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Title: The history of Bannock County, Idaho

Author: A. C. Saunders

Release date: September 5, 2022 [eBook #68910]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: The Tribune Company, Limited, 1915

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF BANNOCK COUNTY, IDAHO ***





  The History

  OF

  Bannock County
  Idaho

  BY

  ARTHUR C. SAUNDERS

  [Illustration]

  POCATELLO, IDAHO, U. S. A.

  THE TRIBUNE COMPANY, LIMITED
  1915




  COPYRIGHT 1915, BY
  THE TRIBUNE COMPANY, LTD.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                 Page

  Introduction                                      9


  CHAPTER I

  Preliminary History                              11


  CHAPTER II

  Some Natural History                             23


  CHAPTER III

  The Indians                                      35


  CHAPTER IV

  The Cowboy                                       46


  CHAPTER V

  Fort Hall                                        55


  CHAPTER VI

  The Nez Perce Indian War                         66


  CHAPTER VII

  The Bannock Indian War and the Sheep-Eaters      76


  CHAPTER VIII

  The Stage Coach                                  88


  CHAPTER IX

  The Railroad                                    101


  CHAPTER X

  General Conditions and Development              111


  CHAPTER XI

  Pocatello                                       122


  CHAPTER XII

  Conclusion                                      136




INTRODUCTION


Although Bannock county is not yet twenty-five years old, it has seemed
desirable to collect her history, before the adventures and legends of
early days have been lost in the more prosaic and pressing interests of
today.

Probably no state in the union is less known than Idaho. Wyoming has
her “Buffalo Bill,” Colorado her Pike’s Peak, Nevada her far, but
ill-famed Reno; Utah her famous salt lake; all known throughout the
English speaking world. But Idaho, rich in natural resources, fertile
and prosperous, has furnished no wild-west tragedy like that of Custer
in Wyoming, to attract the attention of writers. She possesses no
natural wonder to rival the Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon; she has
produced no Kit Carson or Daniel Boone to fire the adventurous blood of
ten-year-olds.

Few people in the eastern states can accurately locate Idaho. They know
dimly that it is in the great northwest, but whether it is hill or
plain, mine or ranch, they have forgotten along with much of the other
lore of early school days.

The history of Idaho, however, has already been published by men
whose long residence in the state and experience in its public
affairs eminently fitted them for the task. It is our more humble
and less pretentious pleasure to record the annals of our own
county--Bannock--than which no other in Idaho is more beautiful in
scenery, more romantic in history or more promising for the future.

It is a pleasure to make grateful acknowledgment here of the valuable
and ready help so courteously given in the compilation of this history
by the heads of the various United States departments at Washington,
the officials of the Oregon Short Line, the city and county officers
and the many private persons whose personal knowledge or study of the
early days of Bannock county made their assistance indispensable. The
list is too long to reproduce, but in most instances the authority
has been cited in the text, although in several cases names have been
omitted at personal request.

Of course, what we call Bannock county today has existed since the
time of Adam. And so--not to begin in the middle of the story--the
first chapter is devoted to a rapid sketch of the territory comprising
Bannock county, before the county was created.




THE HISTORY OF BANNOCK COUNTY




CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY HISTORY


The territory now comprising Bannock county first entered the pages
of history when, in 1662, the French Sieur de la Salle planted his
country’s flag in what he called “Louisiana,” after his sovereign,
Louis XIV, of France. In order to prevent England from gaining it, and
hoping at the same time to win an ally, Louis XV ceded Louisiana to
Spain in 1762. Napoleon traded it back from Carlos IV of Spain, but
later sold it. This was the territory purchased for the United States
by Thomas Jefferson in 1803 and for which the country paid $15,000,000.
It included the greater part if not all, of the present state of Idaho,
and certainly all of Bannock county.

The northwestern section of this purchase became known as the Northwest
Territory and included all land west of the summit of the Rocky
Mountain range, between the forty-ninth and forty-second parallels of
latitude. This was later called the Oregon territory, and contained
not only the present state of Oregon, but also Washington, Idaho, and
parts of Montana and Wyoming.

In 1789, Captains Robert Gray and John Kendricks skirted the coast of
this territory and traded for furs with the Indians, and three years
later Captain Gray discovered the Columbia river, up which he sailed
several miles. The Lewis and Clark expedition, which left St. Louis in
May, 1804, headed by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, gave
such encouraging accounts of the resources of the Northwest Territory
that many of the more adventurous people in the states were induced to
undertake settling it.

For a time Spain, Russia and Great Britain, as well as the United
States, claimed the northwest, there being some dispute between the
latter two countries as to the boundary line between Canada and the
northern limits of the Louisiana purchase.

Great Britain and the states, by treaty of October 20, 1818, agreed
that the subjects of both countries should settle the territory jointly
for a period of ten years. Before the ten years had passed, both Spain
and Russia had ceded their claims to the United States--the former
in 1819, the latter in 1824. At the expiration of the ten years,
the treaty between Great Britain and the United States was renewed
indefinitely, to be annulled by either party after one year’s notice.

In his History of Idaho, Mr. Hiram T. French gives the following brief
sketch of Jim Bridger, after whom Bridger street in Pocatello was named:

“Among the men who trapped on the headwaters of the Missouri and its
tributaries for the fur companies, probably none was better known than
Jim Bridger. He made his headquarters at a place now in southwestern
Wyoming, which became known as Fort Bridger, and was later one of the
landmarks along the old ‘Oregon Trail.’

“Jim Bridger is authoritatively credited with being the first white man
to see Salt Lake. In 1824 he was trapping along Bear river in what is
now Idaho territory. He followed the stream to the canyon leading out
of Cache valley. Climbing the high hills, he saw off to the south a
large body of water. His interest aroused, he went on until he reached
the shore, tasted the water and found it salty. Later an exploring
party went around the lake and determined that it had no outlet.

“After having spent many years among the Indians, Bridger lost his life
at their hands.”

The fate of Jim Bridger was not an uncommon one in the early days.
A number of white men deserted their own kind to become the adopted
members of Indian tribes. They took to themselves Indian wives, and
dressed, spoke and lived as Indians. But their fate was nearly always
the same. Sooner or later they were usually killed by the people of
their adoption.

Two American expeditions visited this country in 1832, one headed by
Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., and the other by Captain Wyeth.

Already some of the names in this narrative must have struck the
reader’s ears as locally familiar--Clark, Lewis, Bonneville and Wyeth.
All the cross streets in Pocatello, except Center, which divides the
city into north and south, are named after early explorers, Indian
fighters, hunters or men who otherwise distinguished themselves in
daring during the early days. Hence, Wyeth street, Bonneville street,
etc. The streets parallel with the railway on the east side of the
city are numbered, while those on the west are named for the various
presidents, as Arthur, Garfield and Hayes.

In this way Pocatello has linked to herself the names and therefore the
history and adventures of the daring and hardy pioneers of the great
northwest. The history of her street names would be one of romance and
adventure, of daring and hardship, suffering and triumph, such as it
would be hard to equal. For this heritage of nomenclature, the city is
indebted to Daniel Church, former mayor of Pocatello, to the Tribune,
and others who selected this system of names.

Captain Bonneville’s expedition was one of exploration only. Captain
Wyeth came to trade with the Indians, but in this he met with small
success. The Hudson Bay Company, a wealthy English corporation,
had entered the territory and was most ably represented by
Doctor--sometimes called Captain--McLoughlin. He was an honorable, kind
and brave man, but far-seeing and shrewd. He covered the country with
a network of English, Canadians, French and Indians, and met American
competition everywhere by offering higher prices for furs than his
rivals could afford. Consequently Captain Wyeth’s expedition was not
a business success, but he deserves more than passing notice, not
only because his name is now a household word in Pocatello, but more
especially because he established Fort Hall, which he named after a
member of the firm for whom he had come west.

Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, having heard of the profits to be made in
fur-trading, led an expedition overland from Boston, arriving at Fort
Vancouver in the fall of 1832. Here he was to meet a vessel laden with
supplies and sent by a Boston company with which he was associated. But
the ship never came. After waiting all winter Wyeth decided that she
had been lost, and returned to Boston.

In 1834, Captain Wyeth returned to the northwest and this time a ship
containing supplies did come to meet him. In his party were three
Methodist ministers--Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Cyrus Shepherd and Rev. T. L.
Edwards, who were the first missionaries to land in Oregon. It was on
this second trip that Captain Wyeth built Fort Hall, on the banks of
the Snake river, as a trading post, and here, on July 27, 1834, Rev.
Jason Lee conducted the first Christian service held in Idaho.

Competition with the Hudson Bay Company and the loss of many men by
desertion and death, finally forced the captain to sell out and return
to the east.

Two women deserve notice here as being the first white women to pass
through what is now Bannock county. They are Mrs. Whitman, wife of the
Rev. Dr. Marcus Whitman, afterward killed by the Indians, and after
whom Whitman College in Oregon, and Whitman street in Pocatello, are
named, and Mrs. Spalding, wife of the Rev. Spalding. They came to the
Northwest in 1836, and settled in Oregon.

Another expedition, under Captain John C. Fremont, after whom Fremont
street, Pocatello, is named, was sent to survey parts of this territory
in 1843.

At this time the condition of Americans in the Northwest Territory
was far from satisfactory. They had undergone great hardships and
risks in order to establish themselves in the new land, but their
home government had done nothing to either protect or organize them.
Petition after petition was sent to congress, but without effect.
So, on May 20, 1843, the Americans met at a place called Shampoig,
near where Salem, Oregon, now stands, and organized a provisional
government, designating Oregon City the capital. The first legislature
met in a carpenter shop, and adopted the laws of the state of Iowa,
because an Iowa man, with a copy of the Iowa laws in his pocket,
happened to be present.

This provisional government was entirely successful and continued until
1846, when a new government was formed and Hon. George Abernathy was
elected governor.

In this same year, 1846, Great Britain ceded to the United States her
claim to the Northwest Territory, with the exception of the Hudson Bay
Company’s holdings and those of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company.
In July, 1863, the United States purchased the interests of these
companies for $450,000 and $200,000 respectively, the final payments
being made in 1865.

On March 3, 1853, congress passed an act creating and organizing
Washington territory, which included all the Northwest territory except
the present state of Oregon. Ten years later to a day, the territory
of Idaho was created and organized, containing all of Washington
territory, except the present state of Washington. The following year,
1864, Montana was cut off from the territory of Idaho, and that of
Wyoming in 1868, when Idaho took her present geographical limits, being
three hundred miles long across her southern portion and only sixty
across the northern panhandle.

In February, 1864, the territory of Idaho was divided into Shoshone,
Nez Perce, Idaho, Boise, Owyhee, Alturas and Oneida counties, the last
of which included the present county of Bannock. Soda Springs was the
first county seat, which was afterward moved to Malad City.

Bingham county was created January 13, 1885, out of the northern and
eastern parts of Oneida county, the southern part of which was made
into Bannock county, March 6, 1893. This county was named after the
Bannock Indians, who were its original inhabitants, and who still own
many acres within the county limits.

In speaking of conditions at the time when the first seven counties
were created, Mr. John Hailey, in his “History of Idaho,” says: “Quite
a percentage of the whole population was engaged in some kind of trade,
merchandising, hotel and restaurant-keeping, butcher, feed and livery
business, blacksmithing, sawmilling and carpentering. A large number
were engaged in the transportation of merchandise and passengers.
Some few had settled on ranches and were cultivating and improving
them. A few were engaged in the stock business and many more than was
necessary were engaged in the saloon and gambling business, with a
few road agents, ready and willing to relieve any person of his ready
money without compensation, whenever a favorable opportunity presented
itself. The primary object of all seemed to be to gather gold. But
I think I may truthfully say that ninety-five per cent of these
people were good, industrious, honorable and enterprising, and to all
appearances desired to make money in a legitimate way.”

In this same connection Mr. Hailey also says: “Most of the first
settlers of Idaho were poor in purse, but were rich in muscle and
energy, and most all possessed a good moral character. The rule that
was in common practice was for each person to attend to his own private
business, and to have an affectionate regard for his neighbors and his
neighbors’ rights, and to extend a helping hand to the unfortunate that
needed help. I speak from experience, having an extensive business
and social acquaintance with many of the early settlers of Idaho,
when I say (with a few exceptions), the early settlers were as noble,
patriotic, industrious, unselfish, intelligent, good, generous, kind
and moral people as ever were assembled together in like number for the
reclamation and development of an unsettled country, inhabited only
by untutored, savage Indians, wild animals and varmints.” Surely, we
people of Idaho have a proud heritage to live up to!

       *       *       *       *       *

The following list of prices, quoted by Mr. Hailey from the Boise News
of December 26, 1863, published at Bannock City (afterward Idaho City)
may give pause to some people who complain of the present high cost of
living:

 “Prices current. Corrected weekly by Higbee & Company, dealers in
 general merchandise, groceries and provisions, corner Main and Wall
 street, Bannock City.

 “Groceries and produce:

  Butter, per pound                       $ 1.25
  Chickens, per dozen                      36.00
  Eggs, per dozen                           2.00
  Ham, per pound                             .75
  Lard, per pound                   .40 to   .50
  Salt, per pound                   .35 to   .40
  Side bacon, per pound             .60 to   .70
  Tea, per pound                 $ 1.50 to  2.00
  Flour, per 100 lbs             $33.00 to 36.00
  Onions, per pound                 .25 to   .30
  Rice, per pound                            .50
  Sugar, per pound                  .70 to   .75
  Candles, per pound                        1.00
  Nails, cut, per pound             .40 to   .50


 Clothing.

  Women’s hip boots                       $30.00
  Women’s calf boots                        6.00
  Men’s calf boots                         12.00
  Woolen drawers, per pair        $1.50 to  2.00
  Red drawers, per pair           $2.50 to  3.50
  Men’s quilted brogan                      3.50
  Gum boots, long legs                     12.00
  Gum boots, short legs                    11.00
  Men’s cavalry boots            $12.00 to 15.00
  Men’s boots, long gr.                    10.00
  Cal. best blankets                       16.00
  Salem blankets                 $13.00 to 15.00
  Oregon socks, per doz.                    9.00
  Best Cal. wool shirts           $3.00 to  4.00
  Buck gloves, per doz.          $18.00 to 30.00
  Red undershirts, per doz.      $30.00 to 36.00


 Wines and Liquors.

  Best Champagnes, per doz.               $48.00
  Cal. Wine, per case                      24.00
  Claret Wine, per case                    24.00
  Sherry, per gal., in wood                 7.00
  Port, per gal., in wood                   7.00
  Baker’s Bitters, per case      $24.00 to 30.00
  Goddard Brandy, per gal.                 10.00
  Hermitage Whiskey, per gal.               7.00
  Kerosene Oil, per gal.          $8.00 to  9.00

 (The above prices were usually paid in gold dust at the rate of $16.00
 to the ounce, when the real value of gold dust was only $14.50 to
 $15.00 per ounce.)

 The above list has been considerably shortened in reproducing it.




CHAPTER II.

SOME NATURAL HISTORY.


Nature is the greatest of all historians. She is alike the most
accurate and interesting. Her pen is the impress of time, and in
characters more durable than the most lasting creations of man, she
has written the story of the ages as they rolled slowly by. Impartial,
unprejudiced, and in this respect omniscient, she has patiently and
unerringly recorded a history more ancient than that of primeval man,
more valuable than that of the proudest monarchy. And so, having in the
previous chapter traced Bannock county from an unlocated spot in an
unexplored desert to a settled and civilized community of fixed limits,
let us now examine the scene of our story more closely, and try to read
something of what Nature has written there.

The sheltered canyon mouth in which our city is built was once the bed
of a huge lake, larger than many present day seas. Fish and prehistoric
water animals, uncanny and awe-inspiring monsters, could we see
them today, once sought their prey where now our houses raise their
sheltering roofs. The benches that today are advertised as desirable
building sites, were at one time the sloping shores of an inland sea.
Could we but read the romance of rock and soil in all its detail,
surely the most lurid fiction of man would pale by comparison.

The westernmost point of Bannock county is bounded by the Snake river,
far-famed for the beauty of its valley and the rich gold deposits
therein. The character of these deposits has puzzled prospectors and
miners for many years, because unlike all other placer fields, it
maintains a uniform fineness and coloring from mouth to source.

In the Engineering and Mining Journal for January 25, 1902, Mr. Robert
Bell, a well known mining expert of this state, published an article
entitled: “The Origin of the Fine Gold of Snake River.” This article
was reprinted in the Pocatello Tribune, February 15, 1902, from which
we quote, in part:

“One of the most plausible theories that have been suggested touching
the origin of this extensive distribution of the precious metal
was advanced by Captain N. L. Turner, a West Point man, who spent
considerable time investigating the problem in the early eighties.
Captain Turner advanced the theory that the gold was originally held
in solution by the waters of a great inland sea or lake that occupied
the Snake river valley subsequent to the Miocene period and that
the gradual and repeated evaporation of this great body of water by
subsequent lava flows resulted in the precipitation of its metallic
contents, generally and evenly over its basin area. This theory would
seem to account for the uniform size and quality of the golden colors
so generally disseminated throughout the enormous acreage of fine
gravel beds through which the Snake river now courses.

“The geological record of the rocks left along the borders of this
stream offer conclusive evidence of a landlocked body of water. This
great body of water, which might aptly be called Lake Idaho, was
created by the closing of the lower valley by a great dam of brown
Columbia lava, 6,500 feet high, now plainly exposed by erosion.”

The highest level of this lake was about 6,000 feet, and its extent 500
miles in length from Weiser to the foot of the Rocky Mountain range,
and 150 miles in width. Its deepest point was over 4,000 feet.

Mr. Bell goes on to say: “This lake suffered numerous and extensive
variations of level during the Tertiary period. Some of the more recent
horizons are still exposed at Pocatello, where on either side of the
Portneuf estuary, in plain sight from the depot, well defined benches
or terraces of shore-line gravel are left exposed one hundred feet
above the town; and a succession of low step-terraces of lake-shore
gravel, cut by the main track of the Oregon Short Line railroad between
Pocatello and American Falls, plainly indicate the rapid recession of
the lake levels of this period, and its final drainage and complete
obliteration by the erosion of the Snake river channel to its present
level.

“Prior to the inception of the great floods of black lava that have
filled the upper valley (near Pocatello), the shore lines and basin
area of Lake Idaho were almost all composed of granite and Palaeozic
formation. These formations were rich in placer and quartz gold.”

It is thought that the Snake river deposits also contain some alloy of
platinum or iridium.

But gold is not the only valuable mineral deposit in Bannock county.
Situated at the mouth of Sulphur canyon, five miles east of the town
of Soda Springs, is a group of soda springs with associated deposits
of native sulphur. These mines were worked in the late nineties and
in the years 1901 and 1902 a considerable amount of sulphur was taken
from them, but the enterprise was finally abandoned. The United States
Geological Survey, in Bulletin 470, gives the following summary of
these deposits:

“The failure of an apparently well backed attempt to develop these
deposits will render improbable any further attempts in the immediate
future. It is extremely doubtful if the deposits can be profitably
worked * * in competition with the relatively high-grade deposits of
Wyoming and Utah.”

The same bureau, in Part I of its publications for 1909, speaks more
hopefully of the salt deposits in Bannock county. In an article on this
subject, Carpel L. Breger says:

“Valuable areas of salt-bearing land lie along the Wyoming-Idaho
border in Bannock county, Idaho. In the old days, before the advent of
railroads in the west, relatively large amounts of salt were boiled
from the brine springs in this region and were hauled by ox team to
supply Idaho and Montana mining camps. The emigrants to the northwest
along the Lander route also drew upon this region for their salt.
Indeed, some forty years ago, in the reports of the Hayden survey, this
area was briefly described as containing the finest salt works west
of the Mississippi. In those days as much as 200,000 pounds of salt
was boiled per month, selling in the late sixties at $1.25 a hundred
pounds at the springs.”

Col. Lander, mentioned above, after whom a street in Pocatello has been
named, led a government expedition through these parts in 1863, and
F. V. Hayden, whose name has been given to Hayden street, Pocatello,
conducted a United States geological and geographic survey in this
country in 1872.

“Since then, however, the area has decreased in importance. The
railroads have passed it by; other salt works--those of the Great Salt
Lake region--have taken its markets on account of easier railroad
connection.

“Interest in these salt deposits has recently been revived, owing to
the discovery of rock salt beneath some brine springs. James Splawn
and H. Hokanson, in deepening these springs in 1902, encountered
a formation of rock salt six feet below the surface and this has
been penetrated for a thickness of twenty-six feet without reaching
the bottom. The exceptional purity of the salt, its cheapness of
production, and the probability of railroad connections in the near
future, lend interest to the deposits of the entire district.

“As to quality, salt can be easily obtained here which is above the
average in chemical purity. This salt could be produced most cheaply
and with the maximum of cleanliness by a process of solar evaporation.

“At present the market for the salt of the area described is limited
to the immediate vicinity. It could, however, command the markets of
eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and much of Montana.

The vicinity adjacent to Pocatello is rich in mineral deposits, but
most of them lie on the Indian reservation upon which white men are not
allowed to trespass. In his “History of Idaho,” Mr. Hiram T. French
speaks as follows of the mining resources of Bannock county:

“Many outcroppings in the mountains near Pocatello give promise of
most fabulous richness. Many assays from the rock have been made,
and they run up into the thousands. The agent in charge of the
reservation, however, has been strict in enforcing the treaty laws.
In the summer of 1893 a company of Pocatello men discovered a copper
ledge of marvelous promise, on Belle Marsh creek, on the reservation,
and made a determined effort to work it. They put a force of men to
work there and uncovered a ledge for a distance of a hundred feet,
finding a well-defined ledge of wonderfully rich copper ore. They
worked it until twice warned off by the Indian agent, and quit only
when they were finally threatened with arrest. During the same summer
a strong company of capitalists of Pocatello, Butte and Salt Lake City
organized and made an effort to secure a lease of the mineral lands
on the reservation; but other men in Pocatello, who had been watching
prospects and opportunity for years, entered a protest and the interior
department at Washington refused to grant the lease. The same year a
Pocatello organization made an attempt to obtain permission to develop
mines on this reservation, but failure likewise attended this only when
they were finally threatened with arrest. In 1891 some very rich galena
was discovered about two miles east of Pocatello, and this created a
veritable stampede of miners who began digging vigorously. The signs
were most encouraging, but the Indian agent again came to the front
and drove the men from the reservation. According to the testimony of
all the old timers in this region there are many rich deposits of the
respective valuable minerals in nearly all the mountains of Bannock
county. Apparently there is enough of coal and asbestos deposit here to
make a whole community rich.”

Pocatello’s railroad and ranching interests alone insure the
development of a prosperous and fair-sized city, and in the immediate
attention demanded by these activities, the mining possibilities of
the neighborhood seem for the time to have fallen into the background.
The day will come, however, when the Indian reservation will be thrown
open, and when that day does come, a new source of wealth will be
released which might easily place Pocatello well in the front rank of
western cities.

In the southeastern counties of Idaho there lies an extensive
shore-line of middle carboniferous limestones and shales, which has
been outlined by the United States Geological Survey, and a very large
portion of which is contained in Bannock county. This in its entirety
composes the largest phosphate field in the world, the rock phosphate
of the deposit being seventy per cent pure, in beds of from three to
eight feet thick. In December, 1908, the secretary of the interior
withdrew from all kinds of entry 4,541,300 acres of land, part of which
extends over the Utah line, pending an examination of their phosphate
resources. During the summer of 1909, the United States Geological
Survey conducted field work on this area, which resulted in the
restoration of some of these lands and the withdrawal of others. The
total area now withheld is 2,551,399 acres.

The rock phosphate deposits of Bannock county are original sedimentary
formations made when this part of the earth was still under water.
Since then other rock-forming sediments have accumulated, so that
thousands of feet of subsequent strata have overlain them. Deformation
of the earth’s surface has broken these strata, which originally lay
flat. Hence these rock-phosphate deposits resemble coal and limestone,
rather than ore deposits, such as veins or lodes. No entirely
satisfactory explanation of their source or manner of accumulation has
yet been given.

The value of these deposits will be more readily understood when it
is known that prior to their discovery the total known supply in the
United States was barely sufficient to last forty years. In addition to
this, most of the deposits were in the control of European investors,
which threatened to put the American farmer at the mercy of foreign
speculators.

In his book entitled, “The Conservation of Natural Resources of the
United States,” Professor Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin,
says: “The most fundamental of the resources of this nation is
the soil, which produces our food and clothing, and one of the
most precious of the natural resources of America, having a value
inestimably greater than might be supposed from the present market
value, is our phosphate-rock resources.”

Phosphoric acid is essentially a soil fertilizer. It is really nothing
else than a rich manure, as the odoriferous smell given off when two
pieces are rubbed together amply testifies. The enormous deposits of
this powerful fertilizer practically insure the agricultural future of
Idaho. The secretary of the interior, in a recent report, said: “The
present crop yields of the virgin fields of the west under irrigation
cannot be expected to be maintained by irrigation water alone, and the
intensive methods of that region will within a few years have to figure
on artificial fertilizers to maintain their great yield.”

And Nature, foreseeing our future need, has provided for it in advance.

The limestone deposits near Inkom are said to be valuable for the
manufacture of cement.

The agricultural soil of the county is composed largely of
disintegrated lava and volcanic ash, which, when irrigated, is very
fertile. The principal waterways are the Portneuf, the Snake, and the
Belle Marsh, which are fed by many mountain tributaries.

The county contains 3,179 square miles.

Having now determined in our first chapter the geographical location
and early history of Bannock county, and in our second examined the
nature of the country and what resources it contains, we will in the
third chapter turn our attention to its first inhabitants, and consider
the case of our brother, “the noble Indian.”




CHAPTER III.

THE INDIANS.


Some years ago, when life was young and all the world one luring and
beckoning field of adventure, the writer of this modest history spent
five dollars to hear Dan Beard, Ernest Seton Thompson and others,
lecture on “Woodcraft and Indians.” They spoke of the “noble red man,”
and pictured a romantic and heroic being of high ideals and chivalrous
life, whose adventures were clean and admirable, whose domestic life
was happy and blameless. At least one member of the audience went
home from those lectures and shed bitter tears of remorse and shame
because it was his sad lot to be a cowardly pale-face. We mention the
incident because it serves to illustrate the nonsense that is published
broadcast for mercenary reasons, by people who really know the truth.

This chapter does not pretend to be a scholarly dissertation on
the American Indian, but is rather intended to preserve the first
impressions made by the Indians on an interested and uninitiated
observer. For the salient and noticeable traits of these people are
more likely to excite the comment of a newcomer than they are to live
in the hard soil of familiarity.

The Arabs of the Sahara desert, like our own Bannock Indians, wrap
themselves closely in camels-hair blankets during the hottest weather,
which as everyone knows, is extreme in North Africa. They also wrap
their heads in turbans, and explain the custom by saying that it
protects them from the scorching rays of the sun. Otherwise their skin
would blister and dry up with the reflected heat of the desert. This
is probably true, and it is no doubt for some similar reason that the
Indians wear blankets all through the summer. It has been said that the
Indians use a powder of vegetable or mineral character with which they
rub the inside of their blankets, thereby rendering them impervious to
heat rays. Certain it is that an Indian, clad in a blanket, is seldom
seen to perspire, even in the hottest weather, while his civilized
brother drips just as profusely as a white man.

In like manner all strange and seemingly fantastic and heathen customs
have their birth in reason, if we can only detect it. The Indian, for
instance, paints his face as a protection from the dry and arid western
winds, which make some artificial application of grease necessary.
Let those who doubt this take a glance at the parched visage of some
Arizona rancher.

Some people maintain that the Indian is equal in intelligence to
the white man. Common sense tells us that this is not true. No race
mentally equal to the Caucasian would remain for centuries in barbarism
and turn from civilization even when it is thrust upon them. It is
sometimes said that an Indian is a white man’s equal because he can
pass the intelligence test of a twelve year old white boy, this modicum
of intelligence being scientifically sufficient to rescue a white man
from the ranks of the mentally deficient. A man might almost as well be
insane as to escape insanity by a hair’s breadth. And so, also, of his
intellect.

An Episcopalian missionary to the Indians on the Fort Hall reservation,
said in this connection: “I noticed when I first began to work among
these Indians that I could establish no footing of equality between
myself and the bucks, although the latter seemed to be on the most
familiar terms with my twelve-year-old boy. This puzzled me for some
time, and I began to watch the intercourse between my boy and the
Indians. Then I discovered the secret. The mentality of my boy and of
the Indians was on a par. The red men, although adults in years, were
twelve-year-olds in mind. From that time on I talked with them on such
terms and my former trouble was ended.”

For this reason and because of the results so far attained, it seems
very questionable whether it is wise to attempt to civilize these
people, in the ordinary meaning of the term. Christianize them by all
means. But two men practicing the principles of Christianity can live
as happily in a wig-wam as in a palace--perhaps more so, and there is
no reason why we should want the squaws to wear split-skirts because
our own women wear them. There is but little choice, and perhaps the
squaw has the best of it at that. The South Sea islander does not want
us to wear rings in our noses because he does, and it seems hardly
fair that we should wish to throttle the poor Indian with the shackle
that civilization calls a collar, just because we are foolish enough
to wear collars. Christianity alone will bring these people as much
civilization as they need for both their happiness and salvation, and
that is more than many of our own boastful race possess. For the rest,
the Indian, to his honor, be it said, is a child of nature, who loves
his sagebrush and desert freedom, and it is no kindness to tear him
from the life he loves so well. No wonder he hates the white man.
Most of us would hate people who insisted upon making canary-birds,
guaranteed to sing in the parlor, out of us, when we wanted to be
eagles. Perhaps it is some such reason as this that leads the Indians
on the reservation to despise those who live among the whites. The
average Indian who hangs around Pocatello is certainly inferior to his
brother in the sage brush.

Although the Indian is a lazy man, who makes his squaw do most of the
work, he is not without some strain of generosity. The squaw usually
follows along some ten paces behind her husband, and it is no uncommon
thing to see the buck eating a bag of apples or other delicacies and
throwing the cores to his faithful squaw, who devours them with relish.

The Bannocks, in common with all other Indians, have a decided sense
of beauty,--a trait that is seldom noticed, although one of the best
possessed by the red-men. This artistic instinct finds play in the
basket and bead work done by these people. Many of their designs
combine great beauty with great simplicity, and display a taste that
is far from uncultured. In their names, too, the Indians show a love
of the beautiful. Where in the whole wide world can more beautiful
names be found than Wyoming and Arizona, Idaho and Oregon, Nevada and
Oklahoma? Resonant and poetical names they are, suggestive of a bigness
quite commensurate with the vastness of the states they name. It has
been said that the west, inspired by the beauty of her Indian names,
will some day produce a new school of poetry, made possible only by the
poetry of the wild, free red-men.

As in all frontier communities, many amusing incidents have transpired
between the Indians and whites. Probably everyone in Pocatello knows
“Stonewall” Johnson and probably no one in Pocatello knows horseflesh
better than he. One day Mr. Johnson bought a horse from an Indian. The
animal had seven diseases--all fatal--but Mr. Johnson, with infinite
skill and patience, gradually cured him of them all. He nursed the
dying beast back to health and made a valuable horse of him. From time
to time the Indian dropped around to inspect the animal. One fine day,
when the cure was fully effected, the Indian deliberately entered the
field where the horse was grazing in care of Mr. Johnson’s little boy,
mounted and rode away, leaving the youngster to carry the news home.
Mr. Johnson has never seen either horse or Indian since. It is said
that the only way to bind a bargain with the Indians is by a deed of
sale. On the other hand, the missionary previously mentioned, says that
he would rather lend money to an Indian than to a white man, as the
former never fails to repay the loan.

We have spoken of the Indian’s sense of beauty. He is also cruel, and
his cruelty is written on his face. Imagine, then, the dismay and
terror of a missionary’s wife, who, with her husband, alighted one dark
night at a little way station just north of Pocatello. The depot was
locked, and while the missionary went to look for a night’s lodging,
his wife disposed herself comfortably on a soft and well-filled
gunnysack lying on the station platform. Presently the gunnysack
moved, stretched a pair of moccasined legs, and said “Woof!” The lady
eventually recovered, but whether the Indian did, the story does not
tell.

While possessing much innate nobility, the Indian sometimes appears in
a ridiculous light. It is said that when a part of the reservation was
thrown open a few years ago, and the red-men reimbursed in cash, many
of them invested their money in vehicles. They bought every old wagon
for miles around, and when the supply ran low, took what they could
get. So it happened that one buck bought an old hearse. In the body
of this he was wont to carry his numerous papooses, who gazed at the
passing throng with their squat faces pressed flat against the windows,
while the proud parents occupied the driver’s box.

These people have a strange aversion to the camera, probably as
to something uncanny and not understood. They believe that to be
photographed saps the strength. At the last sun dance held in the
Bottoms near Pocatello, it was necessary to pay one old centenarian
five dollars to induce him to pose for one snapshot.

Among the common-places of former days that are fast passing away are
the wild horses. These animals still roam the plains of Bannock county,
but they are becoming more scarce every year. They travel in bands of
fifteen or twenty and are very bold. They will approach within close
range of a human being and feed unconcernedly under his gaze, but at
the sound of the human voice they become terror-stricken and stampede
away in great confusion. Some daring men rope these animals during the
summer months and break them in for saddle use, but their wild blood is
never really tamed. It is necessary to break their spirit with cruelty
before they are of any use, and then they are apt to relapse at any
time. When one escapes from captivity it is said that he will travel
hundreds of miles with unerring instinct back to the plains whence he
was taken.

The fact that a large portion of the land included in Bannock county
was set apart for and inhabited by Indians retarded its settlement for
many years. The Indians were hostile to the white men, few of whom
settled in the vicinity, except employes of the stage lines running
from Salt Lake to Butte, government agents, etc.

The Shoshone--in the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for
1913, this name is spelt Shoshoni--and Bannock Indians now living
on the Fort Hall reservation are types of the great Lemhi family.
The Shoshone, or Snake Indians, are fairly honest, intelligent and
peaceable, although all the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains are
inferior to those living to the east. The Bannocks are more cunning,
sly, and restless than the Shoshones. The Shoshone family, of which
the Bannock is a branch, are thought to have come originally from
California. While the name Shoshone is commonly supposed to mean
“snake,” some authorities hold that it means “inland.” These Indians
are more pretentious in dress and ornamentation than those living
farther south, and possess no mean skill in the art of pottery. Ross,
an authority on Indian affairs, says: “The Snakes have been considered
as a rather dull and degraded people, weak in intellect and wanting
in courage. And this opinion is very probable to casual observer, at
first sight or when they are seen in small numbers, for their apparent
timidity, grave and reserved habits, give them an air of stupidity. An
intimate knowledge of the Snake character will, however, place them on
an equal footing with that of other kindred nations, both in respect to
their mental faculties and moral attributes.”

The different tribes or families of these Indians speak different
dialects, but have a sign language that is understood by all. Although
stolid and silent in their intercourse with white men, they are
vivacious and even garrulous among themselves. The play of their hands
when they talk with signs resembles the conversation of deaf mutes.

Another writer says: “The Bannocks of Idaho are highly intelligent and
lively, the most virtuous and unsophisticated of all the Indians in the
United States.”

These Indians were at least intelligent enough to devise a system of
hieroglyphics, examples of which are still to be seen on the lava rocks
to the west and south of Pocatello, although the Indians of today
seem to have lost the art of reading them, and their contents remain a
mystery. They are recent enough in execution to have survived the wear
of wind and weather, but how interesting it would be if we could read
the crude romance they tell--some memorable page of barbarous history
or some forgotten tragedy of desert life!

There are in the neighborhood of Pocatello also some old Indian
forts--crude constructions of dug-outs and mountain boulders,
interesting only on account of their origin. The curious may find one
about two miles out of Pocatello, to the left of the road that winds
back from West Sublette street. It probably differs in no way from
those built by the Indians of this vicinity two thousand years ago,
and were they to construct another today it would be impossible except
by age, to tell the new from the old. Civilization rolls on apace, and
today’s triumph of mechanism is the scrap heap of tomorrow, but the
stolid Indian, imperturbable and uninterested, remains much the same,
yesterday, today and apparently forever.




CHAPTER IV.

THE COWBOY.


Closely associated with the Indians in the minds of many people,
especially in the east, are the cowboys. The prevalent idea in the
eastern states about the far west is much the same today as it was
fifty years ago--an illusion that the moving pictures help to keep
alive. And yet, prosaic as it may be compared with the stirring times
of yore, there is still a charm and freedom in western life unequalled
in any other part of the United States. That western people are fully
alive to the romance and adventure connected with the settlement of
the west, is shown by the fact that moving picture representations of
western life are popular to an equal extent in no other portion of the
Union.

The mouth of the Portneuf canyon was a favorite wintering place for
cattle men and freighters because of the feeding ground to be found on
the bottoms, the shelter afforded by the surrounding hills, and the
water supplied by the Portneuf river. For similar reasons the Indians
used the present site of Pocatello for their winter quarters. Just
west of Pocatello, along the banks of the Snake river, lay a rich and
fertile grazing ground, where was situated the headquarters of the old
War Bonnet Cattle company, a big outfit that operated in this country
for several years.

Until the old ranges were broken up into ranches, which practically
ended the old cowboy life, the Portneuf canyon remained a winter haven
for cattle men, and many wild and thrilling exploits were enacted here.
The cutting up and fencing of the ranges has been inevitable in the
course of progress and development, but from the cowboy standpoint it
has not been altogether desirable. Cattle driven by a storm will run
before the wind, and when they meet an obstacle will halt rather than
turn in the face of the gale. As a result, many cattle, stopped in
their course, have perished from cold and exposure in recent years.

Cowboys and sheepherders are still seen daily on the streets of
Pocatello. Many of the latter are Mexicans and they are looked down
upon by the cowboys as being less hardy and daring.

The two classes have never lived peaceably together because the
sheep clip the grass so close to the ground that cattle can find no
nourishment, after the sheep have gone. For this reason fights were so
common between the sheep and cattle men that the government finally
alloted to each grazing grounds of their own.

The sheep men go out with their charges in the early spring and are on
the range for several months at a stretch. So many of them went insane
from monotony and loneliness that a law has been passed, requiring
owners to send two men with every outfit.

Like most men living an open and free life, these men are for the most
part generous and careless of money, taking little thought for the
future and oftimes going to excess for the present.

Some years ago, says a resident of Pocatello, an Italian, with infinite
patience and trouble, succeeded in catching a mountain lion in the
hills and brought him safely to town in a large cage. A band of
cowboys, bent on merry-making, surrounded the cage and danced about it,
letting out their blood-curdling yells and shooting their guns. The
lion, unaccustomed to such antics, at first snarled savagely. Later he
became quiet. The cowboys began to thrust at him through the cage, and
then to dare one another to enter it. At length one of the men took
up the dare. Armed with a knife and a gun, he cautiously entered the
cage. The lion crouching in a corner, watched the intruder but made
no movement. The cowboy grew bolder and began to probe and kick the
beast. His companions encouraged him with more hoots and yells, but
still the lion lay quiet. Finally the adventurer withdrew in despair of
stirring up a fight. The savage animal had been so completely cowed and
terrified by the noise that it was literally paralyzed and unable to
move.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Herman Goldsmith, now in the employ of the Oregon Short Line, but
formerly a cattle man, tells of a town that boasted but one bathtub,
owned by the barber. To this shop repaired the soiled and weary of
the community for ablution and refreshment. One fine night a band of
cowboys shot up the town and the next day the bath-tub was gone. Search
was made high and low, but no tub could be found. The loss was serious,
as there was no railway in those days and another tub could not be
purchased in a radius of many miles. The town had little godliness, and
now even its cleanliness was gone! One fine day the disconsolate barber
was given a tip that his bath-tub was secreted in a cowboy’s shack some
miles distant. A warrant was sworn out, the tub recovered, and the
culprit hied into court. Came also the barber.

“How many baths do you sell a week?” asked the judge.

“About seventy,” said the barber.

“At how much per bath?” continued the judge.

“Fifty cents,” answered the barber.

“How many weeks has your tub been gone?” the court asked.

“Three,” the barber said.

Then the court summarized: “Seventy baths at fifty cents each equals
thirty-five dollars per week. Three weeks at thirty-five dollars is
$105.”

So he fined the cowboy $105 and costs, and reimbursed the barber for
his lost business.

The same frontier conditions that produced the cowboy have served
also to make the westerner a more rugged and ever-ready man than the
easterner. The westerner may lack some of the culture and finish of his
New England cousin, but he is better equipped to fight the battle of
life both in his training and in his inherent qualities. The west is
developing a fine and unique type of manhood. Its vast distances, its
noble hills and far-stretching plains make an atmosphere of bigness
that alone must influence, even inspire the race that is native to
them. It is said that a little girl, fresh from the western plains, was
asked how she liked the east. “I don’t like it,” she said. “I can not
see anything because of the trees.” And the same cramped conditions
that oppressed the child have perhaps done their part in narrowing the
easterner. However that may be, the easterner is usually a man of more
narrow ideas and of stronger prejudices than the westerner.

We have one other inhabitant in Bannock county who deserves notice
before he vanishes in the face of civilization--the coyote. No one
who has not heard the yell of a coyote on a still night knows what
the phrase, “blood-curdling” means. These animals are often crossed
with dogs and make cowardly curs, until they are taught to fight.
Having once learned the noble art, it is hard to make them keep the
peace. Their pelts have a market value today, and in time to come will
probably be highly prized.

Another class of men who made a winter rendezvous of the present
site of Pocatello were the freighters--men who drove the old freight
stages from Salt Lake to Butte. These men were true pioneers, camping
along the old trails until they knew them blindfold for hundreds
of miles, and encountering great risk from exposure and from the
Indians. Sometimes an impoverished traveler worked his way with these
freighters. He was called a swamper, and to his lot fell all the
chores of the camp--chopping wood, carrying water and building fires.
He usually paid well for his passage.

There was always bad blood between the Indians and freighters, the
former resenting the intrusion of the teamsters as they passed through
the reservation along the old trail. The freighters prepared for
trouble as they neared the reservation limits, and frequently met it.

In August, 1878, two men, Orson James, and another named James, but not
related to the former, were taking a load of merchandise from Salt Lake
to Butte, and were attacked by a hostile Indian on the road between
Pocatello and Fort Hall. The red man opened fire unexpectedly and shot
James in the back. The freighters returned the fire from behind their
wagons, but in time the Indian succeeded in hitting Orson James in the
neck. Then he rode off into the sagebrush, but was later captured and
taken to Malad City, at that time the county seat, for trial. He was
sentenced to four months’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Boise,
where he died before his term expired. Both men recovered but Orson
James was lame during the rest of his life.

When the Indian just mentioned was taken to Malad City, he was
accompanied by a brother. This man heard Alec Roden, a cow-puncher,
remark that the Indian on trial should be hung. He attached undue
importance to these words, thinking, in his ignorance of the white
man’s methods of justice, that they would affect the verdict
unfavorably for his brother. Roden was later sent to the Fort Hall
reservation to attend to a hay contract. In talking over the trial, Joe
Rainey said to Roden, “You should not have let that Indian’s brother
hear you advise hanging. He is likely to seek revenge.”

Roden laughed the fear away, but that same evening, while he was
working at the barn, the imprisoned Indian’s brother shot him dead.

Such attacks served to keep the white men on the alert. They were
usually unprovoked, so far as the people who were attacked knew, but an
investigation generally showed that the red man, after his fashion, was
visiting a real or supposed wrong on the first member of the offending
race he encountered.

Few features of the far west are more widely known, or more
characteristic than the prairie schooner. In parts of South Africa the
same pioneer conditions exist that prevailed in our western states
until a few years ago. The climate and nature of the country are much
the same. It is interesting to notice that the same conditions, ten
thousand miles away, and untouched by American western influence,
have produced the same prairie schooner that we see winding the dusty
trails of Bannock county today. It is probably safe to say that were
two bodies of men sent from Paris--one five thousand miles east and the
other five thousand miles west--to new countries of like conditions,
the two parties would be found after several generations to have
evolved the same habits of dress, custom and life. Yet not the men, but
Nature, the great mother of us all, would have decided these things for
them.




CHAPTER V.

FORT HALL.


There are many historical spots in the United States unmarked by a
monument, but there are probably few cases on record of a monument
searching for a vanished site. Such is the case of the stone pillar
purchased by subscription to mark the original site of Fort Hall.

In 1906 Ezra Meeker traveled along the old Oregon trail and raised
money with which to mark the historical points along the route. One
monument stands in the High School grounds at Pocatello. Another was
purchased for erection on the Fort Hall site. A teamster was directed
to carry it to its destination on the banks of the Snake river, twelve
miles to the west of Pocatello, and this man deposited the monument at
the dobies, that were once a stage station. Those in charge of placing
the monument, being unable to certainly determine the original site of
the fort decided to leave the pillar where it lay, until the old fort
had been indisputably located. And there it still rests, and probably
will remain for some time to come.

It is unfortunate that the most historical point in Bannock county and
one of the most historical in the state of Idaho, should have been lost
sight of.

No effort will be made in this chapter to decide the question, because
such an attempt would be little more than a guess. It seems not
unlikely, indeed, that the original site has completely vanished.

Fort Hall was established in 1834 as a fur trading station by
Captain Nathaniel Wyeth. The captain found himself unable to compete
successfully with the Hudson Bay company, which at that time operated
in these parts, and in 1835 sold his interests to his rivals and
returned to the east.

Here comes the first problem in locating the original site. The Hudson
Bay company is thought to have moved the fort. Who can tell whether
the sites now pointed out were those of the first or second post? Some
pioneers maintain that Fort Hall was moved three times before the
sixties, while others maintain that some old ruins on the bank of the
Snake, about one and a half miles above the Tilden bridge, are the
first site. This spot is now overgrown with grass, but it is possible
to detect the outlines of an old foundation, something over two hundred
feet in length, and what appears to have been at one time rifle pits.
Evidently it was the location of a large building, but whether or not
of the first fort, who can tell? Joe Rainey, native interpreter at the
present Fort Hall Indian reservation, maintains that this was the first
site.

Other old-timers say that some dobies near the Snake river were a fort
site, but Mr. J. N. Ireland of Pocatello, says that he built these
himself and that they were a station on the old Overland stage road.

The old Oregon trail, which extended for over two thousand miles,
from St. Louis, Mo., to Portland, Oregon, divided at Soda Springs,
in Bannock county, into two almost parallel courses, which met again
at old Fort Boise. One of these followed the Portneuf river through
the present sites of McCammon and Pocatello. The other followed a
northwesterly direction from Soda Springs to old Fort Hall.

Many pioneers, in their description of the fort as they first knew it,
speak of a river that can be no longer found. Either its course has
changed since the early days, or its name changed; perhaps both, which
last condition would make it very difficult to identify the present
stream with that of seventy-five years ago.

During pioneer days, Fort Hall was one of the most important posts
along the Oregon trail. It was the first point west of Fort Laramie,
where travelers could rest securely under the protection of the flag,
and where there was a garrison of soldiers to relieve them of all fear
of sudden attack from the Indians. Here the weary and travel-stained
pioneers, pushing on for the far-famed Oregon territory, found respite
from their toils and dangers, and enjoyed once more the companionship
of their own kind. Here, too, preparatory for the last, long march
of their transcontinental journey, they repaired their wagons, and
discarded such baggage as it had seemed wise to bring when starting,
but which later experience proved to be only an encumbrance. An area of
several acres around Fort Hall is said to have been covered with this
debris, which was ransacked by the Indians and shorn of such parts as
the red men wanted. Prof. W. R. Siders, superintendent of the Pocatello
public schools, who has been interested for several years in the effort
to locate the site of the original fort, and to whom the writer is
indebted for very generous and valuable information, maintains that
it ought to be possible to identify the Hudson Bay company’s fort by
the rummage in its vicinity. He has examined the banks of the Snake
river for several miles and been unable to unearth any such remains.
This failure adds probability to the statement of old “Doc” Yandell,
a trapper in early days, who still resides in these parts. Mr. Yandell
says that some years ago he and Pete Weaver lived on the site of old
Fort Hall, which was then on the banks of the Snake river, and three
quarters of a mile distant from a spring. In later years Mr. Yandell
maintained that he could walk directly to the site of his former camp,
but when he attempted to do so, he found that the Snake was flowing
within three hundred yards of the spring that used to be three-quarters
of a mile from its bank. It is probable that since his departure some
spring flood had washed out a new channel for the river, thereby
changing its course, and placing the old fort site under water. This
might account for Prof. Siders’ failure to find the debris of which he
was in search.

The name “Fort Hall” has experienced numerous vicissitudes, since it
was first coined eighty years ago. The Hudson Bay company received
it from Captain Wyeth. When the Hudson Bay company sold its American
rights to the United States government in 1863, the latter used the
name to designate the military post which stood about sixteen miles
northeast of the present agency. Here the government maintained a
garrison of three companies of soldiers until about 1884, when the
troops were withdrawn and the fort buildings used for Indian school
purposes. When the school was moved to its present quarters, which were
first occupied in 1904, the name went with it. Some of the old fort
buildings were moved to the new site, and the remainder given to the
Indians. Traces of the fort may still be seen.

The Oregon Short Line station at the reservation, originally called
Ross Fork, has recently been changed to Fort Hall and the name is also
used to designate the whole reservation.

The name Ross Fork, according to Interpreter Joe Rainey, was derived
from an old man named Ross, who operated a ferry across the Snake river
forty years ago. One or two old posts still mark the ferry site.

The Fort Hall Indian reservation for the Bannock Indians was
established in July, 1868. In July of the previous year the government
appointed a commission consisting of N. G. Taylor, Lieutenant General
Sherman, U. S. A., William S. Harney, John B. Sanborn, S. F. Tappen, A.
H. Terry, and Brevet Major General C. C. Augur, U. S. A., to negotiate
treaties with all hostile and non-treaty Indians, and if possible to
settle them on reservations. The treaty made with the Bannock Indians
states that they were to have “reasonable portions of the Portneuf and
Kansas prairies.” There is no doubt that not “Kansas” but “Camas” was
meant, the latter being a favorite resort of the Indians, where they
gathered the tuberous Camas root, which they prized highly as a food.
The mistake in the name must have been made by an interpreter, clerk
or typesetter, and Mr. John Hailey says that the government officials
understood the mistake, but threw open the Camas prairie for settlement
by the whites. The Indians who signed this treaty on behalf of the
Bannocks were Taggee, Tay-Toba, We-Rat-Ze-Won-A-Gen, Coo-Sha-Gan,
Pan-Sook-A-Motse, and A-Mite-Etse. To them, no doubt, “Kansas” and
“Camas” meant the same, but the mistake caused much trouble in later
years.

The treaty was made July 3, 1868, ratified by the United States senate,
February 16, 1869, and proclaimed by President Andrew Johnson, February
24, 1869.

The governor of Idaho was instructed by the authorities at Washington
to have the proposed reservation surveyed, probably in accordance with
the clause which provided “reasonable portions of the Portneuf and
Kansas prairies.” The governor is said to have visited the Portneuf
valley, and with a wave of the hand to have instructed the surveyor to
“survey out a good-sized reservation around here for these Indians.”
He then returned to Boise. As the surveyor was paid by the mile for his
work, he ran the survey out to as many miles as possible. Consequently
the reservation included twice as much land as was needed, but its
limits were later curtailed. No notice was taken of the provision for
a portion of the “Kansas” prairie, but the Indian agent allowed his
charges to fish, hunt and dig camas on the Camas prairie whenever they
wished.

The country now included in the Fort Hall reservation was at one time
the scene of many Indian battles. A hundred years ago, when buffalo
still roamed these parts, the Blackfoot Indians ranged along the
river that now bears their name. This tribe was the arch-enemy of
the Bannocks and Shoshones, who used to make raids into the enemy’s
territory for the purpose of stealing their horses and cattle, and
in turn to patrol their own demesnes when the enemy invaded them. An
old squaw, said to have been more than a hundred years old, died on
the reservation last year, who used to tell of a battle fought in her
childhood between the Bannocks and Blackfeet that lasted four days.

On some of the higher buttes toward the north of the reservation there
still stand stone pillars, built by the Indians. These were look-out
posts, and most of them stand where a view of the country may be had
for miles around. Here the spies watched the movements of their enemies
and made signals to their friends. Usually the look-out lay behind the
pillar and peered around its base, but sometimes he stood flat against
its front. As the enemy gradually circled in one direction or another,
the spy moved slowly around the pillar, always keeping his face toward
those he was watching lest in the distance they should detect his form
standing out from the pillar and take alarm.

The following statistics were very kindly furnished by Mr. Cato Sells,
U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs:

The Fort Hall Indian reservation contains 454,239 acres, of which
38,000 acres were irrigated by 140.37 miles of ditch in June, 1913.

The value of the property and funds on the reservation of the Indians
is $4,551,711, or $1,103.97 per capita.

The crop raised by the Indians in 1913 were valued at $73,591, and
during the same year they sold $51,520 worth of stock. These items,
added to the receipts from other industries, made their total income
for the year amount to $169,262.42.

The Indian population of the reservation, June 30, 1913, was 1,819.
Of these, 273 were operating farms for themselves, 222 children were
enrolled at the reservation school, and thirty were enrolled at the
Episcopal Mission School of the Good Shepherd.

The largest ranch operated by an Indian contains 160 acres.

Only three crimes were committed by Indians during the year. Two
arrests were made for drunkenness.

The most prevalent diseases among the Bannock Indians are tuberculosis
and trachoma.

There are no longer any soldiers on the reservation, but a patrol of
Indian police guards the public safety. These men are splendid types of
their race. The delight of their lives is to arrest a white man.

There is an atmosphere of contentment on the reservation and a goodwill
between the Indians and government agents employed there that is a
credit alike to red men and white. While most of the full-blooded bucks
on the reservation wear thick braids of hair, most of them appear to be
clean shaven. Yet they seldom, if ever, use a razor. When their beards
begin to come in, they pluck out the hairs, thereby solving the barber
problem for all time.

In the government school, too, the air is one of wholesome contentment.
No more cheering sight could be wished for than that of the Indian
boys and girls chatting cheerily as they eat their bountiful dinner in
the large, well-lighted, dining room of the government school. It is
a pleasure to acknowledge here the unfailing and uniform courtesy the
writer has always experienced on his visits to Fort Hall.




CHAPTER VI.

The Nez Perce Indian War.


In the days when Bannock was a part of Oneida county, the Nez Perce
Indians went on the war path. The trouble started in Oregon and ended
a thousand miles away at Bear Paw, Montana. Several accounts of this
outbreak have been published, some of them going into much detail, but
no one, to our knowledge, has told the story of the rapid flight of a
band of Chief Joseph’s followers across Oneida county. To fill the gap
and because the history of Bannock county up to 1889 is identical with
that of the county of which she formed a part, this chapter is written.

The Nez Perce war, like so many of the early troubles between red men
and white, was due to a dispute caused by a treaty.

The first Indian treaty in Idaho was executed between Governor Stevens,
of Washington Territory, who was also ex-officio superintendent of
Indian affairs, and the Nez Perce Indians, June 1, 1855. Up to this
time there had been no serious trouble with the Indians in this part
of the northwest, with the exception of the Whitman massacre in 1847,
when the Cayuse Indians killed Dr. Whitman and several other settlers.
The Nez Perce, however, showing signs of uneasiness at the increasing
number of whites and the large tracts of land they were appropriating,
Governor Stevens thought it wise to have an understanding with them.
In brief, the treaty set apart the Nez Perce reservation, allowing to
the Indians certain annual payments and providing for the establishment
of an agency and Indian schools, in return for which the Indians ceded
to the United States their claim to other lands. One independent,
sagacious and brave Nez Perce chief, named Joseph, refused to sign
this treaty, and with his adherents, continued to roam the country as
before, untramelled by reservation limits or the provisions of treaties.

       *       *       *       *       *

In May, 1877, Chief Joseph and his followers were ordered from the
Wallowa Valley, Oregon, to the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, and
given until June 14th to make the move. The Indians felt the injustice
of being called upon to observe a treaty to which they had never
agreed, and instead of obeying the order, made a rapid journey to the
east of the Salmon river country in Idaho, and suddenly attacked the
thinly settled whites there, killing seventeen, and wounding many
others. They then fired the settlers’ homes and farms and drove away
their horses and cattle. Volunteer companies were quickly formed to
protect the whites in the outlying districts, but during the mobilizing
of the men, several more were killed. Three other small bands of
non-treaty Indians linked their fortunes with those of Chief Joseph;
one band, under Chief Looking Glass, another under Chief White Bird,
and the third under Chief Tchulhulsote, known as the Dreamer Chief.

General Howard, at Fort Lapwai, who had been relying on a promise
given by Chief Joseph to obey the order to move on to the Nez Perce
reservation, immediately sent two companies of cavalry, under Colonel
Perry, to deal with the Indians, while other soldiers were summoned
from Walla Walla, Portland and San Francisco.

The Indians continued on the rampage for the next two days until June
16, 1877. On that day, Colonel Perry arrived on the scene and gave
battle to the red men in Whitebird canyon. In an hour thirty-four of
his ninety men were killed and two wounded. He beat a hasty retreat to
Grangeville.

On June 22nd, General Howard himself took the field with a force of
two hundred and twenty-five men and an equipment of artillery. From
that time until his final surrender to Col. Nelson A. Miles, October
5, 1877, Chief Joseph led his followers from one point to another,
extricating them from apparently hopeless predicaments, and showing a
military shrewdness that ranks him among the first warriors of his race.

In their flight eastward one body of Nez Perces pursued a southerly
course, crossing Oneida county a little above Eagle Rock, now called
Idaho Falls. It is thought that they expected the Bannock Indians
on the Fort Hall reservation to rise and join them, but if this was
the case they were disappointed. Perhaps the Bannocks saw the folly
of casting in their lot with an ally who was already in flight, but
as will appear presently, the Nez Perces received no help from the
Bannocks.

The Nez Perces followed a trail down Birch creek. At the same time,
August, 1877, two freighters, named Hayden and Green, were traveling
northward to Salmon City, with eight or ten wagons, loaded with
merchandise. In their party were two hired men, two Chinamen and a
swamper, who was working his passage. A party of the Indians met the
Hayden and Green outfit and approaching them in a friendly manner, said
they wanted to buy flour. Hayden asked them the price then current in
Salmon City--$1.75 per hundredweight. The Indians beat him down fifty
cents per hundredweight in his price, bought and paid for their flour,
and moved on. Soon Hayden met a second detachment of the Nez Perces,
who also wanted to buy flour. He quoted these men the same price he
had sold to the first party for, but the second also beat him down.
After paying for their purchase, the Indians passed on and joined their
comrades. When the two bands compared notes, they found a discrepancy
in price, and turned in their tracks to overtake Hayden. When they
came up with the freighters, they forced them to go into camp near the
sink of Birch creek, and began riding threateningly around the wagons,
which the freighters had corraled in regular form. The swamper became
uneasy and, when opportunity offered, took to the hills. After a time
the Indians took a barrel of whiskey from one of the wagons and having
opened it, used it as a free bar. Now Hayden and his companions felt
alarmed. One by one they made cautiously for a willow grove on the
creek bank, but one of them was killed within thirty yards of the camp,
another ten yards further, while a third was shot down when nearly
a quarter of a mile distant. All three bodies were mutilated. The
Indians, now maddened with drink, turned their attention to the two
Chinamen, whom they abused cruelly. Forcing them down on all fours,
they rode the yellow men with spurs, using their whips and rowels
freely. Tiring of this sport, the Nez Perces after taking what they
wanted, made a bonfire of the freight wagons, which were afterward
found burned to the hubs. The Chinamen availed themselves of this
opportunity to escape. Both they and the swamper were rescued after
wandering for several days in the mountains, but all three men were
insane from exposure, hunger, fear and abuse.

Colonel George L. Shoup, of Salmon City, who was expecting the arrival
of the Hayden party, went up into the hills where he could get a view
of the road, just at the time the Indians forced the freighters into
camp, to see whether the wagons had come into sight yet. Taking in the
situation, the colonel hurried back to Salmon City for aid, but the
rescuers arrived too late. All they could do was to give decent burial
to Hayden, Green, and their two companions.

After this massacre, the Indians followed down Birch creek, crossed
the Lemhi river and made a long day’s journey, without water, to
Hole-in-the-Rock, in Beaver canyon, close to the present town of
Highbridge.

At this time, Mr. E. N. Rowland who now lives on a ranch five miles
west of Pocatello, was traveling northward with a freight outfit. He
had gone a little beyond Eagle Rock when word came that the Indians
were on the warpath. Hurrying ahead, he overtook other freighters, who
in turn held back for others to overtake them. In this way forty or
fifty men banded together for mutual protection. Presently, looking
southward, these men saw a great cloud of dust approaching, and
prepared for trouble, but the newcomers proved to be friendly Bannocks,
a hundred and fifty or two hundred strong, who had heard that the
Nez Perces were in the country. They were making a raid to steal the
invaders’ horses. Mr. Rowland says the same band passed them again a
few days later, leading with them about two hundred captured ponies.

       *       *       *       *       *

Further on, just as they were going into camp for their noonday meal,
the freighters saw an Indian some distance ahead turn out of the
road and disappear among the rocks. A couple of hours later, before
resuming their march, a few of the freighters made a cautious search
and found the Indian dead from thirst. This was the first of several
dead Indians found by the freighters, all of whom had died in the same
manner. The hot August weather had dried up the few streams between
the scene of the Hayden tragedy and the Indians’ next halting place,
Hole-in-the-Rock. Their whiskey orgy of the previous night had left
them in bad shape for a long, dry march and some of the weaker of them
perished by the way.

It is but a few miles from Highbridge to the Montana line, and the
fleeing Nez Perces circled on toward Bozeman, in that state, without
perpetrating any more outrages in Idaho.

In June of this same year, 1877, a band of Bannock Indians from Fort
Hall, influenced probably by the action of the Nez Perces in refusing
to be restricted by the terms of treaties, left their reservation and
proceeded toward Boise. The band was well armed and well mounted. When
word reached Boise that these Indians were in camp, less than thirty
miles away, the town was greatly alarmed and a body of volunteers,
under Captain R. Robbins, was quickly equipped for action.

A small detachment of men was sent to interview the Bannocks, with
instructions to bring the band, or at least the chiefs, into Boise
to have a talk with the governor. The embassy returned the following
morning, June 20th, bringing with them thirty or forty stalwart Bannock
warriors. They created a sensation as they rode double file through
the main street of the city to the governor’s office. Here they were
introduced to the governor and several of the leading men of Boise,
with whom they held a long peace conference. In the end it was agreed
that the people of Boise should provide the Indians with provisions
and accommodations for their horses until the following day, and give
them a few hundred pounds of flour and meat, beside certain amounts
of sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, etc., the Bannocks for their part
undertaking to return peaceably to their reservation.

Mr. John Hailey, who was detailed by the governor to see that the
compact was carried out, has given us the following account of their
departure:

“Early the next morning, with the assistance of a few of our good boys,
we gathered up all these contributions and checked up to see if they
filled the agreement. Everything was satisfactory, we helped them to
pack up, and then tried to impress on them, first, that we had kept and
fulfilled our part of the agreement, and second, that they must not
fail to fulfill their part of the agreement. They seemed to realize
the importance of fulfilling their part, so we bade them a good-bye,
wishing them a speedy and safe journey to their home on the Fort Hall
reservation. They went and kept their part of the agreement for this
year, 1877, but in 1878 they gave us trouble.”

The trouble to which Mr. Hailey refers was the Bannock Indian war,
which we will take up in the next chapter.




CHAPTER VII.

The Bannock Indian War and the Sheep-Eaters.


For seven years previous to the treaty of 1869, the Bannock Indians had
given no trouble. In the late fifties and early sixties they committed
a number of depredations, and in 1862, General Conner, with a body
of troops from California, administered a defeat to them at Battle
Creek, near the present town of Oxford, that effectually ended their
misbehavior for several years. The bones of Indians killed in this
fight are still found in the vicinity.

It was told in a previous chapter how a confusion of the terms Camas
and Kansas occurred in the Bannock Indian treaty of 1869. The document
stated that the Indians should have a portion of the Kansas prairie,
instead of Camas. The two words were synonymous to the Indians, but
wise men among the whites foresaw that the mistake would cause future
trouble. Accordingly, in the spring of 1873, Mr. John Hailey called on
the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs
in Washington and urged that the mistake be corrected. As a result a
commission of three was appointed to settle all disputed points with
the Nez Perce and Bannock Indians, but nothing was accomplished by the
embassy. The treaty still read “Kansas” and the Bannocks still believed
that they were entitled to a portion of the Camas prairie, where there
were no white settlers at that time, and where the Indians roamed at
will.

       *       *       *       *       *

The trouble came in 1878. In May of that year some hogs were herded on
Camas prairie and William Silvey, George Nesbet and Lou Kensler drove
a band of cattle and horses there to graze. The men camped about ten
miles south of Corral Creek crossing. On the twenty-seventh of May, two
English-speaking Indians, called Charley and Jim, visited the campers
and appeared in every way friendly. They came again early the next
morning, ate breakfast with the white men and continued their show of
friendliness until Silvey, Nesbet and Kensler had scattered to their
several camp duties. Then Indian Charlie, without warning, shot Nesbet
through the jaws with a pistol as he was gathering up some dishes from
the ground, while Indian Jim fired a shot at Kensler, who was saddling
a horse, and grazed the side of his head. Nesbet and Kensler made a
dash for their tent, where they seized guns and opened fire on the
Indians, who were now shooting at Silvey. They fled before the bullets
and Silvey escaped unharmed.

Nesbet was badly wounded. His companions tended his injuries as well
as they could, saddled a couple of horses, and started with him for
Boise. When they had gone a few miles they looked back and saw a large
body of Indians devastating their camp. They gave the alarm as they
traveled along toward Boise, which Nesbet was a week in reaching. Upon
examination, his mouth was found to be alive with vermin, caused by
fly-blows, but Dr. Treadwell cleansed it and sewed his tongue together,
and after much suffering Nesbet recovered.

The Indians spent a day in the raided camp on Camas prairie, killing
cattle and drying beef, gathering horses and preparing generally for
war. Two white men, Mabes and Dempsey, were with them. The latter had
lived with the Bannocks for several years and had an Indian wife. The
Indians made Dempsey write a letter to Governor Braymen at Boise,
threatening to kill settlers and destroy property all over the state,
if troops were sent to fight them. They then sent Mabes to deliver the
letter, and killed Dempsey.

It was learned later that there was a division among the Indians at
this time, some favoring war, and others counselling against it.
Buffalo Horn, who was bent on mischief, finally secured a following
of some two hundred warriors and a few young Indian women, while the
remainder of the Indians returned to the Fort Hall reservation.

Buffalo Horn and his followers next appeared at King Hill station on
the Overland stage road. They robbed this place and then raided Glenn’s
Ferry, five miles below, on the Snake river, where they destroyed
several wagon-loads of merchandise consigned to Boise merchants, and
held a big spree on some whiskey they found there. The next day they
went on down the river to Bruneau, killing John Bascom and two other
men on the way, and two others, Jack Sweeney and a Mr. Hays, whom they
found at, or near, Bruneau. The murders would have reached a much
higher number had it not been for the alarm spread by Kensler, Nesbet
and Silvey, which gave the settlers an opportunity to escape.

In the meantime, W. C. Tatro, who had met the fleeing campers and
learned of the outbreak from them, carried the news to Rocky Bar, where
a company of volunteers was at once raised by Hon. G. M. Parsons. At
the same time, Colonel Bernard, accompanied by Colonel R. Robbins, who
had rendered valuable services in the Nez Perce war of the previous
year, led a body of troops from Boise. Both parties took up the trail
of the Indians at Camas Prairie and followed in their tracks.

The people of Silver City in Owyhee county, hearing that a band of
hostile Indians was encamped in the mountains to the north, sent a
company of twenty-six men, under Captain Harper, to give them battle.
The white men were greatly outnumbered and the Indians had the
advantage of position. A long and fierce fight ensued, during which
Captain Harper lost two men. The result was indecisive, the white men
returning to Silver City, and the Indians withdrawing the following day.

When he heard of the Silver City engagement, Col. Bernard hurried
thither, and sent Col. Robbins out with a detachment of men to see
why the mail stage, due the day before, had not arrived. They found
the stage destroyed by the Indians, and the driver killed. The only
passenger had escaped on one of the lead horses of the stage.

The Bannock Indians soon persuaded others to join them. They gained
recruits from the Duck Valley Indians, the Lemhis, Winnemuccas,
Malheurs and Snakes, and with their allies numbered about two thousand
warriors, women and boys. As they traveled they killed or stole all
the cattle and horses they met and destroyed a large amount of
property.

From Silver City, Col. Bernard moved on to Fort Harney. Col. Robbins,
who was scouting ahead, succeeded in locating the camp of the Indians
by night. He followed their trail for some distance and then climbed
a steep hillside to a level plateau, along which he crawled until
opposite the red men’s camp. In the clear starlight, he could see all
the Indian camps and calculated that they contained at least a thousand
warriors. The white men had less than three hundred soldiers.

After a conference, Colonels Robbins and Bernard decided to attack the
hostile camp. Col. Robbins, with thirty-five men, charged and surprised
the enemy in the early morning, while Col. Bernard, with the main
force, proceeded up Silver Creek to the canyon where the Indians were
encamped.

Although completely surprised, the red men betook themselves to some
fortifications they had made among the rocks, while the soldiers
shielded themselves as best they could. The two parties kept up a
fusilade throughout the day, and during the following night, June 23rd,
the Indians decamped, leaving a hundred dead behind. Five soldiers were
killed and a few slightly wounded.

Before beginning the battle, Col. Bernard had sent word to General
Howard, who was at Malheur, saying that he was about to enter an
engagement with a large force of Indians and might need reinforcements.
The general arrived the following morning and took command in person.

Colonel Robbins and his scouts followed the Indians, who headed in a
northwesterly direction, while the troops came on behind.

Within a few miles of John Day river, Robbins came to a sheep corral
in which a large fire had been built by the Indians. The brutes had
then bound together the hind legs of the lambs found on the place and
thrown them into the corral to burn to death. They had killed the old
sheep and left them to rot. In another place the scouts found a herd
of Merino bucks, whose forelegs the Indians had cut off at the knee,
leaving the poor animals in agony. Such exploits were typical of the
Indian on the warpath.

On another occasion the scouts saw a white man on foot running for his
life from a party of pursuing Indians, who overtook and killed their
victim before the rescuers could arrive. The man was found, scalped and
mutilated, and although still breathing, too far gone to give even his
name.

Scalping was quite an art among the Indians, and one in which, sad
to say, some white men became very proficient. The Indians did not
remove the whole head of their victim’s hair, but only a circular
portion, about the size of a silver dollar, from the crown of the head.
Sometimes in an attempt to win false glory, a man would cut two or
three scalps from one head, taking the extra ones from the sides, but
a judge of scalps could always detect the fraud, and unerringly select
that which had been taken from the crown. Some white scouts scalped
the Indians they killed, and sold the trophies, properly cured, for
good sums, the price among eastern curio seekers ranging from fifty to
seventy-five dollars. The wound inflicted by scalping was by no means
fatal, although most people who went through the ordeal died, because
they had been badly wounded first. But instances are on record of men
who afterward recovered and were none the worse for their experience.

On July 8th, Colonel Robbins located and surprised the Indians in a
canyon leading up to the Blue mountains in Oregon. He was supported by
Colonel Bernard with his troops, and succeeded in driving the red men
from their position. But the Indians took to the hills and got away,
leaving several dead behind them.

The Bannocks had crossed into Oregon in the hope of persuading
the Umatilla and Yakima Indians to join them. In this they were
disappointed, which, added to the close pursuit of the soldiers
and the, now, well-picketed condition of the country, disheartened
the marauders, and they began to sneak back in small bands to the
reservations from which they had come. On their way they committed many
depredations.

In Umatilla county, Oregon, Mr. Charles Jewell, hearing of the Indian
outbreak, secured an equipment of guns and carried them to his herders,
who were tending his sheep about thirty-five miles from Pendleton.
He stopped at a rancher’s door for a friendly chat, and had barely
alighted from his horse when a volley of shots from some ambushed
Indians laid him on the ground. The other man was killed and Mr. Jewell
was left for dead. When the Indians had gone, he crawled into the house
and secured a pair of blankets and a shingle. On the shingle he wrote:
“Charles Jewell--shot by Indians--is in the brush near by--call me if
you see this.” The wounded man then dragged himself to the road, posted
his sign there, and crawled into the brush, where he wrapped himself in
the blankets. For three days and nights he lay without food or water,
and when finally some passing men found his sign and were led to him
by his feeble answer to their call it was too late. He died a few days
afterward in Pendleton.

The three leading war chiefs of the fighting Indians were Buffalo Horn,
Bear Skin and Egan. The two former had been killed since hostilities
began in May. About the middle of July, Chief Homily of the Umatillas,
with ninety followers, went up into the hills to recover some horses
that Chief Egan’s men had stolen. He arranged for a conference with
Chief Egan and thirty of his men, and in the midst of it, at a given
signal, fell upon Chief Egan, killing him and his thirty companions.
He then affixed the dead chief’s scalp to a long pole, with the
hair flying in the breeze and carried it triumphantly back to the
reservation. General Howard had doubted the loyalty of the Umatillas
up to this time and Chief Homily killed Chief Egan as an evidence of
his good faith toward the whites. Colonel Robbins was sent to the scene
of the massacre to determine whether Chief Egan were really dead.
Everything was found just as Chief Homily had described it.

Chief Egan’s death completely demoralized the Indians. They had now
lost their three greatest fighting chiefs, and wherever they went
they found the white men ready for them. Volunteer companies had been
formed all through that section of the country, even as far south
as Nevada, and the triumphant advance of the red men had turned into
a search for safety. They broke into small parties, traveling along
out-of-the-way trails and largely by night, killing and plundering
when the opportunity came, but always heading for the reservation and
safety. It is now more than thirty-five years since this war ended,
during which time the Bannock Indians have given no further trouble.
The large increase in population makes another outbreak practically
impossible.

       *       *       *       *       *

Idaho has seen one other Indian war, known as the Sheep-Eater Indian
war. This was fought with the Tookarikkas, in 1879. These people were
a mixture of the Shoshones and Bannocks, apparently inheriting the bad
qualities of both without their good qualities. They were outcasts,
even among the Indians, and won their soubriquet of “Sheep-Eaters” by
stealing sheep from the ranges. They were cowardly and treacherous, and
subsisted largely by theft. In May, 1879, they killed some settlers
and burned some property on Hugh Johnson’s ranch on the south fork of
the Salmon river, near Warrens, and as a result were rounded up by
government and state troops and sent to Vancouver, Wash.

We give this war only passing notice because it belongs to the history
of Bannock county, only through the relationship of the Tookarikka and
Bannock Indians.




CHAPTER VIII.

The Stage Coach.


Previous to 1863 there was no regular line of transportation through
Bannock county, the mails being carried by pony express, which made
the postage on letters cost from fifty cents to one dollar each,
and the few people whose business called them across southern Idaho
traveled singly or in groups, in the saddle, or by wagon, as suited
their convenience and opportunity. But, however they traveled, they all
followed the line of the old Oregon trail.

In 1863, Oliver and Conover stocked a road from Virginia City, Montana,
to Salt Lake City, the impetus given to transportation in these parts
by the development of the mines in Montana promising to make such a
venture successful. The trail through Bannock county followed closely
the present tracks of the Oregon Short Line running north from Fort
Hall along the Montana division. The stations were from twelve to
fifteen miles apart, there having been one at Fort Hall, another near
the Lavatta ranch, another at Pocatello creek and a fourth just west of
McCammon, formerly called Harkness.

The freighting season opened in April and lasted until November. The
bottom lands to the west of Pocatello were a favorite wintering resort
for the freighters because of the facilities they offered in the way of
protection, water and food.

The freight wagons were drawn by either mules or oxen, and so slow
was their progress that they made only from three to five trips a
season. The more costly and perishable merchandise, such as drugs and
chemicals, was usually carried on the passenger stages.

A mule train was made up of from eight to twelve animals attached to
two or three wagons; an ox train of about fourteen animals. These
cumbrous outfits traveled about twelve miles a day.

The passenger stages, however, traveled about one hundred miles in
twenty-four hours. They were drawn by from four to six horses, who
were changed every twelve or fifteen miles, while the drivers changed
every fifty miles. They were usually accompanied by a messenger, who
was a kind of guard and rode beside the driver. Most of the stages were
of the thorough-braced type, the bodies resting upon leather straps
instead of springs, which gave them an easy, swinging motion. They
were usually fitted with three seats and carried nine passengers, and
were very comfortable to travel in. A few post stages, which would
accommodate twenty-six passengers, were run over this road, but the
traffic was not heavy enough to bring them into general use.

In 1864, Ben Halliday, whose name has been given to a street in
Pocatello, secured a contract to carry the United States mails, and
bought out Oliver and Conover. This line was later called the Halliday
Overland Mail and Express, a name retained in the Overland Limited of
today, on the Oregon Short Line and Union Pacific railroads.

Ben Halliday was well known throughout the far west fifty years ago,
and his name is linked inseparably with her early history. Mr. Hiram T.
French, in his History of Idaho, says: “Ben Halliday was a prominent
figure in the development of the country west of the Mississippi, and
filled a place that no man lacking in courage, judgment or character
could have held. To one who knows the west, ‘Overland’ is even yet a
word to conjure by. In fancy one sees the dashing horses and lurching
coach, and hears the crack of the driver’s whip.”

Hon. John Hailey writes from personal knowledge of the famous stage man
as follows: “Ben Halliday was a little over the average in size, strong
in stature, fine looking, sociable, generous, energetic and far-seeing.
In conversation his intellectual face and eyes would fairly shine.
He was open and frank in all his dealings. He was brave, quick and
daring in engaging in any legitimate business that tended to open the
resources of this great western country.

“At the time Mr. Halliday established his Overland Stage Line from the
Missouri river to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Helena,
Montana, and to Boise, the country through which his stages must
run was wild, inhabited by none save Indians, usually hostile, and
a few white men who were equally dangerous. Few men would even have
entertained the idea of engaging in such a dangerous and hazardous
business, which involved the investment of several hundred thousand
dollars to build substantial stations, and fit up the road with the
necessary live and rolling stock, forage, provisions, men, arms,
and ammunition for the protection of life, property and the United
States mail, but Mr. Halliday did it successfully. He opened the great
Overland Route and transported mail and passengers from the east to
west and return with reasonable celerity and security, besides making
the route much safer for others to travel and blazing the way for the
Union Pacific railroad, which was commenced soon after.”

The stage line through Bannock county passed from the hands of Ben
Halliday to the Wells Fargo Express company, and later to the firm of
Gilmore and Salisbury, who continued the service until the opening of
the Utah and Northern railway made stages a thing of the past.

The mountain fastnesses along the Portneuf canyon, made this the most
dangerous stretch of road between Salt Lake City and Butte. It was
very difficult to trail men over the lava rocks that abound along this
route, and the wild nature of the country beyond them offered road
agents a fair chance of safety. The gold bullion brought down from the
Montana mines made a tempting prize, and encouraged highway robbery to
such an extent that the outrages in time gave birth to the vigilantes,
who gave the robbers short shrift and in time succeeded in practically
ending their operations.

The first hold-up in Bannock county occurred in 1863, about a mile and
a half west of Pocatello creek, when Jack Hughes, a Denver man, was
robbed of $6,000 by Brocky Jack, at that time a well-known character
along the stage road. The trick was easily turned and Brocky Jack
escaped with his booty without firing a gun.

In 1865, a far more serious affair was perpetrated near Robbers’
Roost Creek, a few miles west of the present town of McCammon. A
stage of the Concord type, carrying several passengers and $60,000
of private money, was betrayed by its driver, Frank Williams, to a
gang led by Jim Locket. As he rounded a steep hill, Williams turned
his horses suddenly, breaking the reach of the coach, and the road
agents, concealed in the brush, which was so thick at this point that
it scratched the sides of the stage, gave the word to halt. Among the
passengers were two wealthy St. Louis merchants, David Dinan and a
man named McCausland. These men were apprehensive of being held up
and carried their guns in their hands, ready for instant use. This
precaution probably caused their death. At the cry, “Hands up,” the
passengers discharged their guns into the brush, shooting too high to
wound their opponents, but thereby bringing upon themselves a volley
that killed both Dinan and McCausland and two other men, one of them
being Lawrence Merz, a passenger who was sitting by the driver. Charles
Parks, a messenger, riding within the coach, was shot in the foot,
while one man, whose name is variously given as Brown and Carpenter,
escaped unhurt. The murdered men were buried in a gulch near the scene
of their death and the coach, riddled with bullets, was taken to Malad.

None of the members of this gang were apprehended, but Williams, the
driver, was arrested and hung. He retained his position for some
ten days after the hold-up, and then, actuated perhaps by a guilty
conscience and the fear of detection, resigned and went to Salt Lake.
Here it was noticed that he spent money very freely, and he was seized
later in Denver. Jim Locket was a man of such notorious character that
no attempt was made to trail him, the few settlers in the neighborhood
at that time preferring to give him as wide a berth as possible.

Three men, named McCay, Jones and Spangler, followed a stage out of
Malad City in 1870, and held it up some six or seven miles from that
city. Spangler and Jones were afterward captured, but Jones escaped
from jail, and Spangler cleared himself by giving information that led
to the recovery of $6,000 of the $9,000 taken from the coach.

Two weeks later, in 1870, a very daring hold-up was made by two men
near the top of the Malad divide. One of the men was variously known
as Ed. Flag, Frank Long and Frank Carpenter. The other, whose name was
Stone, was said to belong to a good family in Louisville, Ky.

These two men placed three dummies in a half-exposed position near the
road and succeeded in making off with $36,000 in gold bullion without
firing a shot. The stage carried no passengers.

The driver returned to Malad and said that he had been held up by
a gang of five men. After some deliberation, J. N. Ireland, now a
resident of Pocatello, Tom Oakley, Daniel Robbins and four others,
set out to trail the bandits. This was not a difficult matter in the
early days, provided the fugitives took to the brush, which they were
obliged to do in most cases in order to find concealment. Their horses,
in pushing a way through the growth, left a well-defined track that
a child could follow, and as travelers were few, there was little
danger of hitting the wrong trail. But while it was sometimes an easy
matter to follow up a gang of robbers, few men cared to undertake
the task. A road agent knew that capture probably meant death and
his very occupation was a sufficient guarantee that he would kill
without scruple. He had the advantage, too of being able to ambush his
pursuers, and shoot them before they could seek cover.

The posse of seven men took up the trail of the bandits at the spot
where the hold-up occurred and traced them to Birch Creek. As evening
came on and darkness closed in, and when they had ridden some twenty
miles, the pursuers came within a half mile of the robbers, whom they
found to be on the opposite side of the creek. In the early morning
they crossed the creek, and were close upon Flag and Stone, before
those men were aware of their proximity. Not expecting pursuit, the
highwaymen were not on their guard. They concealed themselves in a
steep hollow, where slender willows, about the thickness of a man’s
finger, and seven feet high, grew in such profusion that they formed an
impenetrable hiding place.

Mr. Ireland and his party rode past this hollow to the robbers’ horses,
where a council of war was held. At last Mr. Ireland and Dan Robbins
volunteered to trail Flag and Stone while three of the party remained
with the horses, and Tom Oakley, armed with a very fine rifle belonging
to Mr. Ireland, took a position on the hillside behind a rock, where he
could pick off the road agents if they emerged from the brush.

Cautiously, with every sense alert, the two daring men worked their way
into the hollow. They knew they were within a few feet of their quarry,
but could see nothing of them. Presently Mr. Ireland said: “Dan, here’s
where we’re close upon them, because they have trampled these willows
down and they have sprung up again.”

At the same moment Oakley’s voice called a warning from the hill, “Look
out! You’re close on them!”

Simultaneously a shot rang out and Daniel Robbins fell, riddled with
shot. Flag and Stone made a dash from cover, but Oakley brought them
both down with two well-directed shots from his rifle. The two men
lay side by side, Flag dead, and Stone with a wound in his leg that
necessitated its amputation.

Mr. Ireland and his companions tried to get Stone to tell where the
$36,000 taken from the coach was hidden. Stone at first insisted that
the stage had been held up by five men, three of whom had in turn
robbed himself and Flag, who were left empty-handed. These three men,
Stone said, had the money. Tom Oakley, after whom the town of Oakley
in Bannock county was named, was a man of forbidding appearance and
a bad man to trifle with. He took a hand in the matter and Stone
finally confessed that the money was hidden near Elkhorn, where it was
afterward found.

After the fight, which occurred in the early morning, Mr. Ireland rode
back to Malad and returned the same day with a doctor, having traveled
over forty miles after his harrowing experience.

Mr. Robbins recovered from his wounds and died a few years ago in Salt
Lake. At the time they entered the willow thicket, Mr. Ireland was
wearing a grey and Mr. Robbins a white shirt. Stone said afterward that
he and Flag saw the gleam of the white shirt through the foliage, and
were thus enabled to shoot Robbins, although they could see no other
portion of the two men.

Stone was sent to the penitentiary at Boise, but after a short
imprisonment secured a pardon and became a preacher.

Not until after their return from this expedition did Mr. Ireland’s
party learn that a large reward had been offered for the capture of the
two road agents. A quarter of the $36,000 stolen was divided among the
seven men, who received $1280 each.

Another successful use of dummies was made by a lone bandit, who placed
several at a turn in the road not far from Malad, and succeeded in
relieving a coach, driven by James Boyle, of several bars of gold.
There were no passengers in the stage.

One night during the summer of 1873, a stage manned by Charley Phelps
and Joe Pinkham was ordered to stop by a road agent, while passing
through Portneuf canyon. Instead of obeying the order, the stage-men
fired in the direction of the voice. The fire was returned and Phelps,
who was driving, fell back, mortally wounded. Pinkham caught up the
reins and the stage dashed on without stopping. Phelps was buried in
the cemetery at Malad, where the following inscription stands over his
grave:

 “In memory of Charles Phelps, of St. Lawrence County, New York. Driver
 on the Overland Stage Line, who was mortally wounded, July 16, 1873,
 in an attack on his coach by highwaymen, in Portneuf Canyon, Idaho,
 and died on the following day.

 “Age 43 years.

  “He fell, as all true heroes fall,
  While answering to his duty’s call.

 “This stone is erected by his friends and companions, who loved and
 respected him, and sincerely mourn his death.”

The days of the stage coach have passed, and with them the incidents
that we class under adventure and romance in the reading, but that
meant hardship, danger and exposure in the making. The advent of the
railroad was the beginning of a new era in Bannock county--an era of
prosperity and growth, but also, let us not forget, an era for which
the way was paved by the hardy pioneers who faced the wilderness
unafraid, and tamed it for the uses of civilization. These men,
following their humble lot in life and performing their toilsome duties
from day to day, were in truth empire builders, to whom is due the
respect and honor of all right-feeling men.




CHAPTER IX.

THE RAILROAD.


It occurs to few men, as they glide smoothly across the Snake river
in a vestibuled train, and watch the seething waters toss and tumble
below the substantial iron bridge, to think of the problem the passage
of this same stream afforded the traveler of fifty years ago. In his
“Ventures and Adventures,” Ezra Meeker tells of how he crossed the
Snake in 1852. Mr. Meeker and his party had crossed the plains from
Iowa, on their way to Oregon, and by the time they reached Idaho their
funds were almost exhausted. Ferries were scarce and where one was
found, the price asked for a passage was prohibitive to most of the
immigrants.

“Some immigrants,” writes Mr. Meeker, “had caulked three wagon beds
and lashed them together, and were crossing, but would not help others
across for less than from three to five dollars a wagon, the party
swimming their own stock. If others could cross in wagon-beds, why
could not I do likewise? Without much ado, all the old clothing that
could possibly be spared was marshalled, tar buckets ransacked, old
chisels and broken knives hunted up, and a veritable boat repairing
and caulking campaign inaugurated, and shortly the wagon-box rode
placidly, even if not gracefully on the turbid waters of the formidable
river.

“My first venture across the Snake river was with the wagon gear run
over the wagon box, the whole being gradually worked out into deep
water. The load was so heavy that a very small margin was left to
prevent the water from breaking over the sides, and some actually did,
as light ripples on the surface struck the “Mary Jane,” as we had
christened (without wine) the ‘craft,’ as she was launched. However, I
got over safely, but after that took lighter loads and really enjoyed
the novelty of the work and the change from the intolerable dust, and
the atmosphere of the water.”

The Utah & Northern was the first railroad to enter the territory of
Idaho. It was promoted by John W. Young, a son of Brigham Young, whose
name has been given to Young street in Pocatello, but although a large
sum of local capital was invested, the enterprise received its chief
support from Joseph and Benjamin Richardson, two contractors of New
York City, whom Young interested in the project.

In March, 1873, congress granted a right of way to Young’s company
running along the Bear river valley, through Soda Springs, up the Snake
river valley and across Montana to a junction point with the Northern
Pacific. The act allowed ten years in which to complete the work of
construction. A second act, passed in June, 1878, empowered “the Utah
& Northern Railroad company and its assigns to build their road by way
of Marsh valley, Portneuf and Snake river instead of by way of Soda
Springs and Snake river valley.”

By the spring of 1877 the road had been constructed as far as the Snake
river. In the following year a bond issue of $4,991,000 was floated and
during 1880 the rails were extended to Silver Bow, Montana, a distance
of 328 miles from the Utah line.

In July, 1882, congress officially ratified an agreement made at Fort
Hall between the Shoshone and Bannock Indians and Joseph K. McCammon,
whose name has been given to the town of McCammon in this county, and
several railroad officers, by which the promoters secured a right of
way through the reservation.

The opening of the Utah & Northern railway gave the first great impetus
to settlement and development in southeastern Idaho, making it possible
to market produce profitably and at the same time bringing the settler
into touch with the outside world. The Portneuf canyon, through which
this line was constructed, is one thousand feet lower than any other
mountain pass within three hundred miles either north or south, and
constitutes a natural gateway through which a very large portion of
the produce of the great northwest must pass on its way to an eastern
market.

The Utah & Northern Railway company was consolidated with the Oregon
Short Line Railway company in August, 1889, being known as the Oregon
Short Line & Northern Railway company, and in 1897 the two were merged
into the present Oregon Short Line Railroad company.

The Utah & Northern had constructed a narrow gauge line. When the
old Short Line Railway company built its line between Granger and
Huntington it used the transportation facilities afforded by the Utah
& Northern both to the east and west of Pocatello. During the early
part of 1882 the Short Line laid a narrow gauge track between Pocatello
and the Snake river crossing, now American Falls, and from McCammon,
at that time called Harkness, to a point near the present station of
Pebble.

During the year 1882, the Utah & Northern track between McCammon and
Pocatello was rebuilt to standard gauge, the narrow gauge equipment of
that company being provided for by laying a third rail. By the summer
of 1887 the entire line between Pocatello and Silver Bow, Montana, was
operating on a standard gauge, while the lines to the east and south
had been similarly reconstructed before 1890.

At the time the first railroad bridge across the Snake river was built,
American Falls was located on the western side of the river. The
population was made up of the usual assortment of men, who make up the
population of frontier towns. The good, the bad and the indifferent
were there--graders, stockmen, Chinamen, gamblers and business men,
with a few women--all rough and ready: hardy people of the plains and
the mountains. Law and order were administered in a ready manner and
summary justice was meted out to the evil-doer by self-constituted
judges and juries.

Two of the worst characters in the neighborhood at that time were
cowboys, gamblers and probably murderers; “Tex” and “Johnson,” as they
were known to the people of American Falls.

One night some Chinamen were murdered and the more law-abiding citizens
decided that if the culprits were found they should suffer for the
crime. The two cowboys, “Tex” and Johnson, were suspected of the
murder, but as no certain proof was obtainable, they were not punished,
but ordered to leave town. This they did, going to the east side of
the river and spending the night in a house occupied by Buck Houston.
The next day they returned to the west side. The law and order element
immediately organized a necktie party, with “Tex” and Johnson as the
chief guests. With a grim brevity the two were taken to the river,
ropes thrown over an iron span, and with a short wait for the usual
last words they were hurried into eternity. Their bodies swung back
and forth, suspended from the bridge, the falls roaring and splashing
beneath them, and the spray shooting up into the air, wetting their
high boots and leather chaps.

Afterwards the two bodies were cut down and taken to the top of the
bluff, overlooking the river, and there they were buried. Two rough
slabs, with “Tex” carved on one, and “Johnson” on the other, were
placed at their heads. The mounds where these men were buried are still
discernable.

In most newly-settled communities, justice is administered quickly and
without the formality of legal proceedings. This was especially true
of the early days in the west. Time was when the regular method of
collecting overdue bills in Bannock county was at the mouth of a gun,
and this within the memory of living men. Horse theft was punishable
with death throughout the far west, the penalty being no more than
proportionate to the crime. For the west in those days was a desert
country, and the loss of a man’s horse often meant a horrible death
by thirst because the next watering place was further away than a man
could walk. So it happened that while a cowboy sometimes paid a hundred
dollars for his saddle and only twenty-five dollars for his pony, he
would forgive the man who stole the former, but without scruple hang
the man who stole the horse.

The terminal facilities of the Oregon Short Line at Pocatello have been
steadily increased and the roadbed improved because of the immense
traffic caused by the development of the tributary territory. In 1904
the “Michaud Cut-off” was made in order to straighten the track a few
miles west of Pocatello. Since 1910 the road has been double-tracked
between Lava Hot Springs and Michaud, and in that year the system
of mechanical block signals was completed from the eastern to the
western boundary of the county. A branch line, connecting Alexander and
Grace, a distance of about six miles, was opened in 1913. Among other
noteworthy recent improvements are the Batise Springs water plant, the
Center street viaduct and Halliday street subway in Pocatello, the new
shop buildings and depot, now being built in the same city, and the new
depot and water plant at McCammon.

The Oregon Short Line is the artery through which pulses the very life
blood of Bannock county. In the Pocatello shops over eleven hundred
men are employed, and those who find work on the Montana and Idaho
divisions bring the number to about 4000. It is, therefore, a very
fortunate thing for the community at large that the Oregon Short Line
Railroad company is one of the apparently few large corporations in
this country today that realizes a moral responsibility toward the
general public. A comparison of the Safety First movement as conducted
by this company with the conditions that are not only tolerated but
apparently encouraged by the owners of the Colorado mines shows what
a great blessing or curse the attitude of big corporations toward the
public welfare may be.

Some years ago, Mr. Harriman, while talking with the claims attorney
of one of the roads in which he was interested, about the policy to be
adopted in dealing with injured employes in the matter of settlements,
and particularly of providing them with some kind of work when they
had been so seriously injured that they could not fill their former
positions, said that he wanted “all injured men to be dealt with along
the lines of practical Christianity.” That this idea is still followed
by the company is shown by the fact that in June, 1914, only one
injured employe had a suit pending against the company for injuries
received in its service; the rest being satisfied with the terms of
settlement accorded them by the company.

The Safety First movement, by which the Oregon Short Line seeks to
guard the safety of its employes and of the public alike, is an
educational measure inaugurated about two years ago and intended to
interest all people.

The work is carried on by means of committees. At each division point
is what is known as a “sub-committee,” composed of men from all
branches of the service, who suggest changes in the road’s equipment
or in existing conditions, that will make the work of railroading
safer. If the suggestions made cannot be acted upon locally, they are
referred to the “division committee,” which in turn accepts or rejects
them, and if unable to enforce them by its own vote, recommends them
to the “central committee.” This body is composed of officials of the
road and their decision is final. In this way the entire Short Line
force, from the newest and lowest paid employe to the highest officer,
is interested in the common safety, and is in a position to suggest
measures for the general good. That the system is successful is shown
by the fact that during the year ending June, 1913, there were 2829
people injured on the Oregon Short Line. During that ending June, 1914,
the total was reduced to 1711, or 39.5 per cent. During the first six
months of this year there were only 606 accidents, as against 955 for
the same months of 1913--a reduction of over 61 per cent.

The company is also conducting a campaign to eliminate the accidents
caused by trespassing. In 1913, 5434 trespassers were killed on the
railroads in the United States. Of these, 10 per cent were tramps, 70
per cent young men or heads of families, and 20 per cent were children
under 14 years of age. By trying to educate school children, their
teachers and the general public in precautionary measures, and by
attempting to secure proper legislation on the subject, the Oregon
Short Line Railroad company is trying to still further enhance its
value to the people at large and to reduce to a minimum the accidents
connected with all great railroad corporations.




CHAPTER X.

GENERAL CONDITIONS AND DEVELOPMENT.


In his book “Astoria,” written about 1840, in which he gives the
history of an attempt made by the first John Jacob Astor to establish
a fur trade to the west of the Rocky Mountains, Washington Irving
repeatedly regrets the fact that the great stretch of the western
plains must forever form a desert stretch between the civilization of
the west and that of the east. In one place he says: “Some portions
of it (the prairie) along the rivers may partially be subdued by
agriculture, others may form vast pastoral tracts, like those of the
east; but it is to be feared that a great part of it will form a
lawless interval between the abodes of civilized man, like the wastes
of the ocean or the deserts of Arabia; and, like them, be subject to
the depredations of the marauder.”

In this the great writer proved to be a false prophet. Irrigation and
the principles of dry farming are fast converting the desert into
productive farm land, and land that a few years ago could be had for
a song is today held at high prices. The United States Census report
for 1910 gave the average value of land in Bannock county as $7.76 per
acre. In 1910, the same bureau gave the average value as being $21.57.

This increase in value, however, is not due to development alone, but
also to the increased rainfall during recent years, which has made it
possible to profitably till soil that was before considered arid. The
total precipitation in Pocatello in 1901 was 7.56 inches. In 1906,
it was 18.17 inches, and in 1907, 17.43 inches, while in 1914 it was
over 18.60 inches. Some scientists explain this by saying that the
increased areas of irrigation give off a sufficient evaporation to form
clouds, which precipitate the evaporated water in the form of rain and
snow, while others maintain that the surface of irrigation waters is
not large enough to effect the annual precipitation. But whatever the
explanation, the fact remains that many hitherto unproductive tracts
have now sufficient natural moisture to make them productive.

The only weather bureau in Bannock county is situated at Pocatello, at
an altitude of 4,483 feet, and the following statistics were registered
at that place: The average number of days per year with more than .01
inch of precipitation is 92. The mean temperature is about 47.5;
nearly the same as that of eastern Massachusetts, but more equably
distributed. The earliest killing frost of the winter usually comes
about the middle of October, and the last in the spring toward the end
of April.

The population of the county in 1910 was 19,242; in 1900 it was
11,702. Some idea of the cosmopolitan character of the population may
be gathered from the fact that there were in this county in 1910, 52
Chinese, 360 Japanese, 129 negroes, 641 Greeks, 483 English, 288 Danes,
280 Italians, and 232 Swedes, beside smaller numbers from fifteen other
nationalities. Only 51 per cent of the population were native born
children of native parents. The county contained 11,405 males, and
7,837 females. These were divided into 3,668 families, housed in 3,560
dwellings.

In 1910 the county had 1,503 farms, as against 769 in 1900. The value
of all farm property was $10,957,609, an increase of 188.6 per cent
over the total valuation in 1900. The value of all crops in 1910 was
$1,339,642, the most valuable being cereals, which totaled $653,768.
Hay and forage came next at $610,585. The remaining crops were made
up of grains and seeds, vegetables, fruits and nuts, and a few other
products. The total irrigated area is about 110,000 acres. The
altitude in the valleys varies from 4,250 feet to 5,780, while among
the mountains it is, of course, much higher. There is a large acreage
of fine, well-watered pasture land in the county, on which grows an
abundance of nutritious bunch grass. McCammon, Downey, Oxford, and
Soda Springs are all surrounded with rich agricultural lands, and at
the latter place are a number of hot mineral springs, whose waters are
bottled and widely sold. Lava Hot Springs will in time be a health
resort of more than state-wide fame, the beauty of its surroundings as
well as its health-giving springs making it an ideal spot for rest and
recreation.

There was a time when deer, bear and other game were plentiful in this
county, and it is only about ten years since a settler was sitting
quietly in his cabin one summer evening, reading a magazine, when he
was disturbed by a slight noise. He paid no attention to this, but
was suddenly startled a second time by an ear-splitting scream from
his cat, who made a dash for the door, and in her exit, jumped over a
bear, who was calmly walking in. The settler was not in the habit of
entertaining stray bears in his cabin, and was at a loss to know how to
greet the visitor. In his perplexity he emitted a yell that startled
all the bears for many miles around and caused the one lone bear in
the cabin to make a hasty dive for cover under the bed. The rancher’s
gun hung over the bed, but he did not turn that way. He headed toward
the door. As he neared it, the bear, for reasons known only to himself,
made a dash in the same direction and man and beast were jammed in the
narrow entry. The man pushed in and the bear pushed out, but in his
excitement the animal turned clean about in the open and presently
rushed back into the cabin to his own surprise no less than that of the
inmate. The latter, however, was now safe on his bed, and reaching for
the gun, he probably added considerably to Mr. Bruin’s perplexity by
sending him unexpectedly into kingdom come.

Parts of three national forests are situated in Bannock county; the
Caribou in the east, the Cache in the southeast, and the Pocatello in
the western part. The Pocatello division of the Pocatello forest was
created September 15, 1903, from an examination by Edward T. Allen.

Following an examination by Robert B. Wilson, the Portneuf division was
created March 2, 1907. The Malad division, created May 28, 1906, as a
part of the Bear River forest, became a part of the Pocatello in the
reorganization of July 1, 1908. These national forest lands, covering,
in general, the Portneuf and Marsh Creek watersheds, were merged into
the Pocatello forest July 1, 1908.

The Bear River forest, almost encircled by the Bear river or its
tributaries, was formed May 28, 1906, and with the Logan became the
Cache July 1, 1908.

The Caribou forest was established January 15, 1907, the part in
Bannock county lying mainly on the watersheds of the Blackfoot, Salt,
and Bear rivers.

Peter T. Wrensted, Clinton G. Smith, and J. F. Bruins, in turn,
supervised the Pocatello, the headquarters during this time being at
Pocatello. The Pocatello and Cache were joined March 1, 1914, for
administrative purposes, under Mr. Smith, whose headquarters are now
at Logan, Utah. Logan is the headquarters of the Cache, which has had
four supervisors, John F. Squires, Mark G. Woodruff, W. W. Clark, and
C. G. Smith. The Caribou has been administered by Supervisors J. T.
Wedemeyer, N. E. Snell, and George G. Bentz. The headquarters is at
Montpelier.

The need of planting to restock the great areas of burned and
insufficiently forested land in the national forests was recognized
almost as soon as they were proclaimed. Particularly was this need
felt as to the forests withdrawn for watershed protection, and on
watersheds furnishing a domestic supply the need was most urgent. At
that time a pleasing theory existed that every forest ranger should
have a nursery in which to raise trees for setting out in the hills
during his spare time. With this idea, the nursery on Mink Creek among
others, was started.

It was then realized that nursery and planting work presented
specialized technical problems calling for a high degree of skill to
meet successfully the adverse conditions of an arid region. Soon after
the nursery was started, it was realized that success could be hoped
for only by centralizing this work at favorable locations. The shipping
facilities at Pocatello, together with the need of extensive planting
there with a favorable site for the nursery determined the location at
that place.

The early work was experimental and principally valuable as indicating
the future methods to be followed. However, actual production of stock
was begun on an extensive scale in 1911, and since that time half a
million or more young trees have been shipped each year to the forests
of southern Idaho and Utah. The present capacity of the nursery is
about 2,000,000 plants a year and the nursery is firmly on its feet
with a record of successful production of stock for several years at a
cost not exceeding five dollars per thousand for the stock supplied.
At present there are probably three or four million young trees in the
nursery, the principal species being Douglas fir and yellow pine.

Stream flow protection is the first object of the service on the area
of the Pocatello city watershed. During the time that this area was
part of the Indian reservation there was not much difficulty with
stream flow protection, but when it was opened, the citizens received
an object lesson in the effects of free grazing that led to the
inclusion of the watershed in a forest and the prohibition of grazing.
The protection of this area has been devoted to prevention of fire,
prohibition of grazing and replanting to forest. During the last
five years, not five acres of this area has been burned. Control of
grazing is more difficult because the boundaries are not fenced, but
it may be stated that with the exclusion of stock, the forage has been
completely replaced, forming a sight such as gladdened the eye of the
first explorer and incidentally a cover that prevents erosion and rapid
run-off of water. The streams are almost always clear and the city of
Pocatello has an exceptionally pure and palatable supply of water.

The planting operations will probably have no effect on the water
supply of the present generation, as it is being undertaken for the
future timber supply and present experimental value. About 200,000
trees are being planted a year and recently with good success. The
conifers planted are slow growing, but the early plantations are a foot
or two high and even the present generation should see fine groves as a
result.

Lately the question of stocking this area with game has been
considered. It is pointed out that the area is an ideal natural
range for elk, deer and other game, also that such a use would not
interfere with the stream protection, but would furnish meat, sport and
attractiveness to the region and would tend to reduce the fire danger.
To provide complete use with complete protection will be the next
logical step.

In spite of the wild and sometimes forbidding scenery that meets the
traveler’s eye from the train window, there are probably few more
peaceful communities than Bannock county in the farming sections of the
east. Women frequently live alone and unprotected on isolated ranches
and are seldom molested. The case of Hugh Whitney, the bandit and
outlaw who robbed Pocatello of a true citizen, and upon whose head
there rests a large reward, is today an exception. His story is too
well known to be repeated in detail here. In brief, Hugh Whitney, who
was a Wyoming sheepman, and a companion, held up a saloon at Monida,
just over the Montana line, in 1911, and were apprehended on a train
running south toward Pocatello. The sheriff who had boarded the train
to make the arrest, placed his guns on a seat in order to handcuff
the prisoners. Whitney grabbed these and shot both the sheriff and
Conductor James Kidd, who was helping the officer. Conductor Kidd died
in Pocatello within a few days. The sheriff recovered.

Whitney and his companion jumped from the moving train and separated
in making their escape. Whitney was trailed by posses for weeks, and
in the course of the chase killed several of his pursuers. Although
blood-hounds were used in the attempt to capture him, he eluded all
pursuit with an ingenuity worthy of a better cause. When the excitement
had died down somewhat, he and his brother held up a bank in Cody,
Wyoming, driving the employes into the safe and locking them up there
while they made their escape.

Evidently the days of “bad men,” in the criminal sense of the term,
are not yet ended in the far west, but the facility of communication
afforded by the railway, telephone and telegraph makes their trade
very hazardous, and the ordinary citizen lives in less danger of being
held up or shot than does the wayfarer on the streets of New York or
Chicago.




CHAPTER XI.

POCATELLO.


The city of Pocatello, so named in memory of an Indian chief, stands
at the western entrance to the Portneuf canyon, and for that reason
is appropriately known as the “Gate City.” Its site marks the
junction of the Montana and Idaho divisions of the Oregon Short Line
railroad, and the tremendous volume of traffic that passes through
its yards, together with the many departments maintained here, is
rapidly developing a large and prosperous city. Twenty-five years ago
the town was a mere hamlet; in 1910 the United States Census returns
gave a population of 9,100, and in 1914 Polk’s Directory credits
Pocatello with over 12,000 inhabitants, to which must be added some
500 transients. The city is the metropolis and county seat of Bannock
county, and the second largest place in the state of Idaho.

Pocatello is pre-eminently a railroad town, and to the railroad she
owes her birth as well as her growth. When the westward course of the
Oregon Short Line crossed the tracks of the Utah & Northern railroad,
some fifty miles south of Idaho Falls, then called Eagle Rock, a
hamlet naturally sprang up at the junction. This was in the heart of
the Fort Hall Indian reservation, but the railroad had a grant of
some two hundred acres for its right of way, upon which it allowed
settlement, and upon which, in 1882, it erected the Pacific hotel
and station. Shoshone had been selected by the railroad officials as
a division terminal, but there being some dispute relative to the
town-site, they determined upon Pocatello instead. In 1887 the town
received a further impetus in the removal thither of the shops from
Idaho Falls, which brought several hundred men, many of them with
families, into the hamlet. For the accommodation of this addition, the
railroad company built what is today known as Company Row.

One of the most historic buildings in the city is the two-story frame
house to the left of the west end of the Center street viaduct. In
the days when buildings were scarce and the little available space
overcrowded, this building, now used for office purposes, served as
a public meeting hall. Portneuf Lodge, No. 18, A. F. & A. M. was
organized here in 1886, and met in the building for some time. In the
late eighties the building was used for public school purposes, and
in 1891 as the fire hall. At various times it has been used as a
church, a theatre, a pool hall, and within its walls were held many a
church fair that helped to build the present city churches, and many a
dance that lives yet in the memories of the older members of Pocatello
society. The city council also used it for a meeting place.

Although there was no land open for settlement, there quickly grew up a
typical frontier town, “wide-open,” as the saying is, where excitement
ran high, where vice went unashamed, and where saloons and gambling
knew no closing hours nor Sunday laws. At last the demand for more room
became so insistent, that the United States government purchased two
thousand acres of reservation land from the Indians, to be used as a
town-site. This was surveyed in 1889, and the following year lots were
sold at auction at prices ranging from ten to fifty dollars. At that
sale the foundation of many comfortable fortunes of today were made.
Already some buildings had been erected, and it was feared that the
purchase of their sites by other parties might cause trouble. But the
squatter’s right was honored, and the man who had built a store or home
was allowed to secure a title to his holdings.

The community was organized into a village during this year, with H.
L. Becraft as chairman of the board of trustees, and D. K. Williams,
A. F. Caldwell, L. A. West and Doctor Davis members. Another tract of
reservation land was opened for settlement in 1905.

Before 1892, Pocatello had a population of over three thousand, and
by an act of legislature it was in that year created a city of the
first class. At the first city election, held in 1893, Edward Stein
was elected mayor; Ed. Sadler, clerk, and J. J. Curl, treasurer. Eight
councilmen were also elected.

Edward Stein, Pocatello’s first mayor, and now a citizen of Boise,
has had an eventful career. He is a grandson of Baron von Stein,
commander-in-chief of the Prussian army during the Napoleonic wars.
His father, William von Stein, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian war,
became a follower of the brilliant reformer Carl Schurz, and upon the
failure of the latter’s attempt to establish a democracy in Germany,
was cast into prison. He was afterwards released, but lost his title
to nobility. Edward von Stein was born in Schubina, Poland, January
17, 1854, and was educated at the Prussian University of Bromberg. His
republican tendencies naturally turned his attention toward America,
where Carl Schurz and many another European revolutionist had already
found a haven, and with his father’s approval, embarked in 1871 on the
steamer Weiland from Hamburg to New York.

Because he had reached an age at which the German military service
would have claimed him, young Stein had entered upon his journey
without a passport, an application for which would have led to his
compulsory enlistment in the army. Presently an officer of the ship
accosted him and demanded his passport, and proceeded to make a search
for it when none was forthcoming. But the search was vain, which the
officer announced in a loud voice, adding that officials had warned the
ship’s officers that young von Stein had no passport. The future mayor
of Pocatello thereupon produced a packet from his pocket, which he
handed to the officer, who examined its contents, and promptly shouted
to his superior officer, “I find the papers of Mr. Stein to be quite
correct.” The packet contained the four hundred marks his father had
given him at starting.

It was, therefore, with a light pocketbook that Mr. von Stein landed
in the United States. He was anxious, however, to see something of
the country before settling down, and got as far as Chicago before
his funds failed. He accordingly pawned some of his belongings, and
was dejectedly walking the streets, wondering where to turn in his
perplexity, when a gun was thrust suddenly in his face, and the order
given, “Hands up.” The highwayman found nothing of value on his
victim, and when he learned that the boy was penniless, took him to
a restaurant and bought him a meal, and told him where he could find
employment as a Polish-German interpreter in a brick yard. From then on
von Stein’s fortunes began to advance. He spent some time in Wisconsin,
was recalled to Europe in 1876 by his father’s death, when he made an
extended tour of the continent, returned to this country and made a
fortune in the Black Hills, which he later lost in mining ventures, and
moved on to Colorado, where he married. In 1884 he came to Idaho, and
in time became superintendent of car service on the Oregon Short Line,
with headquarters in Pocatello.

Before his tenure expired, Mr. von Stein resigned his office as mayor
of Pocatello, and moved to Nampa, where he had purchased a section of
land, and helped to organize that town. He still has property interests
in Pocatello.

A. B. Bean succeeded Edward Stein as mayor of the city, and was
followed by W. F. Kasiska, the present proprietor of the Bannock hotel
and owner of large real estate and business interests in and about
Pocatello. Mr. Kasiska held the office until 1898, when W. T. Reeves
was elected, who in turn was succeeded by A. B. Bean, the former mayor
of 1894.

During 1895, J. B. Bistline filled the office. Mr. Bistline is a member
of the Bistline Lumber company and has been a resident of the city
since 1891.

M. D. Rice was the next mayor and in 1901 Theodore Turner was elected
to the office. He was re-elected in 1912. Theodore Turner is one of
the most prominent men in the political life of the county. He was a
state senator in 1900, and in 1902 was elected state auditor. Besides
holding many public offices, Mayor Turner has taken great interest in
the Academy of Idaho and in the good roads movement.

Dr. O. B. Steeley succeeded Mr. Turner in the mayor’s chair, and has
since served the county as coroner and the city as school trustee.
In 1904, D. Swinehart filled the office, and in 1905, W. H. Cleare.
Mr. Cleare was one of the organizers of the Farmers & Traders Bank in
Pocatello and also of the Railroad Y. M. C. A. He served in the city
council during the years 1901-2, and has been a member of the board of
trustees of the Academy of Idaho.

Dr. C. E. M. Loux, of the lumber firm of Loux, McConnell & Co., a
member of the city council, was elected to the mayoralty in 1907, and
D. W. Church, cashier of the Bannock National Bank, in 1909. Mr. Church
is one of the most prominent members of the Republican party in Bannock
county, and was a state senator in 1898. He has been identified since
the organization of the city with nearly every movement for civic
betterment and advancement. Mr. Church was succeeded by J. M. Bistline,
a brother and business partner of the mayor of 1899, who in turn was
followed by Theodore Turner, who is now filling the office for the
second time.

Many other residents of Pocatello whose names make a list too long to
repeat here, have rendered valuable public service to both the city and
county. Among them may be mentioned Judge T. A. Johnston, who for a
period of twelve years, beginning in 1900, served the county as probate
judge; Oscar B. Sonnenkalb, who has been county surveyor since 1896;
the late D. Worth Clark, Lorenzo Brown, Andrew B. Stevenson, and John
Hull, who have served in the state senate; W. A. Staley, W. J. Ingling,
Col. H. V. A. Ferguson, and W. A. Hyde, former members of the state
house of representatives; Alfred Budge, who, after long and faithful
service as district judge, has just been elevated to the supreme bench
of the state; Daniel C. McDougal, attorney general of the state of
Idaho in 1908, and Hon. Drew W. Standrod.

Judge Standrod was elected district attorney in 1886, while he was
still a resident of Malad, where his father practiced medicine for many
years, and in 1890 he ran successfully for election as judge of the
Fifth Judicial District of the state of Idaho. He moved to Pocatello
in 1895, since which time he has been actively identified with the
legal and financial activities of the city. In addition to his interest
in the First National Bank of Pocatello, of which he is president,
Judge Standrod is interested in ten other banks in the inter-mountain
country. He is a leading figure in the Republican party, and has
recently resigned a six year appointment on Idaho’s first Public
Utilities Commission, after serving nearly two years.

Of Senator Brady, who is not only one of the most distinguished
citizens of Pocatello, nor yet of Idaho, having been governor of the
state, but also of the United States, he being a member of the nation’s
highest legislative body, we will speak in the next chapter.

Men who left Pocatello ten or fifteen years ago would hardly recognize
the city today. Recently a man returned from Ohio, who had owned a
large number of lots near Center and Main streets in the late nineties,
and who sold them for a modest sum after having held them for some
years on speculation. He learned to his surprise and chagrin that the
property he had sold for fifteen hundred dollars is worth more than
twenty thousand today. Another old-timer who grew tired of the west and
returned to his eastern home, in acknowledging the receipt of a picture
of Pocatello, wrote that the picture was very nice but that he knew it
was not a picture of Pocatello because Pocatello had no trees!

Not only is the city well supplied with trees, but it is equipped with
the full complement of an up-to-date city. Commercially it is one of
the most active and prosperous in the west. It has an ample supply
of water, of electric power, a street car service, and is gradually
installing new improvements in its street and sewerage system. It is a
common thing in the west for growing cities to outstrip themselves in
their zeal for improvements, and an unwise enthusiasm and optimism has
plunged many municipalities into embarrassment and debt. Pocatello has
been wisely governed in this respect, and if she is rather behindhand
in some lines of improvement, this is far preferable to being several
years ahead, and attempting by a forced growth to meet an unneeded
equipment. Several local organizations, notably the Civic Club, have
done much for the betterment of civic life in the city, and it is
probable that the next five years will see a decided improvement in the
appearance of both streets and homes.

The religious needs of the city are well supplied. The Congregational
church was organized in 1888, and Trinity parish, of the Episcopal
church, was established the following year. Since then the Baptist,
Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations have built up strong
institutions. The Latter Day Saints and the Roman Catholic church are
so strong that they have each two churches, one on the east and one
on the west side of the town. No reference to the religious growth of
Pocatello would be complete without a sketch of the Rev. Father Cyril
Van der Donckt, who came to Idaho as a missionary in 1887 and has
resided in Pocatello since 1888.

Father Van der Donckt was born in Belgium in 1865 and was educated in
Renaix College, in the Seminary of St. Nicholas, and in the American
college in Louvain. By a special dispensation from Pope Leo XIII, he
was ordained when twenty months under age, and came directly to Idaho,
where he has since labored. During six years he was general missionary
for the whole of southern Idaho, his ministrations covering eleven
counties, and for some time he was the only secular priest in the
whole state. In addition to St. Joseph’s parish, a large and strong
institution, Father Van der Donckt has built a parish school, and will
soon see a hospital added to his establishment. The prolonged and
faithful services of such a man as Father Van der Donckt are invaluable
to any community, but especially to a country in its formative stage.
The hardships, discouragements and indifference that the latter
condition always throws in the way of a missionary call for no ordinary
amount of pluck and perseverance, and great credit is due to the
man who faces them unflinchingly and who out of nothing builds up a
flourishing and useful work.

Among the religious activities of Pocatello, the Railroad Young Men’s
Christian Association takes a leading place. This is the second largest
institution of its kind in the United States, having a membership of
over fifteen hundred members. Its success is due to the ability of
its general secretary, A. B. Richardson, and his associate, Eric A.
Krussman.

During recent years Christian Science has become firmly established in
Pocatello.

Other among the city’s public institutions are the Carnegie Public
Library and the Pocatello General Hospital.

In addition to her public school system, of which Supt. W. R. Siders
is the head, Pocatello is the seat of the Academy of Idaho, a state
institution created by the legislature of 1901, and opened for
instruction in 1902. The city gave ten acres as a site for the Academy,
and in 1905 the state gave the institution forty thousand acres of
land, the sale of which will provide an endowment. The work of the
Academy is largely along technical lines, and for the use of the
agricultural department a hundred-acre farm has been purchased just
south of the city. Miles F. Reed is president of the Academy, which has
about three hundred students.

Standing sentinel over the city, towering above it to the south, and
doubtless protecting it from many a wind and storm, is Kinport’s peak.
Harry Kinport, for whom this mountain was named, is now dead, but he
was well known in Pocatello a few years ago, and is supposed to have
been the first white man to climb the mountain. He signalized his feat
by planting a flag there. Kinport was a business man in Pocatello for
several years, coming to the town in 1885. He was always a great
hunter and fisherman, and when President Roosevelt visited the city,
caught a mess of trout and presented them to the visitor.

There is every reason to hope that Pocatello will have a population of
over 20,000 before the next census. Its facilities as a distributing
point are attracting many manufacturing and merchandise companies,
who are building warehouses, and the fact that the Oregon Short Line
railroad has built a freight depot to handle the traffic of a town of
50,000 population, shows that the management of that line expects a big
growth.




CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.


There are twenty-three counties in the state of Idaho, of which sixteen
have a smaller and six a larger population than Bannock, while twelve
counties have a smaller area and ten a larger. Therefore, Bannock
is one of the larger counties of the state. This position she has
creditably maintained in both the number and the quality of her public
men, of whom several were mentioned in the last chapter.

Others who deserve mention here are former State Senators Ruel Rounds,
George C. Parkinson, Louis S. Keller, John B. Thatcher, George H.
Fisher and W. H. Mendenhall, our present senator, and former State
Representatives William A. Walker, Robert V. Cozier, L. R. Thomas,
William McGee Harris, Denmark Jensen, W. H. Lovesy, Edward L.
Holzheimer, Thomas M. Edwards, John Schutt, C. W. Dempster, W. H.
Mendenhall and C. W. Gray, D. J. Lau and D. J. Elrod, the county’s
present representatives.

Many of these men have been returned to office several times, J. Frank
Hunt, of Downey, having represented the county either as senator or
representative continuously since 1900, with the exception of one term
of office. In 1900, Thomas Terrell was elected lieutenant governor of
the state, and in 1908, James H. Brady, of Pocatello, present United
States senator for Idaho, was returned as governor.

Senator Brady was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, June 12, 1862,
but was taken to Kansas by his parents in early boyhood, where he
was educated in the State Normal College. He taught school for three
years, fitted himself for the profession of law, edited a semi-weekly
newspaper for two years, and then became interested in the real estate
business. In time he was operating successful offices in St. Louis,
Chicago and Houston, Texas. The irrigation and power possibilities of
Idaho attracted him to this state in 1895, when he became identified
with the development of the Snake river valley, the Idaho, Marysville
and Fort Hall canals being among the projects in which he was active.
He has been a leading factor in the electrical development of
southeastern Idaho, the Idaho Consolidated Power company, at American
Falls, being one of his useful and successful enterprises.

Although a man with large private interests that demanded much time
and attention, Senator Brady has been an active and ruling figure in
the Republican party in Idaho for several years. In 1900 he was a
delegate to the Republican national convention and in 1908 he was a
member of the committee sent by the convention to notify William H.
Taft of his nomination for the presidency of the United States. He was
vice-president of the National Irrigation Congress in 1896 and 1898,
and a member of its executive committee from 1900 until 1904. The
senator has always represented his constituents efficiently and well
and in return enjoys their personal goodwill and loyalty.

It was Senator Brady who made possible the “Western Governors’
Special,” a railway train which toured the east in 1911 in what proved
to be a very successful attempt to forge closer the links that bind the
east and west, and to demonstrate by exhibits carried on the train that
the sums expended by the United States government for the reclamation
of arid western lands were wisely invested. The governors of Idaho,
Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, North and
South Dakota and Minnesota accompanied the train, each in his own car.
The expedition, which has been justly termed “one of the most unique
incidents in the annals of publicity,” was entertained at dinner in the
White House at Washington by President Taft.

Among the men who played important parts in developing Bannock county,
is the late Henry O. Harkness, who founded the town of McCammon, which
formerly bore his name.

Mr. Harkness was born in Norwalk, Ohio, in 1838, and as a young man
learned the trade of machinist. When the Civil war broke out, he
enlisted in the Washburn Lead-Mine regiment and attained the rank of
captain before he was honorably discharged from the service in 1865.
The following year he left Atchison, Kansas, with an outfit of four
wagons and ten oxen, and crossed the plains to the Madison valley in
Montana. Here he engaged in stock-raising but a severe winter killed
most of his cattle, and in the spring of 1867 he moved south into
Idaho. He spent three years in the northern part of the state and in
1870 settled in the Portneuf valley, where he once more raised stock.
He was a man of unusual business sagacity, combining shrewd foresight
with an ingenuity that defied defeat, and he soon acquired both wealth
and influence in the community. He was county commissioner of Oneida
from 1874 until 1880. At the time of his death in 1911, his estate
consisted in part of seventeen hundred acres of land near McCammon,
sixteen hundred acres in the vicinity of Oxford, the large H. O.
Harkness hotel at McCammon, which was a landmark in the county for
several years but was destroyed by fire in 1913, the flour mill in
McCammon, and several mammoth feed barns in the same town. Mr. Harkness
was the first postmaster of McCammon and the first man in southern
Idaho to own an electric light plant.

Another citizen of McCammon who is a factor in both the political and
business life of the county is the Hon. Thomas M. Edwards, who, with
his brothers Walter and Charles own the McCammon Investment company.
Mr. Edwards was a member of the State House of Representatives from
1908 until 1910, and a member of the Republican state central committee
for Bannock county in 1910 and 1911.

Thomas Edwards was born in Yankton, S. D., in 1864. His father,
Colonel Thomas H. Edwards, was a veteran of the civil war and his
grandfather, Col. Jonathan Edwards, was a veteran of the Mexican
war. Thomas Edwards settled in McCammon in 1900, being attracted to
the town by the opportunities it offered. Since that time he has
helped to organize the McCammon State Bank, of which he was formerly
president, the McCammon Telephone company, the Portneuf-Marsh Valley
Irrigation company, the Downey Townsite & Development company, the
Ferguson-Jenkins Drug company, of which Thomas Jenkins and Samuel
Ferguson are the present proprietors, and several other smaller
enterprises.

The first permanent settlement in Bannock county was made in 1866, when
a party of Latter Day Saints established themselves at what is now
Malad City. Since that time most of the larger Christian denominations
have carried their missionary work into the county, whose religious
development unfortunately has been carried on principally by a
succession of short ministries. In addition to the Rev. C. Van der
Donckt, of whom some account has already been given, two men, however,
have worked long and faithfully in building up the religious life of
the county. One of these is the Venerable Howard Stoy, an archdeacon
of the Episcopal church, who, with headquarters in Pocatello, gives
pastoral care to over twenty-five mission points, although not all
of these are in Bannock county. His jurisdiction, indeed, covers a
distance of more than two hundred miles westward from the Wyoming
line, and in the course of his work he sometimes travels three
thousand miles in a month. He has opened up many a town and hamlet
to churchly influence and has conducted services at points that had
never known a Christian service until his coming. Such men, above all
others, are contributing to both the present and future upbuilding of
the community, and to them is all honor due. Mr. George Peacock, a
missionary of the American Sunday School association of Philadelphia,
is another man who is sacrificing all worldly interests in order to
carry Christian instruction to children who must be without it, except
for him. Mr. Peacock organizes undenominational Sunday schools in
places that have no church, these schools in time being taken over by
the first church to establish itself in the town.

The principal occupations in the county at the present time are
ranching, stockraising and railroading. It is quite possible that
mining will be added to these in years to come, and that manufacturing
will soon be added to the list is a very safe prediction. The
exceptional railroad facilities, the abundant water power afforded by
the rapid current of the Portneuf, and the conveniences of a city like
Pocatello will offer strong inducements to manufacturers, as soon as
the population of the surrounding country is sufficiently great to
offer a lucrative market.

The history of Bannock county is one of which her citizens may well be
proud. It has been consistently progressive and healthy. The suffrage
was granted to women in 1896, when the state of Idaho adopted woman’s
suffrage, and in 1911 the county exercised its local option rights and
voted for prohibition.

With the exception of the strike in the Oregon Short Line Railroad
shops in Pocatello in 1911, when the shop-men walked out, there has
been no really serious labor trouble in the annals of the county, and
in the case of the strike in 1911, which is still unsettled, there was
no violence nor rioting.

The history of Bannock county is a history of honest men and clean
citizens. Its pages are unstained by any public scandal, or official
dishonesty, but, on the contrary, bear the records of an industrious
and true-hearted race of men. The future of the county is promising and
bright. The foundation of her development has been truly laid, and her
commanding commercial position, her abundant and fertile resources,
her splendid climate and her excellent railroad facilities insure a
prosperity that few other communities can expect.




Transcriber’s Notes

Errors in punctuation have been fixed.

Page 43: “enerring instinct” changed to “unerring instinct”, “runing
from” changed to “running from”

Page 48: “infinite patince” changed to “infinite patience”

Page 134: “becoe firmly established” changed to “become firmly
established”

Page 139: “rade of machinist” changed to “trade of machinist”, “sever
winter” changed to “severe winter”

Page 140: “fire i 1913” changed to “fire in 1913”



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