probably containing the post office) were totally destroyed by fire.
Still undaunted, the Fords forged
ahead. They invested in an unusual
luxury in those days: an air-driven drill.
Drills were used, as they are now, to drill holes in which to place
explosives. The usual method at the
time was the old-fashioned way. A steel
rod with a star-shaped tip on the drilling end was held by one man and driven
by another with a sledge hammer.
In spite of all the confidence, in
spite of the years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, the
Black Lake mines began to struggle. In
1906, less than $10,000 worth of gold was produced. By 1909, no gold at all was reported.
In 1911, Ed Ford turned his
attention back to a project that he had started years before. In 1905, he had found a place along Crane
Creek, south of Indian Valley, where he thought a reservoir should be made. He worked on plans for the reservoir for
several years. The dam must have been
built shortly after1911. If anybody
knows just when it was built, please let me know.
The
final blow to the mines at Black Lake came with the outbreak of World War I in
Europe. Germany was the primary source
of the cyanide that was so vital to processing gold ore, and the Germans had
other plans for their cyanide than exporting it to potential enemies like the
United States. The price of the
chemical shot up beyond reason. The
mill was shut down for the last time in 1914, but a small crew kept working the
mines.
In the spring of 1916, Sim Ford was
making plans to work the mines another season.
Before he could put his plans into action, all of his supplies burned
when a good share of the town of
Landore went up in flames. Also
about that time, the remaining Salzer brother died, apparently without
designating ownership of his share of his Black Lake interests. Rather than try to overcome these obstacles,
the mines and the mill were abandoned.
In some unexplained way, the Ford's and Salzer's Idaho Gold Coin Mining
and Milling Company ceased to exist. As
a result, there was no legal owner willing to take responsibility for all the
equipment at the lake. It was simply left
there.
It has been estimated that a total of
only about $125,000 in gold was taken out of the mines at Black Lake by the
Salzer - Ford partnership. This would
have done little more than pay for just one of the mills they built. Winifred Lindsay, on the other hand, said
that the company ended without any debt
By
1919, geologists, Livingston and Laney noted that most of the supplies and
equipment at Black Lake had already ". . . been stolen or wantonly
destroyed."
My father, Dick Fisk, remembers
seeing the mill in the 1930s. He said
there were hundreds of feet of new rope, cable and eight-inch pipe still
there. There were scores of tin cans
full of food, but with the labels rotted off, stacked in store rooms. The story of Alva Ingram hauling out lengths
of pipe about this time is a classic illustration of what happened to much of
the abandoned property.
More next week.
11-15-96
The abandoned property at Black Lake
was eventually sold off by Adams County for back taxes. I believe the Forest Service owns much of
the ground now. Ironically, the mill
that was built back after the disastrous fire of 1903 was intentionally burned
again during World War Two. This was
done to salvage the scrap iron in it for the war effort.
Charlie Winkler claimed much of the
tramway cable used at the Mesa Orchards came from the Black Lake tram. And I've been told that Hugh Addington said
the cable from the Mesa tramway was later used to build the first ski lift at Sun
Valley. If anyone has any more information
on either of these stories, PLEASE tell me.
Today, the Summit mine above the
lake is still very visible. The one
remaining tunnel is about six feet tall and about that wide. It goes back into the mountain about 75 yards
or more. There were two tunnels, and I
assume this was the upper one. It
followed an ore vein that was 200 feet long and about two feet wide by 500 feet
deep. The lower tunnel was about 200
feet below the upper tunnel and went about 1,200 feet through rock, then about
1,000 feet on the ore vein.
The old tram supports have all
fallen down now. Until a couple years
ago, there was one standing on the edge of the cliff overlooking the lake. There are also long lengths of cable and a
few broken and twisted ore buckets on the hillside between the Summit tunnel
and the cliff. And there are still
hundreds of rotting boards from the buildings that used to stand just back from
the cliffs.
The
Maid of Erin mine is also still very much in evidence. As I mentioned, it's about 300 yards east of
the outlet of the lake at the north end.
The base of a cabin still sits there, and there are a number of boards,
peices of metal and a few bricks. Both
of the two tunnels there have collapsed.
The lower tunnel went about 800 feet into the mountain. Where it collapsed, there are a couple of
small openings to the surface where very cold air blows out like and air
conditioner. There has to be another
opening for that air to circulate through like that. It isn't coming through the upper tunnel because it's completely
closed off. It must be the vertical
shaft. More on that later.
The
quartz vein at the Maid of Erin was very narrow, varying in width from only a
few inches, up to about three feet. It
is now exposed where the lower portal collapsed. The quartz has a very pretty reddish purple color mixed in with a
small amount of white.
The
Maid of Erin was reworked in the late 1930s by a crew hired by Howard Hinsdale
of Portland, Oregon his partner, a man named Higgins, who was also from that
area.. Before it was reworked, the
tunnel dead-ended at the 800 foot point mentioned above, and a shaft may have
gone upwards for some distance from there.
A shaft of some kind may have gone completely to the surface, accounting
for the strong draft that came through the mine even before it was
reworked. The reworking opened (or
reopened) a shaft straight up, all the way to the top of the mountain. Men climbed up the shaft on wooden ladders
or hiked up the mountain to the top and then climbed down into the shaft on
ladders. There were landings and side
tunnels (drifts) about every 50 to 100 feet along the shaft. On the opposite side of the shaft from the
ladders was an ore shoot leading to the tunnel below. Ore was dumped into this chute to get it to ore cars which ran on
tracks in the tunnel at the bottom.
The ore was taken to the mill at
Placer Basin for processing. Alta
Ingram used his 1 1/2 or two ton truck to haul it. The road was in no better shape than it is today, and was very
hard on tires.
Placer Basin was being reworked by
Hinsdale and Higgins also, starting about 1934. The claims were owned by the Hamill family of Fruitvale. Gilbert and Nellie Hamill and their sons,
Ray and Harold, moved here in 1910 when they bought 80 acres at foot of Fort
Hall hill. While Ray was working for
the Forest Service in the 1930s, he became interested in Placer Basin. The Hamills paid $10,000 for the property. Before the mill was built, the ore was
shipped to Murry, Utah for smelting.
The mine was closed in 1942 by Federal order because only strategic
metal could be mined during the war.
A "mucker" working for
Hinsdale and Higgins was paid $4.50 per day.
They did all the least skilled work - shoveling ore into the cars,
etc. A "miner" was paid $5.00
per day. They did all the pick work,
drilling and blasting. This was good
money during the depression, especially when people were thankful for any kind
of job.
I need to thank Lloyd Hamill, Robert
Thompson, and especially Paul Phillips, for much of the information in this
week's column.
11-22-96
I found some information concerning Olaf Sorenson's grave. When Eliza Sorenson Draper died in 1935, the
paper said Olaf died in 1905 and "is buried in the Kesler Cemetery". So maybe his body was moved off of the hill
after all. Just goes to show, once
more, that the truth doesn't always make the best story.
Last year Robert Thompson sent me a
list of some of the people he remembered working at Placer Basin and the
"Smith Mountain Mill" in the 1930s.
I'm just gonna throw 'em in for those of you who remember these people.
Owner - Howard Hinsdale of Portland,
Oregon - also owner of Umpqua Navigation (tug boats, etc.) - later traded it
for stock in Bohemia Lumber Co.
Superintendent of mine - Carl
Ingram. Foreman and shift boss was his
son, Walt Ingram. Chet, his younger
brother, was one of the miners.
Cleve Reed was a blacksmith. Mrs. Reed (Lulu) was head cook. She was the mother of Frankie Ingram (a
miner) - his wife, Mildred, worked in the cook house.
Harold Burns was the teamster.
From Fruitvale: Fred Glenn (ran hoist), Hub Fisk, Ray
"Stub" Yantis, Fred Yantis, Bill Baker, Roy Benz, Clifford
"Nip" McMahan, Robert Thompson
From Council - Byron
"Buff" Hallett, Floyd Gilmer, Bill Watson, Penny Emery, Ben Barbour,
Cecil Huston and his uncle, Bill Huston, Dick Blurton, Merle Ball, Cecil Ball
(who was killed in a cave in), Asa Whitney and sons, A.D., Floyd and Melvin
Whitney - Chet Selby, Paul and Hank Phillips, Mr. Lee (older man) and two sons,
Verne Lee (who was the diesel engineer and a good one) - the younger Lee
brother's first name I can't recall, Emsley Glenn (who was killed by a falling
tree - Earnest Lutiger was working with him in the woods cutting mine timbers),
Max Boesigger was another diesel engineer from Boise (was captured on Wake
Island in WWII), Ray (Roy?) Armacost, Kermit Krigbaum.
From Oregon - Roy (Ray?) Rockwell,
Ellis Allen, Carnahan (older man), Fred & Hank Titus, Fred Davis, Mary
Gover (worked in cookhouse) Floyd Pollard, Ben South.
Ray Lindgren, from Bear, was the
step son of Jesse Smith. Jesse's
brother, Bill Smith, helped blacksmith, Cleve Reed. Mrs. Smith worked in the cookhouse.
From Troy, Idaho - Calvin Suksdorf
and son Calvin, Tommy Gregg (don't know where he was from - was a cousin of
Chet & Walt Ingram)
Carl Anderson from Portland was a
mining engineer. His son, Johnny,
worked there some also. Fred Bartels
worked with Carl Anderson. He was from
Cottage Grove, Oregon. Owen Terry was
another engineer.
Alva Ingram did a lot of trucking up
to the mine and mill (hauled cordwood from Landore that had been cut during
WWI.)
_?_ Phillips also worked for Bill
Hunsacker at a small mine below Placer Basin.
It was located below the road on the last steep grade before the
Basin. I believe it was called the
Little Giant. [Both Hank and Paul Phillips worked there at the Little
Giant. It was about 1/4 to 1/2 mile
east of the main road. The road to it
left the main road just at the foot of the steep grade before Placer
Basin. Bill Hunsacker built a cabin
there about 100 yard before the turn off to the mine on the west side of the
main road.]
Roy Garrison also worked some at
Placer Basin. Also Harry Raines.
Museum notes - We are planning an exhibit that we need help
with. There are some items that we
would like to see if someone would donate to the museum, or loan for a minimum
of two years. For a pioneer house
exhibit we need the following items, made before 1900, or copied from a
pre-1900 pattern: a half-size (or small) bed, a hoosier (semi-portable kitchen
cabinet), a kerosene lamp, an old fashioned apron (maybe someone could make
one?), and a trunk. If you have any of
these, or have other things that would fit into this exhibit, please call Connie
Mocaby at 253-4408
Also, we still need help at the
museum. We're usually there on Tuesdays
from 10:00 AM to about 4:00 PM. Our
goal now is to have it open this spring.
We're going to need volunteers to man the place.
12-13-96
Like many of the mines in the Seven
Devils district, the Iron Springs mining operation lost money for virtually
everyone involved with it. Whether it
was simply an elaborate scam, as many claimed, is not clear. But in its several years of operation it is
said that not one shipment of ore ever left Iron Springs.
The story of Rankin Mill parallels
that of Iron Springs. Both camps were
being developed at about the same time, and eventually had the same owners.
Not
long after the Ford brothers built the road to Black Lake in 1900, H.D. Rankin
appeared on the scene. Rankin, a
chemist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had invented a machine that could make
nitric acid by combining the molecules of air and water by means of an
electrical charge. Nitric acid was used
in a leeching process to extract gold from gold bearing ore, and Rankin's main
objective would seem not to have been to make his fortune by merely mining
gold. He was an ambitious business man,
and the principle stockholder in the Rankin Chemical Reduction Company based in
Chicago, which reportedly had assets worth about $10 million. If he could find a place to prove that his
nitric acid making device would be a practical part of gold mining operations,
he could revolutionize the industry.
Then, as became a familiar theme in the Seven Devils, he could find his
pot of gold in the pockets of investors in his company stock rather than in the
ground.
Rankin
agreed to buy several mines on the West Fork of Rapid River, about 6 miles
north of Iron Springs, from Tom, George, and Jim Potter, and Jim Ross. The Star, Jackley and Champion mines were
the principle claims. When the Iron
Springs Company built a road into its claims in 1902 Rankin built a road from
his holdings to connect with it.
Rankin's
operation in the Seven Devils was called the Rankin General Milling
Company. At a cost of $50,000, he built
an ore mill, a nitric acid "factory" and a hydroelectric plant to
power them
and provide lighting. Rankin was evidently in such a hurry to get
his operation going that he had some of the equipment brought into this remote
location in the dead of winter. The
Cambridge newspaper for Jan 9, 1903 reported that the Rankin Mill machinery had
made it as far as Black Lake. The paper said the job had taken fifty horses to
get it through snow up to fifty feet deep.
About
a quarter mile up stream from the mill, a small community sprang up where about
55 Rankin employees lived. The little
town was named "Rand", evidently after a man by that name. A post office under that name was
established in the fall of 1903. Ruth
Lake (about 2 miles south of Rankin Mill) was named after Mr. Rand's daughter,
Ruth Rand, who was the first child born in the town. A Forest Service sign identifies the site as "Old
Town", but it was not known by that name during its active existence. Not much is known about the town, except
that it also had a hotel and a blacksmith shop. The community
eceived
its mail by way of Pollock, and supplies often came by pack train from
Grangeville.
More next week.
We're still making progress a little
at a time at the museum. We got calls
on several of the items we needed for the house exhibit. Now we would like to get an old fashioned house
dress that is small enough to fit on a mannequin. It needs to fit into the 1900, or before, time slot. We may also need shoes for that
mannequin. Some of you who made, or
have, clothes from the Centennial might think about what you have that you
could loan or donate.
Another thing we need is old
fashioned windows and doors with windows to put into the walls of several
planned exhibits, like a sheriff's office, doctor's office and dentist's
office. These should fit into a 1900
to 1930 time frame (or maybe a little later).
They don't necessarily have to have glass in them, as we can replace
it. An old screen door might even work
if it's one that we can put glass or Plexiglas into. The idea is to place these so that the exhibit can be viewed
through them, but the items will be protected from handling, etc. If you ever get a chance to visit the Idaho
Falls museum, they have a fantastic little town set up on the lower floor. We can't hope to match that, at least not
yet, but that's the general idea that we are shooting for with these
exhibits. The sheriff's office is the
one that excites me the most because we have so many things that Bill Winkler
used when he was sheriff.
Two other items we will need: Any track lights, track light components, or
similar, small spot-type lights.
Old-fashioned wall paper for the rooms mentioned above.
Oh, there is one other thing we
could really use: HELP. We are usually
at the museum on Tuesdays starting at 10 AM.
Drop in to help, or just see what we're doing.
12-20-96
In September of 1903 the newspapers
reported, "These facts have been made evident by a short test run made at
the Rankin mill on Rapid river Monday evening, when, in the absence of a lot of
necessary machinery, 50 pounds of nitric acid, the main reducing agent,
sufficient to reduce 2 1/2 tons of ore, was manufactured from the air we
breathe, in one hour and fifteen minutes, and the fact was also demonstrated
that ore can be reduced at a cost of less than two mills per pound." "The success of the Rankin process will
make it possible for every mine of any value to be worked at a profit. The mine owner can do the work himself if
necessary and will not need more than a week's grub stake to start in
with." In January of 1904, the
Weiser Signal claimed that Rankin had produced 500 pounds of Nitric acid in only
thirty minutes.
As
so often was the case in the Seven Devils, much of the acclaim about the
success of Rankin's process was exaggeration or outright falsehood. Much of the hyperbole was no doubt supplied to the newspapers by
Rankin himself. For one thing, the
equipment needed was not simple or cheap.
Just the ditch and flume to bring water power to the machinery at
Rankin's mill was over a mile long and must have cost more than "a week's
grub stake".
Only a month after the Signal's
fantastic claims about how much nitric acid Rankin was producing, it reported
that the power the electric plant could generate was insufficient to run all of
his equipment. Rankin had enough power
for his acid factory and lighting, but not enough for the ore mill. This, however, may have only been what
Rankin told the paper in trying to save face and the faith of investors in his
invention. It is probable that he
didn't have enough voltage to make nitric acid all along. Nitric acid (HNO/3) is composed of hydrogen,
nitrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen makes up
11.1% of water, and is easily combined with oxygen, which composes 21% of
earth's atmosphere. Nitrogen, on the
other hand is much harder to extract from the air. Even though it makes up 78% of our atmosphere, it takes a very
powerful surge of electricity, such as a lightening bolt, to link together the
oxygen and nitrogen as Rankin was trying to do.
The
problems with his nitric acid mill were not the only clouds in Rankin's
sky. He still hadn't paid for the claims
he had taken over. By early 1904, the
Potter brothers were tired of waiting for their money. They locked up the Star mine which was only
about 50 yards above the mill, stood at the mine entrance with rifles, and
would not let Rankin's employees remove any ore. (James Potter claimed the whole story was false.) The confrontation wound up in court, and the
Potters and their partner Jim Ross won the case. Apparently this was too much for Rankin. In the summer of 1904, the post office
closed and everything was abandoned.
It is said that Rankin walked out of Rapid River with nothing but the
clothes on his back. But Rankin was not
totally defeated. It was later reported
that he had a large nitric acid making plant in Joliet, Illinois, and was
planning one at Salt Lake City.
In
1905, the Iron Springs Company bought out the Rankin Mill properties. The ore mill was converted into a more
traditional cyanide plant.
When the Iron Springs company went
under the camp was again abandoned.
The wagon road to Rankin Mill soon deteriorated, as there was no reason
to maintain it. Because the area was so
remote the buildings and equipment at Rankin's diggings were left mostly
undisturbed. As late as the early 1950s
several of the buildings were still standing.
The last I heard there were rotting ruins of many of the buildings, in
addition to the heavy machinery of the mill.
An ore car may still sit on a
section of rail that ran from the mill to the portal of the old Star mine. At
the site of the blacksmith shop, remains of the hearth, old wagon parts, and
the metal frame of the bellows may still be there.
Museum notes. Toward the end of the year, people think
about ways they can allocate money for the best tax advantage before January
first. Remember that Idaho has a 50%
tax credit for donations to educational institutions like your museum. The maximum total you can donate and get a
tax credit is $100. The 50% credit
means you get half the amount you donated taken off of what you owe the state
in taxes. The State is actually giving
half your money back to encourage you
to donate. For those of you who would
like to help the museum, but don't have time, or live too far away, this would
be a great way to help out.
The museum would like to thank Stan
Matthews for loaning the museum some great items for exhibits. I'll be writing more about what we
need. One of our biggest concerns is
the need for volunteers to man the museum next summer. Please think about how you could help in
that way, by either volunteering or by helping to find people who will. Bear in mind the idea that your club or
organization could help in this way.
Since this is the last issue of the
paper before Christmas, I hope you all have a great one. If you gather around the old photo albums,
how about doing your family a big favor: write on the pictures who is who, and
other information, before that knowledge is lost.
12-27-96
Two of the first things people
notice when they drive trough Council are the old steam-powered tractors sitting
in the city park. This type of machine
was originally called a "steam traction engine". I don't know just exactly when traction
engines started being used in the Council area. Stationary steam engines were used for a long time at places like
the Seven Devils, but I don't think these tractors appeared until at least some
time after 1900.
The
first portable steam engines appeared in the eastern U.S. about 1855, and were
used only for plowing fields. Because
it took time for a suitable steering mechanism to be developed, they did not
come into common use until the late 1870s.
The first mention of a steam tractor that I have found in this general
area was in the Weiser Signal in 1905.
In the Council area the Wilkie family, on Hornet Creek, were some of the
first people to use steam tractors.
They used traction engines to build the Ridge Road about 1909, and the
road was even called the "Traction Engine Road" for awhile. I have no doubt that Traction Gulch, which
is a tributary of North Hornet Creek, is so named because the road either came
up it or near it.
The most common use of traction
engines here seems to have been to power threshing machines and sawmills. The Wilkies used their engines to power
several sawmills and planing mills that operated all over this area. Prior to these portable steam engines,
sawmills were limited to locations where water power was available, such as at
the original Wilkie mill sight near the Hornet Guard Station.
Old newspapers mention threshers
operated by Jackie Duree, the Winklers, and Press Anderson before the turn of
the century. These may have been big
combine-like machines that were pulled through the fields by huge teams of
horses. I don't know just when people
started using steam engines to power stationary threshers, but it was common by
the 1920s.
Many
of the farmers would get together and use the few available threshers. Pug Robertson of Bear, and Jim Henson of
Pleasant Ridge were two men in this area that traveled around at harvest time,
pulling a thresher from farm to farm behind their steam traction engines. Looking at the photos we have, Pug's steam
engine appears to have been made by the Rumely Products Co. This engine probably weighed about 10 tons,
and had 20 horse power at the draw bar.
(Not very powerful compared to modern tractors.)
Threshers were also manufactured by
many of the same companies who built steam engines. Pug's thresher looks very much like an "Agitator"
model, made by J.I. Case before 1900.
These old-time threshers used the "vibration" or
"shaker" principle to separate the grain from the straw. This method was put to use in the 1850's,
and the basic technology is still used in most modern combine harvesters.
One aspect of operating these old
engines is one that is seldom seen anymore.
That is the use of a belt, run from the engine to the machinery to be
powered. (If I get something wrong
here, some of you older and wiser readers please call me and set me straight.)
It
wasn't that long ago that most tractors came equipped with a large,
flat-surfaced pulley to run a belt. One
end of the belt went around the pulley on the tractor (or steam engine) and the
other end went around a similar pulley on the thresher or other machine to be
powered. Although I will be writing in
past tense, I realize that some farmers and ranchers are still using some
belt-powered equipment.
One thing that always intrigued me
was that the pulley was sometimes shaped the opposite way that it seemed it
should be: bigger around in the middle than on the edges. This made the belt grip harder in the
middle, and that caused the belt to center on the pulley. At least that was how it was supposed to
work. It took some maneuvering of the
tractor to line up its pulley just right with the machine's pulley.
The belts varied in width from three
or four inches for smaller jobs, and up to about eight to ten inches wide to
run a large machine. Sometimes the
belts were very long, with the engine and machine being ten, twenty, or even
more feet from each other. Depending on
the desired direction of rotation of the machine's pulley, the belt was
sometimes given a half turn between the engine and the machine, giving it the
appearance of a figure eight.
The belts were made of a fiber that
was impregnated with a rubber type substance.
The ends were laced together with leather strings, or with special clamp
that looked like a row of connected staples.
To get the belt to grip better, "belt dressing" was applied to
it. Belt dressing was a sticky
substance with the consistency something like tar. It's too bad that smells can't be written down or recorded. The smell of a hot belt and belt dressing is
pretty unique.
Needless to say, this kind of belt
hook up was not something you wanted to be careless around. A loose flap of clothing or a hand could get
caught between the belt and pulley, and you could get badly hurt or killed.
More next week.
1-3-97
With
stationary threshers, the grain had to be cut, bundled and tied into sheaves,
and hauled to the thresher. The sheaves
were thrown into a feeder opening. The
cleaned grain came out a chute and into a sack. Each sack was sewn closed by hand, with string and a special
needle which was usually about 3 to 5 inches long. Sack sewers became very skillful, and took pride in the speed and
quality of their work. The straw and
chaff came out of the thresher through a long pipe or conveyer, making a big
pile on the ground.
Great
care had to be taken that sparks from the steam engine's smoke stack didn't
land on the straw pile, as it was extremely flammable. The loss of the straw and chaff would not be
the real problem; the grain field could turn into a raging inferno in a matter
of seconds. The very flared smoke stack
on the Case engine in the park. was designed to reduce the number of hot sparks
that made it out the stack.
In
addition to the crew directly involved in threshing the grain, it sometimes
took two or more men to operate the steam engine, including hauling wood (or
coal), and water. One of the
motivations toward the development of gas powered tractors, aside from reduced
fire danger, was to reduce the number of men needed to run a threshing
operation.
The
Case engine in the park is a 20 horse power model, patented in 1899. This may be the one that the Wilkies bought
and took to their operations on Hornet Creek in the summer of 1910. It is said that this engine was used by Jim
Hensen to power the thresher that he operated on the Ridge and the Fruitvale
area. It may also have been used for
plowing in that area.
In later years, Lawrence Warner used
this engine to power a sawmill near Bear.
After Warner was done with it, Hugh Addington and Merlin Naser bought
it. They also acquired an engine, made
by the Advance Thresher Company, that they found abandoned at Placer
Basin. The two men did extensive
repairs on this second engine to get it running. Both engines were driven to Council under their own power. The bars, or lugs, that were originally
bolted onto the rear wheels to provide traction were removed so they wouldn't
damage the roads on the trip to Council .
As
Merlin was driving the Wilkie engine to town, he oversteered and it tipped over
on its side in the Summit Creek draw between the Kramer summit and the North
Hornet summit. Both the engine and
Merlin were unhurt in the accident. The
engine was left there until the next spring, when they got a logging truck to
stop and help tip the engine back upright.
Merlin and Hugh drove the engines in parades for several years. After Naser died, Addington parked them in
the park in the center of Council where they remain today. Merlin Naser's son, Delbert, donated his
interest in the Advance engine to the town of Council. It is my understanding that Hugh Addington's
son, Bruce still has the other percentage of ownership.
The
Advance Thresher Company (est. 1881), was bought by the Rumely Co. in
1911. The engine in the park is
probably a 12 to 16 horse power tractor.
As with most other steam engine manufacturers, the Advance Company also
made threshers.
The
rear wheels of Advance engines were generally placed farther forward than
most. Most traction engine builders
reasoned that the rear wheels should have all the weight possible on them. The Advance company, however, claimed that
the most favorable footing for the drive-wheels was where the engine would have
sufficient power to barely slip the wheels.
They reasoned that any additional weight on the drive-wheels would serve
no good purpose, and would bog the engine down in soft ground. By transferring the excess of weight from
the drive to the front wheels, a better steering engine resulted.
It's pretty hard to notice the wheel
placement at the moment, since a mountain of snow has been piled on the poor
old engine.
Just as an interesting side note,
Hugh Addington's father, Bud, tried to sell steam-powered cars when he owned
the Addington Auto Company in what is now the "Ace" building, just
across the street to the east of the old steam engines. An ad in the Adams County Leader, Dec 31,
1920, said that these Baker Steamer autos and trucks ran on any oil type
fuel. This made them less expensive to
operate, plus the vehicles got 20 to 30 miles per gallon. Water was condensed after becoming steam,
and then reused. The ad said that there
were fewer moving parts than in a gas engine, they lasted longer, and needed
fewer repairs. The ad said that these
vehicles would be the "wave of the future".
1-10-97
By this time guess most of you
realize that the flooding we just went through is a pretty historic event. I haven't heard of a living person who
remembers anything this bad along the Weiser River. It reminded me of stories of 1890. I already wrote about this in one of my columns, but it seems
appropriate to look it over again since it is so similar to our current
situation.
By 1888 it had been twelve years
since the first family ,the Mosers, had arrived, and there were quite a number
of homesteads in and around the Council Valley. The community was in its infancy. Here are some of the things that occurred that summer:
John Peters established the first
store here, and the makings of a town were starting to form around it about a
mile north of the present town. Calvin
White established the first store in the Meadows Valley. Ten bridges were built over the Weiser River
between Council and Price Valley.
(Before that it was necessary to ford the river a couple dozen times to
make that trip.) The first wagon load
of copper ore was taken out of the Seven Devils.
The winter of 1888 - '89 was very
mild, with little snow. By the
following summer, a severe drought had set in.
The Weiser River was lower than anyone could remember, and the water was
warm. The Snake River was so low at
Weiser that a man was able to drive a wagon across it, and the water barely
came up past the axles. In a time when
many, if not most, people's livelihoods depended on growing crops or a big
garden a drought like this one was very serious.
Idaho was only a territory
then. That November the vote was taken
to determine whether it would become a state.
Council Valley people voted 30 to 28 against it. (The rest of the Territory was in favor, and
the State was admitted to the Union the next summer.)
By
the fall of 1889, people were literally praying for rain or snow. That winter, their prayers were answered ...
and answered ... and answered. Snow
fell early, and kept coming. By
January, there was four feet in Middle Valley (Midvale). Mail carriers had trouble getting through
the canyon between Council and Meadows, and thirty feet of snow was reported at
Warren. For some reason, the
precipitation was not consistent throughout the region. In some places, like Bear and Cuprum, the
snow level was at, or even below, normal.
On the first day of February, the
snow had settled to three or four feet deep in the Council Valley. That was the day it started raining.
You may realize that if we had had
ice in the rivers this year, the flooding would have been even worse in
places. In 1890 thick layers of ice
broke up and formed huge jams all along the Snake and Weiser Rivers. Angry chocolate torrents hurled headlong
over riverbanks, destroying everything in their path. Horses, cattle, sheep and buildings were swept away like specks
of dust in a windstorm. On Hornet Creek
alone 88 head of cattle and horses were drowned. Mud and rock slides wiped out wagon roads and railroads. Every one of the new bridges over the Weiser
River between Council and Meadows was utterly obliterated. Transportation all over the region was at a
complete standstill.
On the first of February there had
been three to four feet of snow in the Council Valley. By the end of the month there was so much
bare ground that some ranchers turned their cattle out to graze.
This flooding sounds even worse than
what we just had. Of course in those
days life was much different than it is now.
First, there were far fewer people, buildings, etc. here to damage. The roads were nothing more than dirt wagon
trails, and were a lot cheaper to repair.
All ten bridges up the canyon only cost $540 total to build. (Of course that would be something like
$40,000 in today's money.) It would
have been a lot of work to repair a washed out place in a road though because
they had no machinery - just horse and man power. Nobody had electricity, so nobody missed it - same for TV, telephone or radio. Everybody had wood stoves for heat and
cooking. Nobody was used to getting
into a vehicle and getting to Weiser in an hour. It took two days with a wagon when the roads were in good
shape. And nobody dreamed anyone would
ever fly anywhere.
I started to write that there was no
railroad closer than Weiser to wash out.
It's pretty ironic that were basically back to the same situation on
that score.
I tried to get out and videotape the
flooding in the area, but I could only make it a couple hundred yards from
home, except up West Fork. What I would
like to do is compile a video of the flooding by getting some of the footage
that other people took. Still photos
would work nicely too. If it comes
together, I'll put a copy in the library.
If you would like to contribute to this video give me a call or drop
tapes or photos off at the library.
Hopefully this won't happen again in our lifetimes, and we need to get a
record of it.
1-17-97
Researching and writing history can
be tricky. I try very hard to be
accurate and factual in my writing, and yet I know that some of what I write is
untrue. All the information I get came
from a human being in one way or another.
All history is someone's version of what happened. Often the stories I write were filtered
through the viewpoint of several people.
For example, much of my historical information comes from old Salubria,
Cambridge, Weiser and Council newspapers.
What was written in them was usually related to the editor by someone
else. If he was lucky it was eye
witness; if not he got the story from someone who heard it from a first-hand
observer. The editor wrote his
understanding of the story, and then I write my understanding of his story and
put it into the context of my knowledge and understanding of the bigger
picture. So you can see that there is
oportunity for misinformation to creep in.
Even if you get the facts right,
there is the interpretation to worry about.
Historian, Shelby Foote, once said, "Facts are just the bare bones
out of which truth is made." Last
week I mentioned that the citizens of Council Valley voted 30 to 28 against
statehood in 1889. Then I said,
"The rest of the Territory was in favor, and the State was admitted to the
Union the next summer." A friend
of mine took that to mean that every other part of the territory, except
Council Valley, voted for statehood.
Of course I knew what I meant, but I didn't word it carefully
enough. I should have said something
like, "A majority of the voters in the rest of the territory as a whole
voted in favor, . . ." It makes we
wonder how many times I've miss-worded something, or how many times I've
misinterpreted what someone else wrote and then passed it on.
Sometimes
people see the same event differently, and there is more than one version of
the same story. If the originators of
both versions are convinced they have the one and only true account, it gets a little
perplexing.
And even hindsight changes with
time. It's been said that what is told
as history not only tells us about the past, but tells us much about the time
in which it was told. Current
conditions and social attitudes influence the viewpoint of any historian. Writers interpret events in a way that fits
with their own sense of values and the cultural attitude of their audience
(readers).
For instance in the last century
writers didn't have any reservations about denigrating people who were
different from the "norm" in any way. Newspapers openly printed slanderous statements about blacks,
Chinese, Japanese, Mormons, American Indians, and even ethnic groups that we
don't think of as minorities anymore.
One thing that became obvious early
in my research was that people will often choose to pass on an exciting
fictional story over a not-so-exciting true account. This has led to a number of
inaccurate, local myths. I was
bemoaning this fact to Frank Anderson one day a few years ago. He just grinned and said, "A lie well
told and stuck to is better than the truth." That must have been the attitude of "Pinky" Baird.
His story illustrates both changes in cultural attitudes and the fact
that people will sometimes just lie.
Ewing Craig Baird, nicknamed
"Pinky", was an old-time Indian fighter who lived in Council. The story of his childhood says that Indians
killed several members of his family, and that this resulted in Baird having a
life-long hatred of Indians. There is
a pair of Indian moccasins in the Council museum that he gave to Bill
Winkler. Baird told Winkler that the
moccasins had belonged to local Shoshoni chief, Eagle Eye. According to Baird the last time he saw
Eagle Eye alive was when the chief was standing in a stream getting a
drink. Baird said that the Indian
jumped in the air and fell dead, and that's how he got the moccasins. In other words this was Baird's way of
bragging that he had killed Eagle Eye.
Today we would call it cold-blooded murder. In those days, Baird was looked up to for eliminating a
"bloodthirsty savage".
As to the truth of the story, Eagle
Eye actually died of natural causes.
Baird claimed to have killed more than one Indian in this area, so he
may have murdered an Indian he thought was Eagle Eye. By the way Eagle Eye was known, by informed people, as more of a
peace maker than a warrior. Less
knowledgeable people thoughtlessly classified him, along with all Indians, as a
savage killer.
The museum still needs someone to
donate a door. We would like one that
is fairly old-fashioned with a large window in the upper half. It doesn't matter if it is a single pane of
glass or several smaller ones. If it
doesn't have glass in it we can replace it.
The window area needs to be large enough that part of a room exhibit can
be easily viewed through it. If
you have one you can part with, please give me a call. 253-4582
Also, some of us who are working on
the video about the railroad would like to borrow any photos, videos or home
movies you have of local trains or anything to do with the railroad. Give me a call if you can share any.
1-24-97
This week I'm going to start basing
a series of columns on a really priceless manuscript that Edna Johnson let me
copy. It is basically an autobiography
written by Ida Logan Hitt. She was the
wife of A.F. Hitt, the man after whom Hitt Mountain, near Cambridge, is
named. It was written in the late 1930s
when she was in her late 70s. She died
at the age of 81 in 1939 at Portland.
Ida's mother was Lavina Anderson who
married David Logan. When Logan died,
she remarried Tom Price in 1884. Tom
Price is who Price Valley is named for.
Lavina's brothers, John and Rufus Anderson, were well known Indian
Valley pioneers.
Ida had distinct memories of coming
west in a wagon train in 1868. The
1860s was the worst decade of violence between whites and Indians in American
history. One story in particular
illustrates how afraid of Indians people sometimes were. One morning the group saw what they thought
were Indians coming from a defile in the Black Hills.
"They came single file, and
seemed to be coming directly to our camp.
There being only one man and two pistols, one of the guns was offered to
the man. He refused it, ran and crawled
under the bed, wrapping a buffalo robe around him, also covering up his head
and face. My mother took the discarded
weapon, determined to do what she could to defend her children. Another woman having the other, they were
ready to die fighting. The Indians kept
coming until at least 300 warriors were in sight, a formidable array for two
women with revolvers to fight. Other
women armed themselves with axes, butcher knives and clubs; one had a
broom. I was 9 years old and remember
this vividly. In the excitement they failed to notice that the hostile band was
passing by the camp some hundred yards away.
All at once the procession stopped and the Indians turned their faces
directly toward us. Oh what joy! They were antelope. After staring a moment, away they ran. My mother dropped the pistol and sat down on
the floor of the tent. Most of the
women began to cry. For my part, I
could not understand why they cried when they found there was not danger."
It's beyond me why they would have
been traveling in such a small group, and were so poorly armed. Apparently Ida's father wasn't with the
family because he had been drafted into the army. There are places in this manuscript that are very vague, or where
things are left out.
The Logans had planned to go on to
Oregon, but decided to stay at Weiser when they found a relative living
there. Soon they moved on to Middle
Valley (Midvale).
In those days hogs were a common
animal to raise - both for sale and home consumption. Council's first family, the Mosers, sometimes drove large herds
of hogs to the Boise Basin to sell them to the miners there. Ida wrote of her family's experiences:
"As the spring advanced the hogs were turned out to forage, but were fed a
little wheat in the evening so they would come to their covered log pen. It was the fear of bear that made such a pen
necessary. One night a bear came. We heard the pig squeal, but when the men
arrived with their guns the bear was gone, taking a nice young shoat
along. He had coolly pulled four logs
off, seized the pig and was gone. It
showed it was a large bear, perhaps a grizzly; his footprint was
enormous."
It was quite common during the early settlement of the valleys along the
Weiser River for farmers to have problems with bears killing livestock;
especially pigs. In 1882, George Moser
and some other men pursued a bear that had been killing Moser's pigs. After the dogs cornered the bear, it
attacked Moser, badly wounding him by tearing away chunks of flesh from his
legs. Moser recovered, but the wounds
bothered him the rest of his life.
Some reports say that the bear that
attacked Moser was a grizzly, but this has not been confirmed. (The museum has a few claws that are said to
be from this bear, and they do look like grizzly claws.) Early reports of bear incidents were not
usually clear as to the species of the bear.
People in those days seemed very inclined to exaggerate and
overdramatize just about any aspect of life, so some stories about grizzly
bears probably really involved black bears.
There probably were, however, a few grizzlies in the Council area. The abundant salmon in the Weiser River
would have been an ideal food source for them.
A grizzly was said to have been killing
livestock near Alpine in 1874. This
animal reportedly weighed over 600 pounds and had a ten inch long track. In 1896, Gilbert Smith, the State Senator
from Meadows, killed a bear that reportedly measured 9 1/2 feet from tip of
nose to end of tail.
More
next week.
1-31-97
History
Corner
by Dale
Fisk
Continuing from Ida Hitt's
autobiography:
"There was no travel during the
winter excepting the mail man coming by once a week. Before spring we ran out of flour and had to grind wheat on the
coffee mill for graham flour to make bread.
There was no chance to get any supplies until the roads could be
traveled in the spring, as it was 150 miles to Boise, our nearest market. We also ran out of butter; as everyone
packed their butter in summer for winter, all the cows were dried up in the late
fall, with no milk. (We knew nothing about
canned milk; think it hadn't as yet been invented.)"
"When spring came Uncle John
and John Sailing took up homesteads across the Weiser River, Making it 2 miles
to their places. No one planted
anything but gardens, as the men could go to other valley's and work thru
thrashing and get all the wheat they needed."
"One day a man came and made a
proposition to Ma & Pa that he furnish the cows and they milk and make
butter for half of it. It was soon
arranged and the man brought the cows and their calves. In those days it was not known to take the
calf away from its mother and feed it milk.
There was plenty of range for the cows.
There were 15 of them, Father milked 7, Mary 5, and I three of the
gentlest. But alas, no more sleeping
mornings until ready to get up. At 5:30
we had to crawl out. Many mornings it
seemed I just couldn't, but up I had to get.
Besides all the fresh butter we could use, we had lots of cream and milk
to use, also cottage cheese. Mother made quantities as it was good for the
chickens too, also milk to feed the hogs.
The butter was worked over twice, then packed in wooden tubs made for
that purpose, 50 lbs. in each. Every
one ate packed butter thru the winter and early spring, in fact until the last
of May. As the cows ate grass on the
range they also ate wild onions that grew up as early as the grass, but by the
last of May were withered and the seed blown away."
About 1872 the Logan family moved to
the Salubria Valley. This is the
valley in which Cambridge sits now. Salubria
was the only town there until the railroad came in 1899. The town of Salubria was a little over a
mile south east of present-day Cambridge.
Mary, Ida's older sister who was sixteen, married Frank Mickey in
1873. "As Mr. Cuddy had moved to
Cuddy Mtn., built a saw and flour mill, my sister's husband was among the
foremost pioneers."
"As soon as the law allowed,
there was a son born to the Mickeys.
When the Nez Perce war broke out on the 20th of June 1877, they had 3
children, Irwin, Cora and Everet; the latter was not yet two. In the meantime my Uncle John and Uncle
Rufus had moved to Indian Valley; my mother also with us 3 children. By this time I was getting along in years,
was 19 years old. In that time I had
six proposals of marriage, but would have none of them until the handsome young
Mr. Hitt came along, at least I thought him the handsomest man on this earth,
or any other. We were engaged for 2
years, as he had bought his partner out and had to pay it off before we could
marry. The Indian war changed
that."
Continued next week.
Articles from 2-1-97 thru this one
(3-21-97) are about Ida Hitt and are straight out of my book.
This is the end of 3-21:
There are so many mistakes and
distortions in Ida's version of this story that it would take a whole column to
straighten them out. More from Ida next
week.
I'm told that Dr. Gerber died in the
summer of 1990. She was born in
September of 1889, so she was almost 101 years old. We have the walls of "her" office finished in the
museum. (Actually, we have built a
three-room complex with a sheriff's office, Dr. Gerber's office, and a medical
office that will probably be Dr. Brown's office, more or less.) What I would like is for people to give us
quotes about Dr. Gerber that we can print and place in the exhibit. My plan is to just put up the quote, not
necessarily who said it, so don't be afraid to be honest. If you can help us, please write down a very
short statement about an experience with Dr. Gerber. Here's an example of one I'd like to use: "I've gone to
sleep in a lot of dentist's chairs, but I never went to sleep in
hers." Please either mail your
quote to me at box 252, Council, or call me at 253-4582. Even if you just have a story that we might
be able to get a quote out of, give me a call.
Another thing we would like to do is
stuff a chicken to put in her office exhibit.
That may sound odd to someone who is unfamiliar with Dr. Gerber, but if
she was just your average dentist do you think we would be making a whole
exhibit in the museum around her? It
will be an interesting exhibit. Anyway,
we have a volunteer to do the stuffing, and think we think we may have someone
willing to give us a chicken. But if
you have a chicken that you are willing to give to the cause, keep us in
mind. I'm told she raised Bantam
chickens, among others.
If anyone has some extra 7"
stove pipe, we need a section about 3 feet long, an elbow, and a short piece,
maybe about 6 inches long for the stove in Bill Winkler's sheriff's office.
As always, we can still use help at
the museum every Tuesday.
3-28 Ida
Hitt's memoirs continued. It is 1878,
after the Long Valley Massacre.
More next week.
4-3-97 This will conclude
Ida Hitt's memoirs. We pick up her
story about 1884.
The man Amos Hitt sold his sawmill
to was Frederick Wilkie. I found
mention of the sale in an 1885 newspaper.
Wilkie operated it near the present site of the old Hornet Creek Guard
Station. It was one of the first
sawmills to operate in the Council area.
Ida continues:
Ida Hitt had nine children. She wrote the manuscript that I have quoted
from in the late 1930s. He died in
Portland, Oregon in 1939 at the age of 81.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading
Ida's writing. I found it fascinating
to read a first hand account of such dramatic events as the Nez Perce and
Bannock Wars, and how they effected the people who lived in this area. In some ways those times were not very long
ago. It's amazing how much things have
changed.
I also hope that this makes you
realize how valuable your memoirs could be to your family someday. If you recall, some time back I said that it
would be a priceless gift to your descendants for you to write down the story
of your life. You may not have lived
through such dramatic days as Ida Hitt, but things are always changing. Someday it will even be interesting to hear
about the first computers we had just a few years ago because they will seem so
crude by future standards. What am I
saying?! A computer more than three or
four years old is already behind the times.
Anyway, if you haven't written anything down yet, there's no time like
the present.
I'm still looking for Dr. Gerber
quotes to use. I got a couple of good
ones this week.
In 1996, volunteers spent over 600
hours working on the museum. That's the
equivalent of one person working almost four months. And that's not counting MANY hours some have spent at home
working on museum projects. Because of
the legal requirements concerning the bidding process I don't feel I'm at
liberty to say too much yet, but the museum addition is going to built this
summer. We are planning to follow the
example of the Cambridge Museum, and open the "old" part of the
museum (which will be almost totally new exhibits) on about May 15. The plan is to have it open from 10 AM to 4
PM. We will need volunteers to be at
the museum for one of the two, three-hour shifts each day: 10:00 to 1:00 and
1:00 to 4:00.
I'm still very willing to take any
pennies you may want to donate to the museum.
Another fund raiser that Connie Mocaby is organizing is a home tour in
June. She has several homes lined up
but needs a few more. If you have an
interesting house in the Council area that people would enjoy seeing, please
give Connie a call.
4-10-97 I
ran across an old "Frontier Times" magazine from May 1977 that has an
article by Charles Luck, a man who came through Council in 1902 on his way to
the gold fields at Thunder Mountain.
Gold was discovered at Thunder Mountain in 1896 by the Caswell
brothers. They were friends with Arthur
Huntley who owned a ranch just south of Cuprum where the Speropulos place is
now. The Caswells cut Huntley in on
their discovery because he gave them a grubstaked of $50. The gold deposits at Thunder Mountain turned
out to be very big, and they all became rich.
By 1902 Thunder Mountain was big
news, and a gold rush started to the area.
The railroad had reached Council the year before, and since this was the
nearest rail point to Thunder Mountain hundreds of people came through here.
Mr. Luck wrote: "In May I joined the stream and
assembled my outfit at Council, the railroad terminus on the west. There we camped for a while and watched the
crowds go by. It was an outfitting
station. The traders in that little
town made money."
"As pack horses were an
essential part of every outfit, every available horse was bought and then the
boys scoured the hill for cayuses. They
drove them into corrals, wild eyed and with kinks in their tails. They roped and threw them, put on a breaking
bridle, slipped the blinder over their eyes, cinched on a pack saddle and sacks
of sand and let them buck. After two or
three days of this they sold them to the Argonauts from the East for
trustworthy pack horses. And the
Easterners bought greedily. They knew a
horse when they saw one. It was an
animal with four legs, one on each corner."
In the midst of this scramble, wagon
loads of building supplies were making their way to Arthur Huntley's ranch
where he was constructing an extravagant, three-story mansion.
Earl Wayland Bowman arrived in
Council in 1902, and later gave a vivid description of the town:
"Dirty? My gracious! There were pigs wallowing along the streets, beer kegs piled out
by the half dozen saloons, trash and litter everywhere and dogs - dogs!
Suffering saints, I never dreamed there could be so many in a place so
small!"
"Don't you remember the ricks
of manure that lined the main street - the accumulation of God knows how many
years from the old barn where the stage horses were kept?"
"The Thunder Mountain rush was
on, and everything was hurry and hustle and rustle. Pack trains stood in front of Lowe & Peter's . . ."
[This store was where Adams County Real Estate is now.]
"Freight wagons and mountain
outfits lined the streets and Haworth's, Weed & Criss', McMahan's were busy
- busy loading them for the hungry rush to the Devils, the Big Creek country,
Thunder Mountain, Warrens." [Weed
& Criss' store was where the Council Valley Market parking lot is now. McMahan's was about where the public
restrooms are, south of the park.]
"There was money
everywhere. Things were moving and Lew
Shaw's, Denny Ryan's, the Old Overland Bar - where Bob Braden mixed any sort
you wanted - and all the other irrigation emporiums saved the populace from
perishing on the arid desert of unquenched thirst!" [The Overland was
where the Ace is now.]
In spite of Bowman's mention of freight wagons, etc. loading ". . . for
the hungry rush to the Devils, . . ." the Seven Devils mining district was
having a dismal year. After the
Thunder Mountain gold rush subsided somewhat, the nearness of the railroad
helped revive the boom in the Devils.
As many as eighty wagons were eventually employed by the mines to haul
ore. They turned the road along Hornet
Creek, and the streets of Council, into a river of dust as they rolled through
town to unload heavy sacks of ore onto train cars at the east end of town.
It
was in 1902 that the first automobile that had ever passed through Council
stopped a few minutes in the town square.
At this time cars were little more than a rich man's toy. Most local people had never seen a car, and
it drew quite a crowd. Lucy McMahan said that the car created as much
excitement in Council as when Lindbergh later flew nonstop across the Atlantic.
4-17-97
Those of
you who have only been taking the Adams County Leader were probably a little
surprised last week to get a copy of the Record instead. The merger of the Leader and the Record
happened very quickly.
For those of you who enjoy the
History Corner, you won't be without it because of the merger. It's hard to believe, but I have been
writing this column for both papers for three years now. I intend to continue writing it for the
Adams County Record for as long as I can come up with a new subject each week.
While looking for a subject to write
about this week I ran across my notes on a colorful character who used to live
here: Hannibal F. Johnson.
Johnson was a miner and poet, who
acquired the title "Seven Devils Johnson" from the local
residents. Johnson, born in Indiana in
1830, came west looking for gold, and was in the Boise area in the early
1850's. He later located a mining claim
in the Seven Devils about 1884.
The first time that I know of that
Johnson became a published poet was in the Weiser Leader, Sept 27, 1889. A 24 verse poem by Johnson was printed in
that edition of the paper, but his name was not even mentioned. Credit for the poem was given simply to
"a Seven Devils Miner". A
number of you have probably heard or read this well-known poem that begins:
"I'm sitting on a mountain high
With blood and thunder in my eye,
For
I've been trying for an hour
To
bake a cake with Cuddy flour.
But
damn the stuff, it will not rise.
And
that's why blood is in my eyes.
It's
not because the dough's not sour,
For
sour as hell is Cuddy's flour."
Johnson wrote the poem as
good-natured teasing of John Cuddy.
Cuddy was having trouble adjusting the burrs in his flour mill near
Salubria, and they were not grinding the wheat properly. The newspaper said of Johnson's poem:
"We publish the same by request, believing it to be written in a good
spirit toward Mr. Cuddy and that it is aimed as a farewell to his burr mill
flour." The editor went on to say
that Cuddy had installed new milling equipment, and implied this should improve
the quality of Cuddy's flour significantly.
About a month later, in the Oct 25,
1889 issue, the paper printed another of Johnson's poems, "Farewell to
Idaho". Again, credit was given
only to "A Seven Devil Miner".
In 1892 Johnson ran for the office
of Washington County Senator against T.C. Galloway, of Weiser. During the campaign, Galloway called Johnson
"Pine Tree Johnson", claiming that Johnson had real no home and lived
under a pine tree.
By this time, Galloway had already
become a living legend in this part of Idaho.
You may remember him being mentioned a couple of time in Ida Hitt's
memoirs. Galloway was a pioneer and
pillar of the Weiser community, and led a group of volunteer militia during the
Indian Wars of the 1870s. A street in
Weiser is named after him. In spite of
the fact that Johnson had to have been a relative unknown, Johnson won the
election and served one term.
More on Seven Devils Johnson next
week.
4-24-97 In the early 1890's
R.E. Lockwood, for whom Lockwood Saddle is named, was doing some mining in the
Seven Devils. He was staying at a camp
in the head of Rapid River near the North Star mine. One evening Hannibal "Seven Devils" Johnson visited the
camp, and all of the men present became caught up in lofty discussions of
philosophy and literature. Lockwood
later wrote that it was a "feast of reason and a flow of soul". Johnson recited one of his poems for the
group:
"Some
sing of life in cities fair.
Some sing
of homes in valleys green
Some sing
of pleasures on the beach.
Where
wealth and gayeties are seen.
But I will
sing of grandest scenes
That ever
met the human eye.
Of forests
green, of crystal streams,
Of turrets
reaching to the sky."
Lockwood recalled, "There, with
true nature in all her vastness and grandeur spread out beneath us, (we were at
an altitude of about 8,000 feet) with the green forests stretching away for
miles, with mountain 'turrets reaching to the
sky' above us, it was easy to appreciate the impulses which inspired the
lines."
I'm not sure if Lockwood already
knew Johnson at this time, or if this was their first meeting. I'm also not sure if Lockwood was the editor
of the Weiser Signal newspaper at the time that Johnson's poems were first
printed in that paper. He was the
Signal editor around this time, and must have been associated with the paper
when the campfire recitation occurred.
At any rate, Lockwood was so enthusiastic about Johnson's poems that he
risked his own money in 1895 to publish a 125 page book of the poets works,
entitled "Poems of Idaho".
The book sold for 50 cents. I've
never seen a copy of it, but I remember finding it listed awhile back as being
in an Idaho library somewhere. Many of
Johnson's poems were about mining and life in the Seven Devils.
Johnson apparently never married, and did a
great deal of traveling from place to place around the country, pulling a
two-wheeled cart. He was a good
natured man with a keen sense of humor, and seemed to be liked by almost
everyone.
In
a time when doctors were few and far between, Johnson was in demand as an
authority on home remedies. His father
was a doctor, and had built the first house in Carthage, Missouri, where
Hannibal grew up and was educated. He
studied medicine with his father, but not liking the profession he abandoned
it.
Since last week, I ran across some
info that should have gone with Johnson's early history. He crossed the plains
with his parents by covered wagon, coming to Eugene, Oregon in 1853. He mined until the outbreak of the Rogue
River Indian War when he became a soldier.
After his first term of enlistment he and five other soldiers were
surrounded by 125 Indians. One of the
soldiers was killed, but the rest escaped.
In 1858 Johnson was part of the Frazier River gold rush. In 1862 he came to Florence and Buffalo
Hump, then
arren,
Walla Walla, and Auburn, Ore. He packed
and freighted to the Boise Basin until 1865.
That fall, he took a 28 animal pack string to Blackfoot, Montana, where
he sold the pack outfit and started mining.
In 1868 he came to the Salmon River country and then Willamette Valley
of Oregon. Last week I said he came to
the Seven Devils about 1884. This info
says he came to the Devils in 1882 and located the Golden Eagle mine. He exhibited some very rich ore from that
mine at the Worlds Fair. He was
offered $36,000 for this and other claims, but turned the offer down.
I'll have more on Seven Devils
Johnson next week.
I got a call from Eldora Peebles on
Monday. She lived in the Council area
for years and now lives in Weiser. She
says hello to all her old friends up here.
5-1-97
Hannibal Johnson had four sisters
and two brothers. One brother, Pleasant
W. Johnson, was seven years younger than "Seven Devils", and lived
with Hannibal on Rapid River at one time.
Pleasant W. Johnson was always called P.W. Johnson in newspapers. People were almost always referred to by
their first two initials in early newspapers.
I have sometimes read about someone in a decade's worth of papers before
learning their first name.
It may well have been P.W. Johnson
that induced his better-known brother to Idaho. P.W. came to Idaho in 1861, and lived in Florence during the gold
rush there. He claimed to have owned
the first ounce of gold that was mined at Warren. In 1862 he went to the Boise Basin, then explored Oregon and
Nevada as a prospector. P.W. came to
Council in 1900 at the age of 63. In
the census for that year he is listed as an accountant by trade. Within two years of coming here, he was a
"senior member of S. Haworth & Co" and secretary of the Council
Board of Trade (which apparently was a kind of promotional organization for the
Council area). He shared his brother's interest
in mining, and jointly owned a gold mine with Hannibal on Rapid River. He also had claims near Iron Springs and
Thunder Mountain. Another thing P.W.
had in common with Hannibal is that he also never married.
In 1903 through 1905 P.W. Johnson is
listed as chairman of Council Board of Trustees. This would probably be the equivalent of a mayor's position. In 1905 he was working on a second book:
"Fifty Years Out of Congress" ( a history of the Northwest). His first literary work had been "Johnson's
Encyclopedia of Transportation", which became an industry standard. He wrote it during 8 years of employment
(1880-1888) as General Freight Agent for a steam ship line on the Oregon coast.
One source says that P.W. Johnson
homesteaded on White Bird Ridge after leaving Council.
Some of the activities of Hannibal
Johnson can be traced by following old newspaper accounts:
Salubria Citizen, Apr 21, 1899
- Seven Devils Johnson is
"canvassing for two books . . .'The Illustrated New Testament' and a history
of our war with Spain." [I assume
"canvassing" means selling door to door, more or less.]
Cambridge
Citizen, Mar 15, 1901 - "H.F. Johnson has taken the agency for a chemical
fire extinguisher, and will be traveling the area demonstrating what his
machine will do."
Johnson
played the fiddle, and is said to have held it in a unique way. Someone described it as "holding it on
his lap" instead of under his chin.
I would guess that he held it in the way some Cajun fiddlers do, in the
crook of his elbow. When someone is
holding a fiddle like this, while sitting, the elbow is often rested on the
leg, giving the appearance of having the instrument in one's lap.
Hannibal
Johnson must have been a truly remarkable man.
At the time Lockwood heard his poetry around the campfire, Johnson was
over 70 years old and was still wandering some of the most rugged pieces of
real estate on earth. At some point
between 1906 and 1910, when he was between 76 and 80 years old, Johnson claimed a 160 acre homestead at one
of his mining claims near Rankin Mill in the Seven Devils. Although it would have been a very high
elevation to have an orchard, it is said that he established one there, with
about 100 trees on approximately two acres.
I've read that some of the trees are still there. Hannibal also raised chickens and had a
large garden covering about one and a half acres. His home was a 18 X 20 one-room log cabin. In this house, he had a sizable library,
and did a lot of writing. He got a
pension of $8.00 per month from his Indian fighting days on the Rogue
River. He walked 10 miles to old
Pollock to get his mail, and occasionally lectured in Riggins on political
subjects. I have heard that Johnson
Creek (the one closer to Pollock) was named after Seven Devils Johnson.
Johnson's "claim" to his
homestead was not a legal one. He was
required to file under the Homestead Act of June 11, 1906 (concerning
homesteads on federal land) but, he insisted that he didn't need to because he
had been living there before the forest reserve was created. The Forest Service eventually persuaded him
to apply properly, and his application was approved in 1910.
Johnson sold his homestead to Jay
Rhodes at some point. This location
later became "Hannibal Ranger Station".
Apparently
Johnson wasn't living at his homestead very much during the time he was getting
his homestead approved. He is said to
have moved to California in 1910, the year his homestead was approved.
During
his last few years in Idaho, Johnson spent his summers near Pollock where he
had mining properties, and spent the winters with the Alex Kesler family at
Council. One source says that he was
spending his winters with a niece in California before he moved there year
'round. Another source says he spent
considerable time in later years at the Robinson ranch on Bear Creek.
Johnson
returned to visit friends in Idaho about 1930 at the age of 100. He died not long after that trip, and true
to the unusual way he lived, he was one of the few men to speak at his own
funeral. Johnson had brought the first
phonograph to the Council Valley, and he must have had an unusual interest, for
his time, in phonographs and recording.
With extraordinary foresight, and the help of Robert Young of Council, Johnson
recorded his funeral oration on a phonograph record. Part of the agreement when he sold his homestead to Jay Rhodes
was that Rhodes was to see that the recording he made was played at his
funeral. And it was.
Connie Mocaby is organizing a home
tour for June to raise money for the museum.
She already has several interesting homes lined up, but would like a few
more. If you are interested in helping
the museum by allowing your house to be shown, please give Connie a call at
253-4408.
I mentioned that we plan to stuff a
chicken for Dr. Gerber's office, and I thought we had someone in mind who might
donate a chicken. My mistake. We need someone to donate a chicken - preferably
a bantee.
Your club or civic organization may
get a letter from the museum (or may already have received one) about helping
with volunteers to man the museum this summer.
Please give it serious consideration.
We haven't determined an exact opening date at this moment, but should
by the time this hits the presses. It
will be some time in the second half of May.
History
Corner 5-9-97
I have a question. Does anyone know where the Cuprum school
used to be? I'm not talking about he
Landore - Decorah school, but one that used to be at Cuprum itself. The museum has a picture with the school in
the background, but I don't know where it was.
The old bell from the school is still at Cuprum, sitting in someone's
yard.
We have had some nice donations and
loans made to the museum in the last few weeks. Shirley White brought in a dinner fork she found at the old
Middle Fork CCC camp. It has
"CCC" stamped on it and a number that I think is probably the camp
number. Bud Gross brought in an old
fire extinguisher. Shirley Glimser
donated some old shoe lasts from Ralph Finn's shoe repair shop that stood where
Glimser's Adams County Real Estate building is now.
Henry Daniels donated several nice
odds and ends for our mining exhibit.
He really helped our mine tunnel exhibit by loaning us an ore cart and
rails to put it on. It was just what
that exhibit needed. Henry is also
going to do a painting for the museum that will be part of the Native American
exhibit. It will be a scene showing a
big, native festival as seen from "school house hill". For those of you unfamiliar with Council's
history, Council got its name from these Indian gatherings. Indians met here from all over the Northwest
to have a big party and harvest salmon.
Early, white pioneers thought these big festivals were "council
meetings", and so called this the Council Valley.
Jack Wassard made a beautiful and
authentic atlatl for the Native American exhibit. The atlatl was a weapon what natives used for thousands of
years before they got bows and arrows.
You'll have to come in an see it.
I should also mention some donations
that were made not so recently. Tod
Nelson donated a big section of wooden pipe that was first used as water pipe
in Council and then installed for irrigation at the Gould ranch. Boise Cascade gave us the old mill
whistle. Sue Lambert donated an
old-time kitchen apron. (By the way,
Sue, we haven't forgotten the receipt.
Please be patient.) Don Wood
donated an outdated resuscitation kit that was used in Council.
On behalf of the museum and the
community, I would like to thank all the people who have donated or loaned
items, or who have helped the museum in other ways. There is so much to do, so few people, and so little time that we
often neglect to show adequate appreciation.
So, thank you!
We have finally figured out when the
museum will open: May 31st. We have
sent out several letters to local organizations asking for help in staffing the
museum this summer. The museum will be
open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 AM to 4 PM, and Sundays from 1 PM to 4
PM. This way the day can be covered by
two, three-hour shifts. Three hours is
not that much time to give at a time, and it will probably even be fun. We may find it hard to find people who are
willing to give up three hours out of their weekend or holiday, so please give
that some thought. If you can help,
please call Mary Sterner at 253-6930.
Over the past few months, a few
people have mentioned that they might be able volunteer at the museum for a
shift or two. Those people need to call
Mary. We may have forgotten that you
said anything, or may not know if you are still able to help, so please call.
We are still looking for a chicken
to stuff for Dr. Gerber's office. If
you have one you can part with, please give me a call at 253-4582.
The museum is still collecting pennies
for the past, so if you have a pile of pennies lying around that you don't want
to mess with, give me a call.
Sometime before our opening on May
31, we are going to put a "MUSEUM" sign with four-foot-high letters
on the front of the museum. Dale Lyttle
has the letters finished. Now it's a
matter of getting Idaho Power, or someone else with some kind of hoist that
will reach that high, to help us put the sign up. It's about 30 feet up to where the letters need to be bolted
on. I if this sounds like fun to you,
or if you have a farm hand, etc., that will reach up to 25 feet or more, give
me a call. We can also use a few hands
that aren't too afraid of heights.
History
Corner 5-15-97
When I was preschool age, in the mid
1950s, I remember going to a couple of activities at the Fruitvale school. I had older cousins who attended there. It was about that time that the Fruitvale
school closed. It wasn't too long until
Lillian and Marvin Imler bought it and converted it into a house. They're both gone now, but the house still
overlooks Fruitvale, just up the hill east of the old post office / store. It's boarded up now and gets little, if any,
use.
When the Fruitvale school closed,
the kids were bussed to Council. This
was the story of many of the similar, little, community schools in this
area. During the 1940s and 1950s many
of them were closed and the students were bussed to Council. Bear was one of the last holdouts, closing
in 1968.
I remember visiting the grade school
at Council after my older brother, Clint, started attending there. Being a kid, one of my most vivid memories
are of the big slide at one end of the building. It was for a fire escape, but, at the time, it was more likely to
be used in case the old building started to collapse. I don't know if the kids ever actually slid down that slide
during fire (or collapse) drills, but it was my impression that they did. I thought it must have been tremendous fun,
and I was very envious.
Getting back to the danger of the
building collapsing. I seem to remember
hearing that they had drills like fire drills for the kids to practice how they
would get out of the building if it started to fall down. At the time, that too
sounded exciting. I don't imagine it
made any parents very happy. I didn't
know much about the old school building until I started doing all this research
a few years ago.
The school was built in 1907 to
replace the overcrowded one on "school house hill" just north of
downtown Council. After the railroad
had reached Council in 1901, the population had increase a lot. An additional wing had been put on the
school on the hill, almost doubling its size, but it soon became too small as
well. In 1907 a two story brick school
was built in a field at the southeast end of town. This was just east, across the street from the present LDS
church, about where Economy Roofing stacks some of their trusses, etc. There is a photograph of the old school over
the door of Economy Roofing.
For some time there was only a grade
school in Council, and in other small, rural Idaho towns. Council students who wanted to go on to high
school had to go at least as far as Weiser.
A few years after the brick school was built, high school classes were
started in this building. By 1922 there
were seven high school rooms in the school.
I think it was about this time that another wing was added to the school
because it was getting too crowded.
Many people who grew up in Council
have countless memories of days spent at this old school. If any of you care to write down any of
them, I'd like to hear from you. If you
do write, please let me know if I can use your stories in my column.
By 1957 the school was in bad
shape. A Boise engineer was called in
to examine it. The following are
snippets from the engineers report printed Adams County Leader, Dec 27, 1957:
"The Council grade school
building is a composite of two buildings.
The west half is a brick-veneered, wood frame structure approximately 50
years old. The veneer on the west wall
has collapsed and been replaced with wood sheathing. The east half is approximately 40 years old. It has masonry (2-course) brick exterior
walls . . . ."
"The interior of the entire
building has been finished with wood lath and plaster. This has been replaced on most of the
ceiling by acoustical fiber board."
Many of you probably read that part
about lath and plaster without a second thought, but some of you younger
readers may not know what lath a plaster walls and ceilings were. I say "were" because I don't know
that it's ever done anymore.
"Lath" was a subsurface made from strips of wood. Each strip was about 1 to 1 1/2" wide
and about an eighth inch thick (or a little thicker). The lath strips were nailed to the studs and ceiling joists and
spaced about a quarter inch or less apart.
Plaster was then applied over the lath.
The lath is what held the plaster to the wall or ceiling because some of
the plaster oozed though between the strips to anchor it. I think plaster was put on in at least two
coats - a "scratch" coat and a finish coat. Plastering used to be a trade in itself, and probably took some
skill to do it right. Most old
buildings have, or had, lath and plaster walls and ceilings. I'm not sure when it started being used, but
drywall (sheetrock) has pretty much, if not completely, replaced lath and
plaster. Drywall is much cheaper, more
durable, and easier to install.
More on the old school next week.
On Monday, Andy Roundtree from Idaho
Power came up with a hoist, and we put up the "MUSEUM" sign on the
north side of the building. We're
hoping people can't drive through town without seeing it. Dale Lyttle made and painted the letters. Dale and his dad, Lee, ran the ground
operations while Andy and I threaded our way through the power lines and bolted
the letters on.
If you didn't catch it, the museum
is going to open on May 31st. We won't
be "done" by any means, but I think you will be impressed with the
changes so far.
We have learned that the museum
qualifies for the Senior Community Service Employment Program. That's a Federal program that pays people
who qualify to work at certain jobs.
What we hope to do is get a few people to man the museum this summer so
we can cut down on the volunteer requirements.
We already have one interested person, and we would like to have a
couple more. The job pays minimum wage,
and would entail being at the museum and performing a few light duties from 10
AM to 4 PM. We will try to be flexible
on who works what days. To qualify, you
must be 55 or older and have no more than a certain income ($9,865 for a family
of one, $13, 265 for a family of two).
If you qualify and are interested, please call me right away at
253-4582.
This does not mean that we won't
need volunteers. We appreciate those who
have expressed interest so far. This is
a real head-scratcher as to just how to arrange scheduling while keeping all
our options open. I hope you will all
bear with us while we muddle our way through our first season.
5-22-97
Carlos Weed called me with a few
details on the old brick school. He and
it were born the same year: 1907. He
started school there in 1914. The
addition was started in the summer of 1922.
That summer the basement was excavated and plumbing was installed -
something the older part of the school didn't have. That fall, a cold snap hit, froze all the pipes, and caused them
to burst. It must have been
disappointing to have to continue using the outdoor toilets until new plumbing
could be installed.
By 1957 the old school was in bad
shape. A Boise engineer was called in
to examine it. The following are
snippets from the engineers report printed Adams County Leader, Dec 27, 1957:
"The Council grade school
building is a composite of two buildings.
The west half is a brick-veneered, wood frame structure approximately 50
years old. The veneer on the west wall
has collapsed and been replaced with wood sheathing. The east half is approximately 40 years old. It has masonry (2-course) brick exterior
walls . . . ."
"The interior of the entire
building has been finished with wood lath and plaster. This has been replaced on most of the
ceiling by acoustical fiber board."
Many of you probably read that part
about lath and plaster without a second thought, but some of you younger readers
may not know what lath a plaster walls and ceilings were. I say "were" because I don't know
that it's ever done anymore.
"Lath" was a subsurface made from strips of wood. Each strip was about 1 to 1 1/2" wide
and almost a quarter inch thick or so.
The lath strips were nailed to the studs and ceiling joists and spaced
about a quarter inch or less apart.
Plaster was then applied over the lath.
The lath is what held the plaster to the wall or ceiling because some of
the plaster oozed though between the wood strips to anchor it. I think plaster was put on in at least two
coats - a "scratch" coat and a finish coat. Plastering used to be a trade in itself, and took some skill to
do it right. Most old buildings have,
or had, lath and plaster walls and ceilings.
I'm not sure when it started being used, but drywall (sheetrock) has
pretty much, if not completely, replaced lath and plaster. Drywall is much cheaper, more durable, and
easier to install.
The engineer continued his report,
referring to the two foot crawl space under the first floor and then to the
foundation.
"The foundation wall under the
west half is of stone and mortar is approximately 2 feet thick. There are stone and mortar pilasters 16 feet
apart under the first floor beams. The
mortar between the stones has almost completely deteriorated in the visible
areas. It is possible to remove this
mortar with very little effort since it is about the same consistency as damp
sand. The exterior of the foundation
above the ground line also shows signs of extensive deterioration. In several spots, the concrete can be
scraped away with the bare hand."
Referring to the 8"X8"
wood columns that supported the first floor: "Several columns are rotted
at the ground line to the size of a 3"X3" member."
"The masonry on the exterior
walls is in an advanced state of decomposition. The bricks are badly weathered and their surfaces are generally
soft. The mortar between the brick is
generally soft and it was noticed in some particular areas, is completely gone
on the outside course of brick."
"Above the first floor windows
on the south side, the masonry has bulged out to a severe degree. Since the inside wall appears unchanged,
this displacement is no doubt in the outer course of brick only, which means
that the two courses of brick have separated and rain water may be trapped in
this area. If this should be the case,
it would take very little freezing and thawing to completely disengage this
part of the wall from the structure.
Since this is one of the major bearing walls in the east half of the
building, a failure in this area would cause a general collapse."
The engineer said a wall on the east
end of the building was also leaning slightly: "Some of this displacement
appears to be recent, and a wall failure in this area could be imminent."
The electric wiring was ". . .
composed of cloth-insulated wires supported on porcelain split-knobs. . .
." ". . . this type of wiring
is outdated and creates a definite fire hazard."
"In our opinion, the physical
condition of the structure is such that a general failure could occur at any
time. It is impossible to predict whether extensive collapse will occur
immediately, or whether the structure might remain reasonably intact for a few
more months or even a few more years.
It is apparent that the building is structurally dangerous and far below
reasonable standards of safety for a public building of this nature."
"We recommend that you take
immediate action to condemn the building for further use in the interest of the
safety of its occupants."
More next week.
Time is running short folks. We need volunteers to man the museum. We would like to get the first two weeks
booked as soon as possible. The SCSEP
program to pay people to be at the museum is not a sure thing at this point,
and we want to be prepared. Please call
Mary Sterner at 253-6963. If she's not
home, give me a call (253-4582) and tell me what days and times would fit your
schedule.
5-29-97
The
old brick school was condemned and closed in December of 1957. The students had an extended Christmas
vacation, then began classes on January 6, 1958. Since the old school could not be used, superintendent Jack Wing
and a number of volunteers had to improvise.
Books and other teaching supplies and equipment were hauled to locations
all over the community. The 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grade classes were conducted in the Legion Hall, with "the split
grade" at City Hall. The 4th, 5th
and 6th grades were bused all the way to the Mesa school. The 7th and 8th grades were conducted in
rooms in the high school.
(I've covered the story of the high
school in a previous column. The short
version is that the old brick school got very overcrowded, so a new high school
was built in 1941. It stood on the same
spot as the present Council High School.
More on that later.)
Covering the story of the unique
classroom locations, the Adams County Leader, January 10, 1958 reported:
"The hot lunch program has been organized and is now functioning again
with the IOOF hall being used as headquarters.
by staggering the dinner hours, the hall has been most
satisfactory. The hot lunches are also
being transported to the Mesa school by means of private vehicles."
For those of you who aren't familiar
with the old IOOF Hall. It stood where
the east section of Shaver's is now. It
was a two story building with a false front, built in 1905. I think most of us remember it as being
white, but it was painted a dark color in it's early years.
Even as classes were first starting
the scattered locations, the School Board was beginning to plan the
construction of a new grade school. It
was to be built, ". . . just south of the high school, on the property
where the baseball diamond was formerly located. The new ball diamond will be located further south on the former
Jim Winkler property." The cost of
the new school was estimated at $176,576.00.
Everybody got through the remainder
of the school year with classes in the odd locations. That fall, school started, using the same, or similar,
places. Here's where my memories kick
in again. I turned six years old in
1958. There was no kindergarten in
Council then, so when I turned six I started school in the first grade. Our classroom was in the basement of the
Legion Hall, in the southwest corner.
Our teacher was Erma Armacost.
One thing that stands out in my memory is the how the burning coal from
the furnace smelled. That's not a very
common smell anymore since few places heat with coal these days.
I'm not sure when the new grade
school was finished and we moved to it, but the school was dedicated on
February 28, 1959. The new building
seemed very big and very nice.
Five years later the high school had
become overcrowded. On May 18, 1964
local citizens voted on a "plant facilities fund levy". It was said that if the levy passed it
would, ". . . provide for future expansion of the [high] school building
or buildings without the necessity of an expensive bond sale." The levy failed. That October the levy became irrelevant when the high school
burned to the ground. There were wild
rumors that superintendent Wing had set the fire because he was so frustrated
that the levy had not passed. The actual
cause of the fire was never discovered.
For the second time in less than a
decade, Council students attended classes all over town. I remember them using the Legion Hall, the
IOOF Hall, and the Congregational church annex. There may have been more places, but I don't remember them. Incidentally, this was at least the third time
that students attended classes all over Council. Before the old high school was finished in 1941, the old brick
school had become so crowded that the high school kids went from building to
building to attend classes.
Construction started on a new high
school (the present one) in the spring or summer of 1965. As luck would have it, the building was
finished in 1966, just as I was starting high school. It was as if every time I started attending another school they
built a new on for me. Everything in
the new high school was new - the desks, chairs, books, doors, walls, PE
equipment, . . . everything. There was
not a mark or a scratch anywhere.
Don't forget the museum is opening
Saturday. Drop by between 10 a.m. and 4
p.m.. For this summer, the museum will
be open those hours Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on
Sundays.
ONE missing
6-12-97 Larry Kingsbury, the
Payette National Forest Archaeologist, sent me a copy of a letter he ran
across, and I thought some you might enjoy it.
It is from a scout named Thomas Singleton. As usual, some of the handwriting is hard to read. Anything within brackets are my comments or
questions. Eagle Eye, mentioned here,
was considered the most prominent Shoshoni leader in this area.
"Fort
Boise, I.T. [Idaho Territory] January 31st, 1869
"Sir,
"I have the honor to report
that in compliance with Special Order No 4, dated [11th?] Ins. Fort Boise, I.T. January 18th
1869. I left this Post on the 19th
inst. with Sergeant Howard, Privates Vernen of Co. "H" 23rd Infy. and
3 Indian Scouts provided with ten days rations and the necessary
transportation, forage, etc., for the purpose of ascertaining if Eagle Eye and
his Warriors were still in the vicinity of Middle Fork of the Weiser River,
I.T.
19th -
Marched ten miles, and Camped at Dry Creek.
20 -
Marched twenty five miles, and camped at Stuarts Station, on the Payett [sic]
River.
21st -
Crossed the Payett River, and followed a trail leading due north, and camped at
the head of Big Willow Creek - distance marched 30 miles.
22nd -
Marched 30 miles, and camped at night on Crain Creek. The country through which we marched after leaving Big Willow
Creek is very rough. The snow varying
from 3 to 4 feet deep. At 7 O'clock P.M. it commenced snowing, and continued 3
hours with very cold wind from the north.
23 -
Marched a few miles up Crain Creek, and came upon a trail which we followed all
day, and which finally brought us into Eagle Eye's Camp, which is at the head
of the South East Creek of the Weiser River, about forty miles from Crain
Creek.
[This location would seem to be
along the Little Weiser River east of Indian Valley.]
Eagle Eye's Camp is situated in a
deep rivine. The country on the south
side is very uneven, on the north side are the Weiser Mountains. The Indians having discovered us descending
the hill signaled our coming by giving a few yells, and running from one lodge
to another, for about five minutes when they all disappeared with the exception
of one who proved to be Eagle Eye's second chief. He came out to meet us. I
informed him that we were friends from Boise, and had come to visit Eagle Eye
and his warriors. He then reached me
his hand in token of friendship and passed 'round among the scouts. The leading the way, we advanced into camp
when Eagle Eye and his band came out and bid us welcome. I found two white men living in the camp and
that a third one lived there, but had gone down to the Settlement to purchase
stores. I ordered the two remaining out
of camp. I also ascertained that 10
warriors with 18 women and children (the most miserable party I ever beheld)
arrived in Eagle Eye's camp on the 14th inst.
24th - Had
conversation with Eagle Eye and his warriors and learned from them that the
reason of Eagle Eye's not reporting at Fort Boise as he agreed at the time Col.
Sinclair brought him in, was occasioned by these three white men above
mentioned who it seems have been tampering with him. Eagle Eye promises faithfully that he will try his utmost to keep
the white men away from their camp in future, and to report at Fort Boise every
moon.
I gave the Indians that came into
Eagle Eye's camp on the 14th inst. to distinctly understand that if any of them
left camp at anytime, Eagle Eye's warriors would go out and kill them. They resolved to be submissive, and to
accept Eagle Eye as their Big Chief."
I'll continue with this letter next
week.
We now have two people to staff the
museum for the summer. Bobby Darland
and Mike Ward are being paid through a Federal program that aims to give senior
citizens a toehold to get back into the work force. Please stop in and see the museum soon.
I just got back from Wenatchee,
Washington where my daughter graduated from high school (with honors and in the
top 10% or her class of 320 kids). We
stopped in Coeur d'Alene to see Jeff Connaway.
Since leaving Council he has developed quite a sign business there. He had to demonstrate his computer-operated
sign machine for me, and in doing so, made the museum a nice sign for the front
door with the hours the museum is open.
Great guy!
Don't forget the home tour on the
21st. This is an oportunity to have a
fun day and contribute to your community.
What could be better?
6-19-97 First I need to apologize
for the mix-up in my columns for the past couple weeks. In my rush to leave on my trip to Washington
the same column got printed twice. I
have one more column written about Council's schools that I will put in next
week. In the mean time, here is the
second half of Thomas Singleton's letter from January 1869:
"Twelve inches of snow fell
during my 36 hours stay in [Eagle Eye's] camp.
25th -
Left for Fort Boise, I.T. Owing to the
quantity of snow that fell during my stay in Eagle Eye's camp, and not deeming
it advisable to recross the country through which we came, on account of the
increase of snow, I therefore concluded to take the road leading through the
settlements. In passing through the
upper Valley. I found the snow three
feet deep and it was very difficult to keep the trail. Camped at the three Forks of the Weiser
River twenty miles from Indian camp.
[The "settlements" must
mean the new towns along the Weiser River, most of which started to be occupied
by homesteaders just the previous spring (1868). The "upper Valley"
refers to Indian Valley. The
Council Valley was only occupied by Henry Childs, and possibly another bachelor
or two. There were no wagon trails,
much less roads, north of Indian Valley.
"The three forks of the Weiser River" must refer to the
Cambridge / Salubria vicinity, since that's where the Weiser is joined by Pine
Creek and the Little Weiser.]
26th -
Crossed the divide from the upper Valley to the Middle Valley. Snow from three to four feet deep. Camped on Mans [sic] Creek distance marched
16 miles.
27th -
Marched from Mans Creek to the head waters of the lower Valley. Commenced raining at 3 O'clock PM and
continued until dark, when we camped at the head of lower [obscured by National
Archives stamp] marched 25 miles.
28th -
Marched 32 miles and camped at Butter Milk Ranch.
29th -
Marched 32 miles and camped at Stuart's Station on the Payett River
30th -
Marched 12 miles and camped at [unclear] Burges [?] Payett Ranch
31st -
Marched 28 miles and reached Fort Boise I.T. at 6 o'clock P.M.
Total distance marched 330 miles.
I am Sir,
very
respectfully,
Your
obdt. Servt.
Thomas
Singleton,
Interpreter
and
Chief
of Scouts
To
The Post
Adjutant
Fort Boise
I.T."
I my column for two weeks ago but
not printed I thanked the volunteers who acted as hosts at the museum during
our opening week. But since they never
saw it, THANK YOU! We couldn't have
been open without you. As I said last
week, we now have two people who are being paid (thru a Federal program) to be
at the museum. This should mean that we
won't need volunteers except for an occasional emergency. So if you scheduled a shift at the in
advance, you won't need to do it now.
Another thank you goes to Dale
Lyttle for the nice "Museum Entrance" sign out front. It looks great.
It's here folks - your chance to
help the museum and have a good time.
The home tour is Saturday from 9 AM to 5 PM. Last I heard, we hadn't sold enough tickets to even pay our
printing costs. Please buy a ticket at
U.S. Bank or the Frame Studio in Council, or at U.S. Bank or the Heartland
Studio in Cambridge, or in New Meadows at Key Bank or Beyond the Trees, or in
McCall at Key Bank or Krahns.
6-27-97
Bob Hagar
wrote to me with some memories of the old Council school:
"Enjoyed your column in last week's
Record about the old grade school.
Since our family lived about a block from the school (three blocks when
the snow was too deep to take the 'short cut'). I recall how some of us kids eagerly watched while the covered
fire escape slide you mentioned in your column was being built on the north
side of the building. The slide was
wide and the bottom was lined with a piece of slick metal . . . and it was a
test of a kid's athletic ability to try to crawl or walk up the slide. . .
until somebody boarded up the bottom of the slide during the summertime. A few other memories about the old building
follow. Why is it one always remembers
the forbidden activities? Of course it
was the 'other kids' who always did them:
-Finding the access to the 'attic' in
the building and hiding out in the belfry or tampering with the bell so it
couldn't be rung on time.
-During some of the winter power
failures they would dismiss school if the temperature in the room dropped below
a certain value, so as soon as the teacher would step out of the room for a few
minutes, enterprising students would hang the thermometer out the window to
hasten the process.
-When the snow would start to melt
on the time roof it would create some great overhangs of snow and ice. A well thrown snow ball would bury an
unsuspecting classmate who might be passing beneath.
-During one particularly severe
winter the snow piled up so deep under the eves that the quickest exit from the
building at recess or lunch would be to jump out the second story window after
distracting the poor teacher.
-The ice on the steep steps on the
west side of the building was great for sledding, except don't slip backwards
as I did early one afternoon while in the second grade and then having to wait
until nearly midnight until Doc Thurston got back into town so he could set and
cast my broken arm.
-I wonder if anyone knows what
happened to the swing sets and merry-go-round that were on the school
grounds. As I recall they were ruggedly
fabricated from heavy pipes and should survive today somewhere. Very heavy.
It took a crew of several kids to carry the merry-go-round that from the
school grounds to the middle of the highway 95 in front of the People's Theater
on Halloween night."
-
I'm not sure what happened to the
swing set. (Wasn't it in the park by
the courthouse?) The County
Commissioners just gave the merry-go-round to the museum. I thought maybe it was as old as the school
(1907), but the date on it says 1928.
It is heavy too. Roy Mocaby
lifted it onto a trailer with his tractor so we could haul it off. It must have been quite a job for kids to
carry to the highway. When the museum
addition is done, we plan to put it on the grounds somewhere - either fixed up
and working, or as a stationary "bench", depending on how safe we can
make it and if the City approves.
Bob Hagar's memory about rigging the
school bell reminds me of a story I once heard about a school bell at Garden
Valley. The kids turned the bell upside
down and filled it with fresh cow manure.
When the teacher pulled the rope the next morning, the whole load came
down on top of her or him.
Some time I'd like to collect
stories about local Halloween pranks pulled in the past. If any of you care to write or call me about
those, it might make an interesting column.
Seems like I remember someone saying something about a wagon being taken
apart and reassembled on top of Sam Criss's store where Shavers is now.
DIDN'T
COPY THIS ONE BECAUSE IT WAS MOSTLY QUOTES
7-10-97
Last week
I quoted the Idaho Magazine from December 1905 as it outlined Council's
attributes. I'll continue quoting from
it, and add comments.
"Among its [Council's] engines
of civilization is an inviting, three department school house, which tops
Council Hill." This is the hill
just north of downtown. It has been
labeled with several names, but the one I'm most familiar with is "school
house hill". This is the school
that was replaced in 1907 by the brick school I've been writing about.
"Some 150 pupils are presided
over by an able corps of teachers; Prof. G.F. Gregg, principal, who is
admirably assisted by Mrs. Olive Freehafer and Miss Maud Peters." That's a lot of kids to put into what was a
relatively small building!
Two of the teachers, George Gregg
and Maud Peters married each other seven months after this article was
published. Maud was the daughter of
John Peters, an ambitious, Weiser businessman who built the first store in the
Council Valley. After marrying Maud,
George Gregg joined his father-in-law in running a couple of successive
business here.
Gregg was later appointed as the
first probate judge in Adams County. He
is shown in the well-known picture of the first County officials in 1911. (This picture is currently on display on the
outside wall of the Bill Winkler's sheriff's office in the museum.) In this photo Gregg looks very gaunt. The reason is that he had tuberculosis. He died from it only three years later, in
1914.
The other teacher, Olive Freehafer
would have been a relative of our former Senator, Jim McClure.
"The Congregational Church is
an architectural gem, as also is its parsonage, structures which together
represent an outlay of at least $2,500, and the soul's health of this community
is zealously looked after by the members of this denomination." Neither of these buildings are standing
today. The article refers to the old
Congregational church that was demolished and replaced by the present church in
1950. The old church sat where the
church's parking lot is now. The
parsonage was torn down just a year or two ago.
"The I.O.O.F. have recently
erected a $3,500 building, one of the most commanding and pretentious in the
town. Fraternally the place is well
represented by the I.O.O.F. [Odd Fellows], Rebecahs, K.O.F.M., L.O.T.M., and
United Artisans." I've written
about the Odd Fellows Hall that stood where the eastern section of Shaver's is
now. The tall, false-front building was
a landmark in Council for many years. I
have to wonder if the K.O.F.M. was a misprint and should have been K.O.T.M.
(Knights of the Macabes). I don't know
what L.O.T.M. was unless it was a ladies' auxiliary to the K.O.T.M. I don't have a clue about the United
Artisans.
"The Advance [newspaper], since
1901, has jealously guarded the interests of all this section and has proven a
potent factor in its moral and material advancement. Its founder and conductor meanwhile has been L.S.
Cool." Levi S. Cool's brother,
Fred Cool may have been better known than Levi was. Fred was Dale Donnelly's partner for many years in the Cool and
Donnelly Feed Store. It sat about where
the public restrooms are now, south of the town square.
The list of Council's businesses
reflects the differences in the area's economy and needs compared to the
present. "On Council's commercial,
industrial and professional calendar we find six general stores, one drug
store, one planing mill, three saw mills, one harness shop, one hotel, three
livery stables, three blacksmith shops, three restaurants, one bakery, one
jeweler, two millinery stores, one newspaper, one physician, two attorneys, one
meat market, two barber shops, four saloons, two stage lines, one lodging
house, four contractors, builders and carpenters."
7-17-97 I forgot last week to thank Terri
McFadden Ellsworth for the "Time Out" doll she made to raise money
for the museum. It was really
cute. Terri is a alumnus of Council
High School from the days when I walked those halls. Her doll was auctioned off in the park on the 4th, and,
unfortunately, it only brought a fraction of what the dolls regularly sell
for. We really appreciate all the work
she did in making the doll.
Bruce Addington's daughter, Carolyn
Addington McDonald loaned the museum several old, family photo albums so we
could copy any photos we wanted from them.
Thanks Carolyn!
Dave Mink came through with some
Mesa Applesauce cans with labels on them!
Thanks Dave! This seems to me
what the museum is all about: preserving things like these labels that are so
unique and meaningful to this area.
We're still looking for a Meadows Valley Pea label.
Dave also loaned us some old letters
from Mesa that he was given. They are
so interesting that I thought you might like to read parts of them. For those of you who are new to the area,
Mesa Orchards was one of the biggest orchards in the Northwest. Some claimed it was the biggest in the
world. It was spread out over the
rolling hills around the present site of Mesa, about eight miles south of
Council.
The letters were all written in
1930, the beginning of the Great Depression, so many of them concern overdue
bills.
One such letter is from William
Lemon, the editor of the Adams County Leader.
It is actually dated Dec. 1, 1929:
"E.G. [Enderse Van Hoesen]:
Taxes and other items are causing me to squirm a little and a check will be
appreciated at this time. I did not
send the bill to Edwin Snow for publication of the Mesa Sheep Co. dissolution
notice. It was $9.00. I can send it to him if necessary. Lemon."
The Van Hoesen family operated the
orchards at the time, along with H.J. Woodmansee. I believe Enderse was the Secretary / Treasurer for the
Company. One of the letter heads still
in use in 1931 says "Van Hoesen and Seymour". Charles Seymour was killed in a fire at Mesa
in December of 1920, and off the top of my head, I don't know if another
Seymour was involved in the orchards after that.
Many of the letters are to or from
"Reilly Atkinson & Company, Inc." of Boise. Apparently the orchards bought many of their
supplies from them. One letter contains
revealing details about the operation:
"Gentlemen: The writer was sorry to have missed you when
he called on you at Mesa the other day.
No doubt your brother has given you the inventory as shown on our books. You will note from this inventory you are considerably
back on your payments as per our contract for this year. Briefly, our records show - bushel tub
baskets - 65,197 - which is approximately eight cars of baskets and you
inventory on this item as of last Thursday was approximately 600 dozen, making
you short on your payments in the neighborhood of $10,290.00 covering
approximately seven cars."
"Our records show you have on
hand - 19" corrugated caps - 79,399 but you actually have not over three
or four thousand on hand, as of last Thursday, making a shortage on payments on
this item of approximately $1,080.00."
"As to Liners, our records show
- bushel Hiat Liners - 100,299 - whereas you have on hand three or four
thousand, making a shortage of payments on this item approximately
$2,220.00. The above makes a grand
total amounting to $13,590.00 which has not been reported by you, but which has
been used."
The above, with the notes which we
hold, amounting to $13,500.00, plus merchandised invoiced to you on direct
shipments and items out of our Payette stock, also the two shipments of paper,
all totaling $3,349.74 makes a grand total owing to us by you of $30,439.74
which is entirely too much for you to be owing us at this time of the year Our agreement was that you were to pay for
merchandise used and you were to remit to us each week. We realize that you have been away for some
time and no doubt have gotten behind in your payments, but we want you to know
the exact status of your account, as it is a very serious matter with us. We have our trade acceptances coming due
each day and we are needing money very badly to take care of our own
obligations."
"Assuming these figures are
correct we see no reason why you can not make additional remittances at this
time as the total owing us is much greater tan the merchandise which you have
actually on hand."
More next week.
I just found out that the Indian
Valley Community Church is 100 years old this year, and there will be an open
house on August 2nd and 3rd. I'll have
more information on this next week.
The biggest news is that this week
we are finally advertising bids for the museum addition! I don't have many details at the moment, but
things are going to be moving rapidly very soon.
7-24-97
The thing
that makes history interesting is how it relates to the way things are
now. One example of this is the Indian
Valley Community Church. It is 100
years old this year, and an open house will be taking place on Saturday and
Sunday, August 2nd and 3rd, to celebrate the centennial of this local institution. The church will be open from 10:00 AM to
2:00 PM on Saturday (the 2nd). Then on
Sunday the regular services will start at 10:00 AM and last until 12:30. Following the services there will be a
potluck dinner.
The church was originally built
nearby on land donated by Sylvester Haworth (Mrs. John Manning's father). Mr. Haworth also gave the community an acre
for the Indian Valley Cemetery.
Construction on the church was
started in 1897, but it was not completely finished because the cost was more than
had been estimated. A $400
interest-free loan was obtained in the fall of 1898 to finish the
building. That may not sound like a lot
of money by modern standards, but at average wages of one dollar for a ten-hour
day, that would be roughly the equivalent of $32,000 today. (That's figuring an eight-hour day at $10
per hour times 400.) The loan was
finally paid off 68 years later.
The Deacons of the church in 1897
are listed as: J. Alva Steward, Andy Lay, J.W. Hildereth, H.J. Imler, David
Hutchinson, Mrs. Harriet Hutchinson, Mrs. Gray, and Marquetta Byers.
For most of its existence, the
church has had only temporary pastors.
Records show that in 1902, a lay minister named Boylan was paid $100 to
shepherd the congregation for one year.
The money was raised through pledges.
Again the relative value of money at the time is noticeable, as many of
the pledges were for 25 or 50 cents.
What must have seemed like a very expensive bell was purchased for the
church about that time by A.J. Huddleson of Cambridge for $68.40.
Reverend Howard Stover, who came to
the Congregational Church in Council in 1905 and left in 1914, also pastored
the Indian Valley church for several years.
It was very popular in those days for every community to have a
band. Under Reverend Stover's
supervision, one was organized at Indian Valley. The band's 14 members consisted of 13 young men: Thomas and
Clarence Hutchinson, Ellis Snow, Earl Byers, Willard, Jess and Albert McDowell,
Tilford Lindsay, Roy and Jim Hern, Phillip, and Bob and Paul Ware - and one
girl: Orrill Lewis.
Early records of the church are
sketchy. It was incorporated October
13, 1913. The next year the church was
moved to its present location. It was
put on skids and pulled by an astonishing 25 teams of horses! This must have been quite an event, and
taken more than a little horsemanship.
The land for the new location was
donated by Jim and Flora Linder.
At some point, the Pastor of the
church was the one who held the mortgage, and the land where the church had
formerly been was given to him to clear the debt. He later sold the property to Tom Murphy.
Records from 1916 on are almost
nonexistent. It is known that two
American Sunday School Missionaries - a Mr. Chandler and a Mr. McKay - worked
in the Indian Valley area.
There was a period when attendance
at the church was very low. During this
time, Hildred Manning, Hazel Johnson, and their daughters walked to church
every Sunday to keep the Sunday School open.
In the spring of 1949 there seemed
to be a revival of interest in the church.
Money was raised for repairs.
The place where the "annex" was pulling away from the main
auditorium was fixed, and the building was painted.
One of the more interesting fix-ups
was replacing the two front doors which were damaged during what must have been
a wild a dance one night.
The first couple on record as being
married in the church was Lucille Manning and Richard Higgins in 1952. As part of the wedding preparations, the
bride's parents bought new wall paneling for the church, and it was installed
by Duane Borror, a youth pastor from Cambridge.
By 1955 the floor was so worn in one
place that it was feared that someone might fall through it. Again, money was raised and a crew of local
men spent three days putting in a new floor.
I'll have more on the Indian Valley
Community Church next week.
The initial blueprints for the
museum addition are at the museum for anyone who cares to look at them.
7-31-97 The story of the church in
fairly recent times is mostly one of repair and improvement to the building and
its facilities. In every case, it took
hard work and dedication on the part of local people.
In 1955 a memorial fund was started.
Among other projects, it paid for new windows and casings.
When the Baptist church in Cambridge
bought new pews, the Indian Valley church bought their old ones for
$80.00. At one point the foundation of
the church had settled badly. It took
more than two years to raise the money to repair it.
There was a great deal of trouble
getting the deed to the church settled.
It took about 30 years to get everything straightened out.
In
1970 a furnace was installed. At some
point, Jolaine Huey and her class cleaned up a room in the upstairs of the
annex. A stairway was built to it, and
it was converted it into a classroom.
Other improvements over the years include a new vestibule, new doors, a
cross, and pew seat covers.
In 1985 & '86 a fellowship room,
kitchen and bathrooms were added. The
added rooms had "modern day", low-maintinance siding, and an on-going
effort is being made to side the entire building with it. In 1986 & '87 water was piped to the
church. This added a very big
convenience. In 1987 & '88 the
sidewalks were expanded.
This year Malcolm Huey bought a
organ at an auction and gave it to the church.
The work on the church is, of
course, an on-going effort. The belfry
has been repaired three times over the years, and is in need of work
again. The floor in one part of the sanctuary
is starting to sag.. The chimney needs
to be torn down and the wall straightened.
The roof and the ceiling need
work. If the past is any indication,
these projects, and more, will be accomplished by people with the same kind of
spirit and dedication that has been evident at Indian Valley since pioneer
days.
One of the most enjoyable parts of
my researching local history has been reading old newspapers. To finish out this weeks column, here are a
few of my notes concerning Indian Valley from the newspapapers:
Idaho Citizen, Oct 30, 1891 - New Post office established at Isaac
McMahan's store in Indian Valley called Alpine. Lucy McMahan - postmaster.
Salubria Citizen, Feb 24, 1899 –
The stage will now leave Weiser at 7 a.m.,
railroad time, and arrives at Salubria at 2 p.m. "The time for the trip from Meadows to Weiser is 27
hours. This will cause the stage to
make the trip from Indian Valley to Meadows in the night."
Weiser Signal, Jan 28, 1905 - The Dale literary society debated the
Indian Valley literary society.
Council Leader, Jan 1, 1909 - Middle Valley has 25 phones.
Indian Valley has 27.
Council Leader, Sept 9, 1910 - A.E. Hinke to build
hotel in Indian Valley 30' X 56'
Council Leader, Aug 1, 1912 - "As many as 20 wagon loads of people from
Indian Valley, Cambridge and other points have passed through here yesterday
and today on their way to the hills north of town after
huckleberries."
Council Leader, Aug 22, 1912 - The Indian Valley Post office and
telephone exchange have been moved from the A.M. Henke building to the IOOF
hall.
Council Leader, Dec 11, 1914 - "...new road directly west from
village of Indian Valley and connecting with the public road at the Richland
school house." A new concrete and
steel bridge across the Little Weiser River will save miles.
Council Leader, Feb 19, 1915 - Phone lines are hooked directly to Indian
Valley now "and we can talk to our neighbors to the south at 15 cents per
talk instead of 40 cents, as heretofore."
Council Leader, Sept 10, 1915 - New
school room at Indian Valley.
You may have noticed that some
demolition is happening on the south side of the museum to get ready for the
addition. By the time you read this,
the bids on the job will have been opened.
I will announce the contractor next week.
8-7-97 First, the big
news. After five years of work and
frustration, the plans for the addition to the museum are finally starting to
become more than a dream. The job will
be done by McAlvain construction.
Many of you remember, or still know,
Doug and Sarina McAlvain. They used to
live at Fruitvale, and they still have a weekend house there. (It was on the home tour.) Doug told me some time back that he would
build the addition for the money we had available, and he would donate whatever
it cost him over that. Torry McAlvain
(Doug's son) has been planning the project along with Clinton Yaka (who married
Tuesday McAlvain) of BRS Architects in Boise.
I couldn't say much about this until
now because we were legally obligated to advertise for bids, even though we
couldn't imagine anyone underbidding McAlvain Construction. Their company was the one and only
bidder. Construction should start any
day!
My writing about Mesa Orchards got
sidetracked because of the Indian Valley Church doings, but now I'll get back
to it.
There are several names in the old
records Dave Mink loaned me that are mentioned as having apples packed or
shipped by the Mesa Company, or who bought baskets, etc.: Tom Nichols, Charles
Lappin, Stephan Nock (Mesa), Phil Bury (Mesa), Gray Brothers (Mesa), Frank
Messing (Mesa), A.H. Keckler, Clyde Rush (Mesa), H.L. Brooks, a Mr. Dahlgren, Hoover, I.L. Thurston, Wing,
Walling.
Other items from the old Mesa files:
A bill from Reilly Atkinson &
Co. of Boise lists three 8 foot ladders and two 10 foot ladders at 50 cents per
foot - twenty 10 foot, and six 12 foot "Larson" ladders at 48 cents per foot.
A hand-written letter from Kenneth
Harrington dated Nov. 13, 1930:
"Dear Sir, I have never received my check for the last apple
picking. I left my name and address so
the check could be mailed to me. I am
sure it has been overlooked." The
letter is written in pencil, as are many of the other documents. It must have been much easier to write with
them instead of the old fountain pens or other types of pens. A note at the bottom, in different
handwriting, says,"mail check - $19.28" and below it, "check
mailed 11/22/30".
Another letter: "January 18,
1930 - Mr. Henry Heimsoth, Council, Idaho - Dear Mr. Heimsoth: We believe that
we have a bay horse of yors down at our barn and we will appreciate it if you
will come up and see if it is yours because if it isn't we want to advertise
this horse at once. Very truly yours,
Mesa Orchard Company."
And another, unsigned letter from
the orchards, concerning Lost Valley Reservoir: "April 10, 1930 - Mr. Ed Holbrook, Tamarack, Idaho - Dear Mr. Holbrook: I am enclosing a few post cards which you
can fill out and send to me after you make a trip to the reservoir. Keep track of your time and we will adjust
it with you. I do not think it is
necessary to go over more than three times a week until the water gets up to
the concrete part in the spillway. Would
like to get it about half way up on the concrete before opening the gate very
much so that we can be sure of filling the reservoir. If there isn't much change perhaps you had better shut the gate
again."
You may know that the Mesa Company
had the reservoir built so that they could trade water rights from it for water
rights from Middle Fork. Just what
their involvement was in the management of the reservoir, I don't know, but
they evidently kept a close eye on it at this time. I seem to remember seeing the Van Hoesen name on old Lost Valley
Reservoir Company documents.
A letter from Holbrook about this time said, "I went over to
the dam yesterday and I had some time getting over from Strawberry. It took 7 hours to make the trip. There was a lot of snow on the north
slopes. The water stood at 1770. I will go over again tomorrow and that will
give me some idea how fast it is raising."
8-14 More from the 1930
Mesa Orchards file cabinet.
There are a number of letters
similar to the one from Harry J. Deally & Co. of Pittsburgh that begins,
"We would be pleased to represent you in this immediate territory as to
the sale of any fruits or vegetables you may have to offer in car
lots." Others like it in the file
are from dealers in New Orleans, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, New York,
Dallas, Houston Tulsa, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis, Kansas City, and
St. Louis.
A letter from Mesa states: "The
Mesa Orchard Company grew and shipped a total of 265 cars of fruit during the
past season. Five cars of the above
consisted of pears and eighteen cars of peaches, leaving a balance of 242 cars
straight apples. Our fruit this season
will be sold through the Federated Fruit & Vegetable Growers, Inc. of new
York City."
In letters referring to a financial
statement, total assets of the Mesa Company are listed at $438,286.68. $197,828.45 of that amount was the value of
buildings, the tramway, machinery and equipment, leaving $240,464.23 worth of
land and fruit trees. Liabilities
totaled $111,858.09 most of which was not in the form of bank loans, but
"carried in the east on a long term proposition."
Mrs. Albert Campbell wrote:
"Would you please ship a box of Delicious apples to my sister, Mrs. Henry
Fouts, 501 West Lincoln St., Clarinda, Iowa.
I want choice apples, but not the extra large size. I hope they are not all gone. Please send them by express, C.O.D. I am enclosing a check for you to fill out
for the price of the apples."
Another letter asking apples to be
mailed came from the Council Pharmacy.
The letterhead says, "Council Pharmacy, The Rexall Store - A.E. Alcorn,
Proprietor - Drugs, Tobaccos, Stationery, School Supplies".
Another Council business that wrote
to Mesa is one that you may be less familiar with. The letterhead reads, "Council Box and Lumber Co. -
Manufacturers of Pondosa Pine & Box Shooks". According to an invoice in the file, the Orchards bought
"88 bundles Tops and Bottoms" from the company. The sawmill operated by this company was
located just north of the old "stock yards" in the west part of
town. A big cement foundation used for
the sawmill's machinery still sits in June Ryals's back yard.
Joseph Carr represented the
"New Zealand Insurance Company, Limited". A letter from Carr billed the Orchards for a policy covering
$3,000 worth of merchandise in the company store. Coincidentally, Carr was also a pioneer fruit grower in this
area. He is credited as being one of
the people who started the fruit industry here, and was the originator of the
name "Mesa Orchards".
A loan agreement in the file from
the Continental Oil Company lists a "T-176 G&B hand operated visible
pump", along with hose, nozzle, a "Conoco advertising globe" and
three "60-gallon Bennett Hi-boys".
A letter from United States Cold
Storage Company of Kansas City, Mo. begins, "Dear Mr. Van Hoesen: Perhaps
you remember our conversation in regard to the motion picture film of your
orchard operations. I would like very
much to run this picture in our booth at the Apple Show to be held in Kansas
City, December 11th and 12th of this year.
I am sure it would be of great interest to the attending growers, and it
would also advertise your product on this market. If you can conveniently send me the film I shall take good care
of it and promise to return it immediately after the show." Van Hoesen wrote back, "I have just
returned from a two weeks trip to the coast where Mrs. Van Hoesen is now
recuperating from an operation." "It certainly would have been fine
to have shown the movies of our operations here at Mesa at the Apple Show. However, there is no way of getting the
films back from you in time. They would
have to go by parcel post air mail and on account of our train service the
parcel would arrive in Kansas City too late.
However, if you desire the film at any other time, please let me know
and I will send them to you."
Those films may still be somewhere
on a shelf. The chances of us getting
copies of them may be slim, but wouldn't they be priceless? Drennan Lindsay tells me that Enderse Van Hoesen's
daughter, Beth (Mrs. Mark Adams) is living in San Francisco. Drennan said she thinks Mynderse Van
Hoesen's son, David, is also living in that area. If anyone out there has more information on how to contact these
people, or about the films mentioned, please contact me.
8-21-97 Awhile back Bobbie Darland
brought a jar to the museum. It has a
label on it that reads: "Council Valley Brand Dill Pickles - One Quart -
Packed by J.R. Finn & Sons - Council, Idaho. On the jar's green label is a drawing of a mountain valley in
which several Indians are gathered. One
of the Indians, wearing a war bonnet, is holding up a jar. The jar on which the label is glued is an
ordinary Kerr canning jar. This is the
first I had ever heard of the Finns marketing dill pickles. If anyone has more information about these
pickles, let me know.
I know Ralph Finn was an interesting
person, and I think he made goose calls, among other things. It might be interesting to do an exhibit
around him some time if we can gather enough interesting items. If anyone has some memorabilia of Ralph's
that they would like to donate, bring it by the museum. If we get enough interest, we might like to
take a few things on loan too. I don't
know where Eunice Finn moved to, but if anyone knows her well enough to ask her
about items she might be willing to donate or loan . . . .
Along the line of labels, I still
haven't heard anything about a Meadows Valley Pea can label. I heard that Bob Rumiser may have had a can
with the label on it a few years back.
I guess Bob has passed on, but maybe this will give someone out there a
place to start looking.
Some of you may have read an article
about our museum in the Argus Observer a few weeks ago. It had a lot of mistakes in it, but they say
any publicity is good publicity.
I'll finish up with a couple more
items from the Mesa file. On Feb 5,
1930 Enderse VanHoesen wrote a letter to the "General Insurance Company of
America" agent in Weiser: "We
had a fire on December 10th around noon which destroyed our boiler-house. You are probably aware of the fact that we
were washing apples at the time and since our water supply was shut off we were
compelled to use a portable electric motor and pump to pump water to the
boiler. This portable outfit we use for
irrigation purposes and for other work dealing with our orchard business." He went on to list the prices of a pump and
electric motor that was lost in the fire.
The total loss was $85.
As I mentioned before, many of the
letters in the files concerned debts owed by Mesa. The most interesting one was from the "Stubbs Electric
Company" of Portland. At the top
of the letter, a straight pin is stuck through he paper. The letter reads, "Gentlemen: Here's a pin. Looks a good deal like any other pin -- doesn't it? But it isn't an ordinary 'common or garden
variety' pin. It is a really and truly
magic pin. It will relieve you of a lot
of bother, and us a lot of worry. It
will set you square with us, and help us square up with the other fellow -- so
be careful don't lose it. Better be
sure of it and play safe, for it is the pin you will want to use to attach your
check to this letter in payment of your balance as of January 31st which
amounted to $14.95. Thank you for the
check. No charge for the smile we hope
you get out of this little letter."
Below the signature of the credit
manager is typed, "P.S. Please hurry.
We want to use the magic pin on another fellow."
Straight pins used to be used a lot
instead of paper clips, and they worked very well to hold papers together. I suppose they were a little painful once in
a while if you handled them wrong.
A letter to Myderse VanHoesen from
Martin Calwhite of Weiser on May 15, 1930: "Dear Friend, This is a
confidential letter to you. Sanford
Becktel worked for me about 2 mos. I
find him very crooked and can't be trusted.
I think he has gone to Mesa to get work of you. Mr. Williams the Banker here will tell you
the same. I feel you are a friend of
mine is the reason for letting you know.
P.S. He is a penitentiary bird."
As I write this, nothing has been
done on the museum addition except for demolition work that I did with help
from a few guests of our county jail.
They were great help by the way, and we appreciate it. Hopefully we'll see big things happen on the
addition soon.
8-28-97 About a month ago I quoted
from articles the Idaho Magazine from December 1905 about the Council
area. I got sidetracked by other
subjects, but I want to come back to that magazine because it gives such a
detailed picture of life in this area that year.
One paragraph said, "Alluring
indeed are the inducements hereabouts for the establishment of a woolen mill as
at least 200,000 head of sheep are grazed in the environs of Council; and
excelsior factory, for dense and almost incalculable is the growth of
cottonwood in all the country side. And
this balm or cottonwood, it has been demonstrated by experiment, makes the
finest kind of pulp for wrapping and printing papers, and excelsior for
mattress stuffing amid for packing purposes."
Why the writer jumped from sheep to
cottonwood trees in one sentence eludes me.
My dictionary says "excelsior" is "fine curled wood
shavings used especially for packing fragile items". I would assume that cottonwood trees must
have covered much of the valleys along local rivers before fields were cleared. I know this was the case along the West
Fork, plus there were great masses of brush.
"Apples grown in this region
are distinguished as among the finest and most delicately flavored of any grown
in the United States. Moreover, it is
noteworthy of all fruits produced here that they are absolutely free from all
worms or other pests. Tempting opening
here also for a bank, a creamery, a laundry, an electric light and power plant,
a foundry and flouring mill. There is
an exceptional opportunity for the founding of a horse ranch hereabouts and the
introduction of blooded cattle and horses in is needed."
As far as a bank was concerned, the
"First Bank of Council" was being planned at least a month before
this issue of the magazine was printed.
The Nov 18, 1905 issue of the Council Leader said, "A bank for Council is an assured
fact. The directors for the first year
are C.M. Jorgans, J.F. Lowe, Frank Hahn, Isaac
McMahan, and John Ennis."
The bank had no building in which to do business as yet, but rented half
of the first floor of the Odd Fellows Hall.
Harry Criss rented the other half for his store. The bank opened on February 1, 1906.
In April of 1909, Jim Winkler got
the contract to build a new building for the bank. By September the building was completed. It is still standing and very familiar to
everyone here as the present Drug Store.
Apparently the bank moved into one half of the building in 1909, and Sam
Criss used the other half as a general merchandise store.
This was a boom period for Council,
and the area was growing faster than anyone could keep track. In February of 1910 Council got a second
bank. The "Council State
Bank" opened in a small building belonging to William Fifer. It was located about where Shaver's parking
lot is today. Fifer ran a jewelry store
there for many years. Being a
"jeweler" in those days usually involved watch and clock repair. A clock that Fifer made, or at least sold,
is hanging in the Adams County Courthouse, and still works.
When the big fire of 1915 destroyed
much of downtown Council, the cement walls of the First Bank of Council (the
present drug store) were what stopped the flames from spreading farther west.
The First Bank of Council failed in
January of 1926. This infamous event is
well remembered by older members of our community. Whenever the subject of the failure of the bank comes up, the
name N.H. Rubottom immediately surfaces.
Because he was the bank president, he was blamed for the failure and the
consequent loss of money by many people here.
Rubottom was arrested and charged with embezzlement of $1300. The atmosphere in Council was so heated that
the trial was moved to Weiser. He was
found not guilty, but never came back to Council.
In January of 1940 the Adams County
Bank opened in the former First Bank of Council building (drug store). Before that time, the building had been used
by the Howell Company as a furniture display area. A doorway was cut through the cement wall "to allow entrance
from the store". In the back of
the "Elite Repeats" store, there is now a vault door with "Adams
County Bank" written on it. This
vault door was moved there from the old bank next door.
In 1941 the building that is now the
Council Valley Market was built, and the Adams County Bank moved into half of
it. The other half became the Golden
Rule store. I remember that store still
being in business in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The first bank in my memory here was the Idaho First National,
located in what is now the dry goods department of Shaver's. If I remember right, it went from there to
the present bank site.
As I write this the museum board
hasn't decided how much longer the museum will be open this fall. The program for our paid employees runs out
at the end of August, so we are going to need volunteers to host the museum
until it closes.
9-4-97 I would like to thank
Phil Soulen for calling me with Beth Van Hoesen's address and phone
number. Phil's father was a brother of
Enderse Van Hoesen's wife, Freda. I'm
going to see if she, or some of the other family members has any photos or
other memorabilia from Mesa that they would be willing to share with our
community.
Since I've been writing about Mesa, and because of a lack of time to
write lately, I'm going to review some of what I've already written in this
column about the local fruit industry.
Early
settlers in the Council area tried to be as self sufficient as possible. This was partly because they were so far
from any place to buy things even if they had a way to generate cash to make
such purchases. But they also had a
strong sense of individualism and independence that lingers in some of their
descendants to this day. Whatever they
could not or would not buy they either made, grew, or got by without.
Naturally
food production was basic to their survival, and they tried growing a wide
variety of crops. Early favorites were
corn and beans. In the early 1890s one
traveler through the valley noted that these two vegetables were being planted
in almost every field. Sugar cane was
grown here very early on, and later, in the 1920s and 1930s, sugar beets were a popular crop. Just after 1900 peanuts and tobacco were
grown in Washington County (which included Council at the time), but this was
probably in warmer climates closer to Weiser.
One
agricultural endeavor that was an early and immediate success here was fruit;
especially apples. George Moser and
George Winkler planted the first fruit trees in the Council Valley at about the
same time, around 1880. Winkler was the
first to actually harvest any fruit.
Although
many early settlers grew a few fruit trees for their own use William and Dora
Black, who settled on Hornet Creek about 1888, are generally credited with
starting the first commercial orchard in the county. The Black place is now the Gossard Ranch. Samples of fruit from the Black's orchard
took a prize at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and some of their fruit was
even sent to London and Paris for exhibition.
Even
though local fruit was of high quality the market was mostly limited to local
sales for lack of a timely means of transporting it. This changed with the arrival of the railroad at Council in
1901. By 1904 B.B. Day, who now owned
the Black place on Hornet Creek, was shipping apples to markets as distant as
Walla Walla and Nampa. The next year,
he was sending apples to Chicago by the railroad car full, and area farmers
were beginning realize that there was money to be made in fruit. By the end of 1905 about 5,000 new fruit
trees had been planted in the Council
area. The same number of trees were
planted here in the spring of 1906.
Other fruit pioneers in the Council
area about this time were A.E. Wiffin, Seward Piper, Morgan Gifford, Eliza Sorenson, and Joseph Carr. These orchards were on the slopes just east
of town. Carr, who arrived here in
1903, is credited by some as initiating the fruit growing boom in the Council
Valley. In 1907 he took an exhibit of
apples to the National Horticultural congress at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and
brought home seven silver cups as prizes, plus a number of medals and
ribbons. At least one of these cups,
along with others won between 1907 and 1909, are in the Council Valley Museum.
That
same year (1907) local fruit men organized the Council Valley Fruit Growers
Association. They encouraged the
planting and promotion of commercial orchards, and triggered a dynamic chapter
in Council's history.
By
1908 there were about 175 acres of young fruit trees growing in the Council
area. The Growers Association sent an
exhibit to the Boise fair, and won 22 first prizes and 8 second prizes on their
apples. And apples were again sent to
the National Horticultural Congress in Council Bluffs, Iowa where they won 17
prizes.
Suddenly,
orchards were the rage in the area, and it seemed that everyone was jumping
onto the band wagon. Local business men
came up with a logo depicting a red apple accompanied by the slogan "The
Home of the Big Red Apple" which was placed on envelopes, banners, and other
promotional material. A corporation
called the "Washington County Land and Development Company" was
organized to promote the development of the Council Valley.
The editor of the Council Leader
newspaper championed the cause by bragging, ". . . Council Valley
possesses a peculiar climatic condition which worms cannot become climated
to." He also claimed, "An
apple failure on account of frost is something that has never been known of
here."
In the spring of 1909, about 20,500
young fruit trees were shipped to the Council Valley to be planted. The Forest Service even joined in the frenzy
by designating the Stevens Ranger Station near the East Fork of the Weiser
River as an experiment station where various fruit trees were to be grown to
determine which varieties were best adapted for the local climate.
9-11-97 The most ambitious
fruit-growing plan of all in 1909 was a project that would eventually be called
the "Mesa Orchards Company".
The goal was nothing less than the biggest orchard in the United States
to be planted on a mesa eight miles south of Council. There was already a post office at this location in 1908, under
the name "Middle Fork". The
name of the post office wasn't changed to "Mesa" until 1912.
J.J.
Allison started the idea for Mesa Orchards in 1908. He had searched all over the West for five years for just such a
place. The land he found south of
Council was being dry farmed without much success by several homesteaders. Allison interested eastern investors, and
organized the Weiser Valley Land & Water Company which purchased several
thousand acres from the homesteaders.
The company then sold ten acre parcels to individual investors at $400
to $500 per acre. For that price, the
company would plant fruit trees, care for them for five years, plus pay 3%
interest on the buyer's investment.
After five years, the owner could operate independently, or the company
would continue to do the work for 10% of the net profit from the land. The company would also build a house for the
buyer at what it cost the company for "materials, labor, and
supervision".
Construction on Mesa projects
actually began in 1909. Some tree
planting was done in 1910, but irrigation was not adequate, and most of the
trees died. An ambitious scheme was
devised whereby they would take irrigation water for the orchard out of the
Middle Fork of the Weiser River. The
only problem was that all the water rights to this river had already been
taken. Their solution was to build a
$50,000 dam on Lost Creek, about 25 miles to the north, where they could obtain
water rights. They would then trade
this reservoir water for water they would take from the Middle Fork. But before a single drop of water could be
put on the Mesa Company's land an elaborate, seven-mile-long, wooden flume
would have to be built to convey the water from the Middle Fork, plus several
miles of ditches (at an estimated cost of $300,000) would have to be dug. Water was hauled in barrels on wagons until
the irrigation system was finally completed in 1911.
By
the fall of 1909 the Lost Valley Reservoir dam had been completed and Council
Valley fruit had won several more top prizes at the Horticultural Congress in
Council Bluffs. The Mesa Company had
ordered 80,000 nursery trees to set out the following spring, was building a
sawmill on the Middle Fork to cut lumber for the flumes, and had 100 men
employed digging ditches.
Also
in 1909 a new townsite was established about seven miles north of Council. In keeping with the local trend of the day
it was called "Fruitvale", and most of the streets were named after
apple varieties. The name
"Fruitvale" was the idea of Lucy McMahan. There was also a division of Weiser named Fruitvale at the
time.
Mentioning Lucy McMahan reminds me
to get on my soapbox about misspelled street names. As you know, it irritates me that the street in town named after
the first family who settled here, the Mosers, is spelled "Mosher"
Avenue. Now they have named a lane at
Fruitvale after the McMahans and spelled it "McMahon". (#*'~@!!!! )
Profits
on investments in apples in 1909 were
said to be $100 per acre on six year old trees, and $600 per acre on 10 to 12
year old trees. Peaches, pears, plums,
grapes and prunes were also becoming popular.
And strawberries were a favorite, yielding $500 to $900 per acre to the
grower. Considering how fast and loose
promoters played with facts and figures it is anyone's guess as to what the
actual profits were.
The desire of investors and
homesteaders to get in on this type of money-making band wagon produced a
multitude of land schemes during this general time period. A popular practice of promoters was to buy
land cheap, plant fruit trees, then sell tracts at high prices to people from
the east who had idealistic visions of a homestead in the great western
outdoors. Thousands of acres were
exploited in this manner, and it had a negative influence on fruit prices at
times, even though the land involved was often not suitable for growing fruit.
In
the spring of 1910, local growers ordered 300,000 more trees, and the Mesa
Orchards Co. was hiring every man they could find.
More next week.
Guess what!? Work has begun on the museum addition! Finally.
9-18-97 By 1912 another ambitious fruit growing effort was starting
on the slopes north east of Council, east of highway 95 between Orchard Road
and Mill Creek Road. The power house
behind this project, called "The Council Valley Orchards", was C.E.
Miesse (pronounced Mee-see) of Chicago.
Miesse had been the president of the Weiser Valley Land and Water Co.,
but had resigned. Now, as president of
this new company, he was overseeing the planting of 17,000 peach trees, 2,000
pear trees, and the addition of 13,000 apple trees on land that a short time
earlier had grown nothing but ". . . sage brush, rocks and a tangled mass
of shrubbery, . . ." The goal was
a 500 acre orchard that would employ 75 to 100 men seasonally and 1500 workers
to harvest the crop.
The
"Orchard District", as this area came to be known, included
independent fruit growers along with those in the "Council Orchard
Company". The district developed
rapidly, and soon had a population that supported its own school. The "Orchard School" was on the
south east corner of the intersection of Mill Creek road and Missman road.
Since
newly planted fruit trees would not yield a crop until they had acquired some
degree of maturity both the Mesa and Council orchards adopted the successful
practice of growing potatoes between the young trees. Asparagus was another crop grown in this way at Mesa. The plants kept sprouting up for years after
the company had stopped planting them.
In 1911 the Mesa Orchards Company
built a temporary school. In the summer
of 1912, one of the more expensive school houses in Adams County was built at
Mesa at a cost of about $5,000. The
brick building had two classrooms plus an assembly room for public
gatherings. All this for only nine
students initially.
By
the fall of 1912 it was estimated that there were 3,000 acres of orchard, worth
at least $500 per acre, within a twelve and a half mile radius of Council. The reputation of the Council area as a
fruit-growing cornucopia was attracting investors from all over the U.S.
That fall some Illinois men arrived
to look at the local orchards.
According to the Council Leader, they had heard that ". . . Council
Valley was regarded as one of the safest and best fruit districts in the state,
. . .", and they proclaimed this area was ". . . almost a miracle in
fruit raising." The editor, who
accompanied the men on their local tour, went on to say, "While going through Mr. Hildenbrand's
big orchard he offered us one hundred dollars if we could find a single worm in
his orchard."
Even
though the orchards didn't seem to have any problems with insect pests,
"blight", a contagious disease that killed trees, was present and
very much feared. A State fruit
inspector made regular examinations of local orchards, and outbreaks of this
affliction were taken very seriously.
Several local orchard men were actually arrested and tried in court for
not destroying their infected trees after the inspector had ordered them to do
so.
Local
fruit growing businesses continued to be successful, even through the
agricultural depression of the 1920s, and provided badly needed seasonal jobs
for local residents. But this
self-proclaimed fruit grower's Eden was not to be without its serpent. As the automobile became more common, and
people and goods traveled faster and farther, noxious weeds and crop damaging
insects began hitch-hiking into the area.
By 1920 the blister mite, one of the worst enemies of fruit growers of
that time, had appeared in orchards at Council and Mesa.
In
1920 the Mesa Company finished a unique, $45,000 tramway to carry fruit to the
railroad three and a half miles to the north.
It consisted of 48 wooden towers which varied in height from 20 to 45
feet. Its 42 steel baskets each carried
six to eight boxes of fruit.
The community at Mesa had its own general store /post office, a
school, several homes and a dozen smaller cottages, a bunkhouse, a machine
shop, a number of packing sheds, storage cellars, company cookhouse, and other
buildings. One feature that the original
promotion had promised never became a reality.
Originally, a railroad depot was planned near the foot of the mesa, and
a trolley line was to take passengers to and from the depot there.
It is hard to say whether the Mesa
Orchards Company achieved its goal of having the biggest orchard in the nation. Some have claimed that it was the biggest
orchard in the world. Since human
nature ardently follows the adage that a good story is better than the truth,
the actual size of the orchard in comparison to its peers is hard to pin
down. At its peak from 1920 to 1929,
there were 1,200 acres actually growing fruit trees at Mesa: significantly
short of its goal of 4,000 acres. During apple harvest, about 200 pickers were
employed and the company had a total payroll of about $150,000. A 1929 issue of the Adams County Leader
printed what may be a realistic estimation of the Mesa Orchards as, ". . .
one of the largest commercial orchards under one head operated anywhere in the
northwest."
More next week.
Last week Charlie Fry's daughters
came in and donated some great pictures of the Van Hoesens and Mesa. One is a color, panoramic shot of the
orchards from end to end, and shows the school, store, the houses, packing
sheds, etc. The museum is working on
collecting labels from Mesa fruit boxes, etc.
It is now possible to reproduce them with a laser color copier so that
they look exactly like the original.
Aside from the value of exhibiting them, we may be able to frame the
copies and sell them to raise funds.
The museum has now officially closed
for the 1997 season. Sunday, September
14 was the last open day. Many thanks
go to the volunteers who hosted the museum for the last two weeks. When we reopen next summer we will probably
be operating with volunteers only, so we will need people to help. I'm hoping a number of you will donate one
three-hour shift a week so that we don't have to continually recruit people.
9-25-97
During the 1920s the Orchard district
expanded until fruit trees covered almost the entire area between Mill Creek
and Orchard Road east of the highway.
Men such as William Hoover, Lawson Hill, Addison Missman, Tom Nichols
and Frank Scholl were some of its prominent producers. These men, and others, built "packing
plants" where apples were sorted, boxed, and then shipped via the
railroad.
Hoover's
packing plant was located on the south east corner where Orchard Road and
Missman Road intersect. When it was
built in 1926 it was said to be the biggest one in the Council area, second
only to Mesa's. It had a cement floo r,
contained a grading machine, and could store almost 80 railroad car loads of
apples. (The largest cars held 795
boxes and took about a day to load.)
When the packing plant was built, it took six railroad car loads of wood
shavings for insulation to fill the walls.
Hoover employed 40 pickers in 1927, and kept at least 40 more workers
busy at the packing plant.