Rick Just's Blog, page 104

The Statehouse Lawn Gun (tap to read)

A minor piece of Civil War history rests quietly on the grounds of the Idaho Statehouse. It’s a 42-pound seacoast gun, a cannon used during the Civil War at Vicksburg. The “42-pound” is a reference to the weight of the load, not the weight of the gun, which is cast iron. The cannon was forged in 1857. The number 79 is stamped at the top of the muzzle rim. It has been known as “Old Ninety-Seven.”
 
Old Ninety-Seven seems like an odd nickname for a cannon stamped with the number 79. An article about the artifact that appeared in the June 8, 1941 edition of the Idaho Statesman was headlined “Old ‘Ninety-Seven’ on Statehouse Lawn Symbolizes Past in National Defense.” The piece went on to describe the gun, much as I did in the beginning of this story, except that it stated the number stamped on the muzzle rim was 97. I checked, then rechecked the number. It is 79. Maybe someone glanced at it, then misremembered when they did a story about the gun. It stuck, possibly because the writer confused it with the train song, “The Wreck of Old 97,” which is what you get when you Google Old Ninety-Seven today.
 
That mystery aside, we know that the statehouse cannon was purchased by Idaho State Treasurer S.A. Hastings and U.S. Senator William Borah and donated to the state in 1910.
 
The gun has been fired three times while on the statehouse grounds, but never officially. An accidental “firing” took place during prohibition. The barrel of the gun was a handy place to store lunch paper, cigar butts, and other trash. Someone secreted away a bottle of moonshine in there. On a particularly hot day, that resulted in a minor explosion with liquor leaking from the lip of the gun.
 
In 1936, following an article in the Idaho Statesman that pointed out the gun had never been fired in Idaho (save for the moonshine incident), scalawags set off a charge in the cannon that peppered a nearby parked car with debris, ruining its paint job. Then, in 1946, “kids” lit off a charge of gunpowder in the cannon, which coughed up sticks, rocks, bottles, bottle caps and other debris from its throat. Eventually, groundskeepers plugged the cannon.
 
In 1942, when the nation was calling on everyone to recycle their metal scrap so it could be used for the war effort, Gov. Chase Clark proposed to scrap the old cannon. He ran into a bit of a buzz saw in the form of a group called the Boise Circle No. 5 of the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).
 
The ladies questioned whether the governor even had the authority to scrap the cannon. Mrs. Francis Leonard, who was “instructed to protest for the GAR” according to an article in the Statesman at the time, said, “One of our members, who, in fact, as a small child, sat on Abraham Lincoln’s lap when he was running for President, summed up our position when she declared the governor should also scrap the statue of the late Gov. Frank Steunenberg along with the cannon.” Clark quickly backpedaled and the cannon stayed in place.
 

Many Moscows (tap to read)

Idaho has some lofty place names that would seem to honor much larger and better-known places. Paris is one of those. If you’re expecting an Eiffel Tower, you’re not likely to find one. The name Paris came from the man who platted the town. His name was Frederick Perris. How the name morphed into the spelling that place in France uses is unknown. The U.S. Postal Service is more often the culprit in such cases, having a long history of “correcting” the spelling of post office names.

That happened to a place called Moscow. No, not the one in Idaho. I’ll get to that in a minute. Moscow, Kansas, one of more than 20 Moscows in the U.S., was honoring a Spanish conquistador named Luis de Moscoso, according to a story on the PRI website about the naming of the Moscow cities across the country. For some reason, they wanted to shorten the name to Mosco. A postal person in DC may have thought Kansans simply didn’t know how to spell, so he helpfully added the W, and it officially became Moscow.

None of the Moscows seem ready to claim a Russian connection. The one we know best was allegedly named by Samuel Miles Neff, who owned the first general store there. In that story, Neff had lived in Moscow, Pennsylvania, and Moscow, Iowa, so why not live in another Moscow, this time in Idaho.

There is at least one Idaho town that gets its name, more or less, from the city you would expect. Atlanta was named for a nearby gold discovery that was called Atlanta. It was named after the Battle of Atlanta. News of Sherman’s victory there came about the same time gold was discovered, according to Lalia Boone’s book, Idaho Place Names, A Geographical Dictionary.

Henry Riggs Did Some Things (tap to read)

What’s worthy of getting you a place in Idaho History? Introducing quail to Idaho might do the trick. Henry Chiles Riggs did that in 1871, bringing 56 birds from Missouri. That would be just a footnote, clear down at the bottom of the page in a history book that had little else to talk about.

Okay, how about claiming to be the first citizen of Boise? There were a couple of cabins built where Boise would be, but they were unoccupied, according to Riggs. He claimed that first person honor by pitching a tent and living in it. So, history.

Riggs might have a better chance of making it in print if he brought the first newspaper to Boise, which he did. He didn’t start the Idaho Statesmen, but he went to Portland in 1864 and found some folks who were willing to establish a newspaper in the new town which, by the way, had been named Boise by Henry C. Riggs. Solid footing on the historical footnotes, now.

Riggs was elected to the first Idaho Territorial Legislature from Boise County. He didn’t do a lot in Lewiston during that first session. He just introduced a bill to move the territorial capital to Boise and was instrumental in another one to split Boise County in two. Both passed. Oh, and he suggested the name for the new county. It would be called Ada County, named for his daughter Ada Riggs.

He spent most of his later life at a ranch he bought near Payette. Henry Chiles Riggs died on July 3, 1909, at the Old Soldiers Home in Boise, his place in Idaho history assured.

Naming Gowen Field (tap to read)

At first, military officials didn’t think the air base near Boise could be named at all, because it was leased property not owned by the military. A new interpretation of regulations set those concerns aside, and in June of 1941 the Field Naming Board in Washington, D.C. began deliberating. 
 
There were three names under consideration, each to potentially honor Air Corps members from Idaho who had lost their lives. They were Col. Lawrence F. Stone, who was killed may 25, 1940; First Lt. Paul R. Gowen, who was killed July 11 1938; and Second Lt. R. W. Merrick, who was killed Nov. 20, 1932.
 
Speculation at the time was that it would be named Stone Field, because he was the highest-ranking officer of the three under consideration.
 
When the Field Naming Board announced their selection, it was Lt. Gowen who was honored. Gowen was a native of Caldwell who had spent two years at the University of Idaho before transferring to the Military Academy a West Point in 1929. He was a Rhodes Scholar candidate and once applied for a patent for a fuel consumption indicator. The patent was awarded after his death.
 
Gowen was a flight instructor who had one aerial brush with death in Louisiana in 1937. He and a student were flying a BT-2 Army Trainer when a dust storm kicked up. They circled looking for a place to land without success. When their fuel ran out Gowen ordered his student to parachute from the plane. The student jumped and Gowen followed. Neither was hurt.
 
It was a dead engine in a twin-engine B-10B that cost Gowen his life. He tried to bring the damaged airplane back to Albrook Field in the Panama Canal Zone but couldn’t keep it in the air long enough. The plane crashed into the jungle, killing Lt. Gowen. Two passengers were injured, but survived. Lt. Paul R. Gowen was buried with full military honors at the Canyon Hill Cemetery in Caldwell. He was 29.
 
The military Gowen Field was officially named in 1941. In September of 1970, the Boise Air Terminal also officially adopted the name.
 
First Lt. Paul R. Gowen

A Ghost in the Machine (tap to read)

One can rarely prove or disprove a ghost story. Such is not the case of the Ghost Flutist (or flautist if you prefer) of Sun Valley.
 
In December 1936, Margaret E. Wood had taken a job as a housekeeper at the Sun Valley Lodge. She had transferred from the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire. For some reason she seemed a little hesitant to explore her new surroundings. Associates at the lodge persuaded her to get out and enjoy the beautiful scenery and take the Proctor Mountain Tramway to the top.
 
The housekeeper was enjoying the ride in the fresh air when about halfway up she heard a flute playing in the distance. Why would anyone be playing a flute somewhere out there in the snow? Wouldn’t their bottom lip freeze to the instrument?
 
She heard the music all the way to the top and heard it again on the way back down.
 
Curious, Miss Wood asked around. No one knew of any lonely shepherd soothing his flock with a flute or, for that matter, a teenager told to practice that dang thing outside. She happened to tell the story to Charles Williams, who worked as a bridge inspector for Union Pacific. His reaction was one of relief.
 
“Did you really hear it?” Williams said. “That’s great. I was afraid I was the only one. It’s been worrying me for days.”
 
Miss Wood and Mr. Williams took a little trek to the tram in search of the answer. Williams had installed the lift, so he was particularly interested.
 
Together, they found the ghost flutist. A pipe which connected one chair to the cable had some holes in it. As the lift traveled up the mountain, the breezes it encountered blew a haunting melody through those holes. Another good ghost story dashed by physics.

Modes of UP Transportation (tap to read)

Beginning in 1927 you could take the Union Pacific to a lot of places that didn’t even have railroad tracks. How so? Union Pacific Stage Lines began operation that year. It was a bus company that ran in conjunction with the railroad’s passenger operations.
 
Union Pacific Stages competed with Greyhound Lines and other bus companies until 1952, when it sold its fleet to Greyhound, getting out of the passenger business on the highways.
 
One place the Union Pacific buses often visited was Sun Valley, the resort originally started by Averell Harriman, chairman of UP in 1935.
Union Pacific Stages bus with Sun Valley passengers.
One of the inside pages from a timetable put out by Union Pacific in 1940. Steamboats were also part of the Union Pacific’s transportation network. This is the Steamboat Lewiston passing under the Lewiston-Clarkston bridge in about 1900.

News, Good or Bad? (tap to read)

Newspapers valiantly try to report the most important news of the day. This happens even when that news might ultimately be detrimental to the newspaper.
 
In 1996 I noticed that newspapers were infatuated with the Internet (then capitalized). Anything about this newfangled invention made the paper. I had just written my first novel, Keeping Private Idaho. As a promotional, dare I say “stunt,” I put it out on the internet as the first serialized novel to appear there. It didn’t get much notice on the worldwide web, but it got me a front-page story in the Idaho Statesman.
 
So, there was a newspaper publicizing what could have—but thankfully has not yet—led to its demise.
 
The Statesman was equally eager to promote the modern invention of radio. They happily printed everything about the new stations as they came on the air, giving them ample free advertising. The stations did eventually start buying a lot of advertising, too.
 
Recently I ran across a perfect example of this infatuation with a medium that was challenging the supremacy of newspapers.
 
On the 6th of February, 1936, the Idaho Statesman reported than Douglas Van Vlack, a “bushy-haired Tacoman,” was convicted of murdering his former wife. That story may be worth telling another time, but what caught my attention was this paragraph:
 
“Immediately after The Statesman received the Associated Press flash that Van Vlack had been found guilty the news was phoned to radio station KIDO and the verdict was on the air only a few seconds later.”
 
So nice of them. They clearly didn’t view a radio station as competition at that point.
 
The next paragraph underlined the timely utility of radio broadcasting by telling readers another way The Statesman got the word out.
 
“The first printed word of the verdict was also given out by The Statesman in the form of bulletins pasted on windows in the downtown district. The first bulletin was off the press within two minutes after the first flash.”
 
That broadcasting was at the dawning of new age that would forever change the media landscape might not have sunk in. Similarly, the Statesman and other papers have reported on the widespread reach of television, the internet, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, et al. In 1936 they could not have imagined that those bulletins they pasted to the window would one day be sent to the smartphones of readers as even newspapers embraced digital technology.
[image error]  Original KIDO studio. Photo courtesy of the History of Idaho Broadcasting Foundation.

Doc Hisom (tap to read)

Speaking of Idaho specializes in quirky stories from Idaho history. Often that’s defined as something unexpected. I had writen more than 200 scripts for the official Idaho Centennial radio program, Idaho Snapshots, in 1989 and 1990. A few years ago, I thought it might be fun to bring some of those back in blog form and to write a few others. I ran across a story about Dorthy Johnson, an African-American woman from Pocatello who was chosen as Miss Idaho in 1964. That’s the story that gave me the push to start the Speaking of Idaho blog. You can read it here.
 
From the very beginning of Idaho, the place was settled mostly by white pioneers. Even today finding a story about a Black Idahoan is a little unexpected. Because of Dorthy Johnson’s unexpected story and its nudge to get me writing, I’m always pleased to share another history vignette about an African-American Idahoan. I’ve written about Aurelius Buckner, Gobo Fango, Tracy Thompson, Elvina Morton, , York, and others.
 
Today, I add another African American to the list of Idahoans I’ve written about. His history wasn’t especially quirky, but it is a little unexcepted, simply because most of those who did what he did were of another race.
 
“Doc” Hisom (or Hison, or Hyson, as some references have it), was born in about 1858 a free man in Illinois. In his later years he seemed to delight in telling people he was a little older than he really was, so his birth year is uncertain. His marker in the Kohlerlawn Cemetery in Nampa, lists his birth date as October 6, 1850.
 
William C. Hisom came by his nickname legitimately. He had trained as a veterinarian and worked as one for some years before coming to Idaho to seek his fortune as a miner in the late 1800s. He, a Black man, partnered up with a white man named White. They claimed a 20-acre parcel along the Snake River near Melba in 1906 or 1907. They worked their claim for a few years before White drifted away. Doc Hisom lived there for the rest of his life.
 
Hisom was well known in the area as a storyteller and for his proficiency in practicing Native American and pioneer skills, such as flint knapping and working leather. One reference mentioned that he had at least some Indian blood.
 
A man of any color living miles from anywhere by his own hand doesn’t make the newspaper very often. I found just one story about him in the Idaho Statesman. It reported a big event in his life. In October of 1921, Doc Hisom made his way into Boise for the second time in 36 years. He marveled at the electric lights and the rapid transit of the city. The miner took his first ride on a streetcar and in an automobile during that trip.
 
The paper reported that the recluse was a friend of “Two-Gun Bob” Limbert, the man who almost single-handedly got Craters of the Moon named a national monument. Limbert often stayed at Hisom’s cabin. They probably discussed photography, among other things, since both were accomplished photographers. Taxidermy was a skill they also shared. Hisom may have entertained “Two-Gun Bob” by playing music for him. He could play seven instruments.
 
We don’t know for certain when Doc Hisom was born, but we do know when he died. That was December 26, 1944.
​“Doc” Hisom working leather at his cabin along the Snake River.

Dead Horse Cave (tap to read)

Idaho has its fair share of caves. I’ve written about 40 Horse Cave, Aviator Cave, Wilson Butte Cave, and others. Today’s story spotlights an annual gathering in a place called Dead Horse Cave, sometimes Jericho Dead Horse Cave.
 
A 1966 headline in the Twin Falls Times news called Dead Horse Cave, “Probably (the) World’s Biggest Hall.” If that seems an odd way to describe a cave, blame the Odd Fellows. The Independent Order of Oddfellows (IOOF) held meetings there annually beginning at least as far back as the 1930s. They “improved” the cave with entrance stairs and concrete benches along the sides of the main room, which is 40 feet below the surface. It’s big enough to hold 300 Odd Fellows, according to various clips about their meetings. They don’t seem to be meeting there anymore, but did so into the late 60s.
 
The cave is named for its propensity to swallow up wild horses. The opening is more or less in the roof of the lava tube, meaning it was an unexpected hole in the ground when horses galloped across the desert. The bones of equines piled up on the floor of the cave leading to an obvious name.
 
Dead Horse cave is about 11 miles northwest of Gooding. Ask around or check with the Twin Falls Chamber of Commerce. It is well known locally. A visit in the heat of summer is recommended, since the air in the cave hovers around 56 degrees year-round.
The steps into Dead Horse Cave.

The Drake Drug Fire (tap to read)

On Saturday morning, July 3, 1937, the banner headline across eight columns of the Idaho Statesman read, “MISS EARHART FORCED DOWN AT SEA.” That would be the beginning of a story that has yet to reach its conclusion. But it was the top local story that day that had much more impact on the Treasure Valley. That headline read, “Death Toll From Blast Reaches Six At Nampa.”
 
Seventeen women and girls were spending their Thursday afternoon in a Nampa beauty shop that operated on the mezzanine level of the Drake Drug Store. The highs had been in the 90s all week, so it was a relief to be inside and out of the heat. The Fourth of July was coming up on the weekend, so there was probably talk about family gatherings and fireworks.
 
Two sons of the drug store manager, DuWayne and Keith Drake sorted through the fireworks display in the front window, making up an order. Children played with fireworks nearby.
 
At 4:30 pm Pandora’s box split open. A searing blast filled the interior of the building in one blinding second. Shooting rockets, spinning pinwheels, and the machine-gun rattle of firecrackers blocked the front exit to customers. Some 30 patrons of the drugstore, singed and deafened by the blast, made it out the back door. The Drake boys stumbled out the front, scorched, but mostly unhurt. The beauty shop customers had no ready escape.
 
As flames shot from the second story windows, the women and girls who rushed out onto the back balcony faced a grim decision: jump or wait for rescue.
 
Fire fighters arrived in minutes with a ladder. Volunteer fireman Jack Gakey pulled four women from the flames and carried them to safety. He went back a fifth time to search for others and was overcome by smoke. Fellow firefighters brought him out.
 
Several jumped from the beauty shop balcony onto the concrete below. One girl suffered a broken leg.
 
Extinguishing the blaze took just 15 minutes. In the aftermath, reporter Ellen Trueblood described the charred ruin of the store, the cracked mirrors, exploded bottles of excelsiors and drugs, the upholstery burned from the stools. A scorched deer head still hung from the west wall, the hide rolled crisply back from the armature of the mount.
 
This was not Nampa’s first experience with fireworks gone awry. A fireworks fire 28 years earlier, on July 3, 1909 destroyed an entire block, burning for most of the day. No one was injured in that fire, but it convinced the city to ban the sale of fireworks. That ban was lifted just four years before the Drake Drug blaze. It was immediately reinstated following the 1937 fire.
 
Three women died because of their injuries, as did three girls aged, 4, 12, and 16. It was a double funeral for Mrs. Miller and her 4-year-old daughter Catherine Ann.
 
Fire fighters were called out all too often to the site on the corner of 2nd Street South and 13th Avenue South in the 1930s. Drake Drug had suffered a non-lethal fire in June of 1935 when an explosion in the basement destroyed much of the store’s stock. Just over a year after the deadly 1937 fire, the Montgomery Ward store adjacent to Drake Drug burned, complete with explosions from stocks of ammunition.