Rick Just's Blog, page 142

Shipping Prisoners out of State

Prison overcrowding is often in the news as Idaho continues to send inmates out of state to serve their time. One might assume the practice is a fairly recent one. It is so only if you consider 1887 fairly recent.
 
That was the year Idaho sent its first convicts out of state. Well, out of territory. Idaho wouldn’t become a state for another three years. One can speculate on why they chose to do so, and, having just given myself permission, I’ll speculate that it was to provide an extra level of punishment for a crime that at that time was considered extra reprehensible. The five prisoners who were sent to the United States Penitentiary at Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, on 4 December 1887, had been convicted of polygamy.
 
Austin Greeley Green, John Henry Byington, Sidney Weekes, William Sevins, and Josiah Richardson had the dubious honor of being the first men from Idaho to be sentenced to a prison in another territory. In a previous post I noted how aggressively Fred T. Dubois, then the U.S. Marshal of Idaho Territory, went after polygamists. It had proved difficult to convict on a charge of polygamy, even though congress made it a federal crime in 1862. Those practicing polygamy were not marrying multiple wives by going down to the local courthouse to get multiple marriage licenses. The marriages were recorded only in LDS church records, which were not open to the public.
 
In 1882, Congress passed the Edmunds Act. It enabled law enforcement to arrest men on charges of adultery and cohabitation. It was much easier to prove cohabitation than to prove that a man had multiple wives.
 
There were many disaffected former Mormons who were willing to serve on juries looking into polygamy, cohabitation, or whatever a prosecutor wanted to call it. For a while being charged was the same as being found guilty, such was the anti-Mormon fever running high in places such as Blackfoot, where the trial for the five was held. On November 14, 1887, a reporter for the Deseret Evening News wrote that “A ‘Mormon’ arrested and taken to Blackfoot stands convicted, and all he has to do is wait for the sentence.”
 
One result of this prosecutorial zeal was that the Idaho Territorial Penitentiary was filling up. Finding empty cells out of the territory where prisoners could be housed made some sense. Bonus: They could send convicted “cohabiters” far away from their families, inflicting a special punishment on them that was off the books.
 
The first five men sent to the penitentiary in Dakota Territory were reportedly docile prisoners who caused no trouble. Meanwhile, back in Idaho Territory, there was growing sentiment for their release. James Hawley, then the US Attorney for Idaho Territory looked into their case and recommended a pardon. On January 7, 1889, President Grover Cleveland pardoned the men. This did little to quell the anti-Mormon and anti-polygamy sentiment in Idaho. It would take a manifesto from the LDS church in 1890 stopping the practice of polygamy to cool things down.
 
#polygamy #idahohistory
The old Idaho penitentiary.

Taking the Union Pacific... Bus

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.

Idaho's Top Dog

The most famous dog in Idaho history was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meriwether Lewis paid $20 for him in August 1803. The Newfoundland was an uncommon breed at the time, but some of its characteristics were well known. A male typically weighs around 150 pounds. They are known as great swimmers, and built for it with a double coat to keep them warm and webbed feet. The dogs were favorites of sailors, which is probably why Lewis named his Seaman.
 
For decades people thought the dog’s name was Scannon, because making out Lewis’ handwriting was always a challenge. However, in 1984 a researcher discovered a clear reference to Seaman Creek, which was named after the dog.
 
Seaman proved his value to the Corps of Discovery early on. The men encountered what seemed to be a mass migration of squirrels on the Ohio River, September 11, 1803. Lewis commanded the dog to get a squirrel. He jumped right in, grabbed one, and brought it back. He kept jumping in and retrieving squirrels until they had enough for a meal. “They wer fat and I thought them when fryed a pleasant food,” Lewis wrote.
 
Later, while on the Mississippi, Lewis refused an offer for Seaman. He wrote, “One of the Shawnees a respectable looking Indian offered me three beverskins for my dog with which he appeared much pleased, the dog was of the newfoundland breed one that I prised much for his docility and qualifications generally for my journey and of course there was no bargan.”
 
The members of the Corps of Discovery soon learned to trust Seaman’s superior senses. He could tell when hunting parties were returning to camp or when a stranger was approaching. He got excited when he smelled bison. Seaman often accompanied Lewis on hunts, sometimes retrieving game he had shot.
 
Though Seaman was a skilled squirrel chaser he had no luck with prairie dogs. He loved to chase them but they always darted into burrow before his jaws could snap shut around them.
 
When the Corps of Discovery finally entered present day Idaho on August 12, 1805, Seaman was there. He was there, too, laing beside little “Pomp” on August 17 when Sacajawea was reunited with her brother. He was probably the only member of the party that was happy to see the snow fall in early September when they were short of food. The dog romped and played in it, insulated from any thought of cold by his thick coat.
 
As the men came closer to starvation, some may have eyed the dog as a possible source of food. No one would dare bring it up with Lewis, though the expedition did dine on some 200 dogs during their trek.
 
Meeting up with the Nez Perce later in the month solved the hunger problem. The canoes the expedition built on the Clearwater gave the dog a chance to skim across the water in the bow of one, or splash and play when they stopped to camp.
 
The dog was briefly stolen by Clatsop Indians when the expedition was working its way up the Columbia on the way back to home. They released Seaman when they saw they were being pursued.
 
Oddly, what ultimately happened to Seaman is a mystery. Newfoundlands live only eight or 10 years, but we have no record of when he died. The last mention of him in Lewis’ journal was on July 14, 1806 when he noted that mosquitos were terrible and that “My dog even howl’s with the torture he experiences from them.”
 
One clue seems to bolster the notion that he made it all the way back with the Corps of Discovery. A large dog collar on display in a Virginia museum has a plate on it with the inscription "The greatest traveller of my species. My name is SEAMAN, the dog of captain Meriwether Lewis, whom I accompanied to the Pacific ocean through the interior of the continent of North America."
 
 
 #lewisandclark #corpsofdiscovery #seaman
​There are many statues of Seaman scattered around the United States. This one is at the Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural, and Education Center in Salmon Idaho

Rosie, Beaver Dick's Daughter

I recently told the story of Emma Leigh, the daughter of “Beaver” Dick Leigh and her encounter with Teddy Roosevelt. “Beaver” Dick was a friend of my great grandmother, Emma Just and he had named his Emma after my Emma.
 
After telling that story, I ran across a postcard to “my” Emma from Rose, Emma Leigh’s older sister. It’s a photo postcard of Rose, who apparently went by Rosie. The spelling in the message wasn’t great, but the intent was clear. It was postmarked December 2, 1912. I include it here as something of a postscript to the earlier story.

Manley's

Idaho Statesman writer Anna Webb said this about Manley’s Café in a 2006 article: “Manley´s was famous for the size of its servings: ham slices bigger than the plate they were on and pieces of pie with enough a la mode to fill three ice cream cones.”
 
Manley’s was not famous for its lavish menu, or its white tablecloths, or its wine list. It didn’t have any of those things. It did have a rickety screen door, plastic burger baskets, a Wrigley’s gum rack, leatherette stools, and a linoleum pattern worn away to nothing by thousands of feet. Manley’s had good food and plenty of it.
 
The original name of the café was Manley’s Garden Café, then Manley’s Rose Garden Café. Outdoor seating was available for a time if one wanted to enjoy the roses. The garden eventually became not so garden-ish, and the outdoor seating went away.
 
The owners were Manley Morrow and his wife Marjorie. They opened the place in 1954. Marjorie passed away in January of 1960, leaving Manley to run it himself.
 
Manley was philosophically against having anyone that came through the door leaving hungry. Order a piece of pie and you got a quarter of a pie. Do you want that ala mode? Manley or one of his crew would plop a pint of ice cream on top of it.
 
Some famous folk stopped by Manley’s. Many Idaho governors ate there, as did a future president. John F. Kennedy was said to have stopped by when he was running for president. Tim Woodward, long-time reporter and columnist, remembered the time when he took New York Times writer and food critic Calvin Trillin to Manley’s. In an April 18, 2013 piece in the Idaho Statesman, Woodward quoted Trillin as saying, "Every town I go to, they take me to the restaurant in the glass ball on the top floor of the tallest building in town," he said. "The prices are outrageous, and the food is awful. This place is great!"
 
Manley Morrow passed away in 1976. His son, David, took over and ran the place for a while, then sold it to a couple of the Manley’s waitresses. They ran it until 1997 when it closed for good. The site of the café is now Terry Day Park at 1225 Federal Way.
 
#manleys #calvintrillin

Teddy and Emma Leigh

History doesn’t always stay within the tidy borders of a state. At least, that’s the excuse I’ve come up with today to tell you a story that took place in Wyoming.

Richard Leigh was a blue-eyed, red-headed man who spoke with a Mancunian accent, dropping his H’s as you would expect someone from Manchester, England to do. He was born there in 1831. He had fought in a war and worked for the Hudson Bay Company before setting out on his own and settling in the Teton Valley on the Idaho side of those mountains.

I could tell a lot of stories about Richard Leigh, and probably will in future postings. Known as “Beaver Dick” because of his proficiency in catching the creatures, he was a well-known figure in early Idaho. A few bullet points:

--He served as a guide to the Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone in 1872.
--He may be the only historical figure to have two Idaho highway historical markers, one in Boise and one near Rexburg.
--Leigh Lake in Grand Teton National Park is named after him. Nearby Jenny Lake is named after his first wife.
--Beaver Dick lost his entire first family, wife Jenny and four kids, to smallpox.
--Leigh helped a Shoshoni woman give birth to a daughter, Susan, who was promised to become Beaver Dick’s wife. He didn’t think it would ever happen, but they did marry 16 years later after Leigh lost his first family.

But this story is about Beaver Dick’s daughter Emma, from that second family.

The mountain man and his family were camped at Two Oceans Pass in 1891 when the story took place. Two Oceans Pass is in Wyoming, where Two Oceans Creek splits into two streams, Atlantic Creek dropping off the Continental Divide to end up eventually in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Creek going West to find its way to the mouth of the Columbia.

The Leigh family was camped alone, at first, but their peace was interrupted by the sound of a robust voice coming into the clearing that would soon prove to be that of Theodore Roosevelt. This was ten years before Roosevelt would become president. Beaver Dick and Teddy hit it off and spent a pleasant evening swapping hunting stories in Roosevelt’s tent. Ten-year-old Emma hovered around the story-telling and began to make herself a pest.

Emma wrote about the memory in later years:
“At last, father got so provoked he stood up and pointed to the tent flap and ordered me to “pike away!’ I knew what that meant. But as I rushed past Mr. Roosevelt who was a short man and sat with his boots outstretched, I stumbled over his boots and fell on all fours. Before I could get back on my feet, Roosevelt reached down and pulled me across his lap, and then with his opened hand he gave a good spanking on my bottom side up.”

Emma felt bad about it, but apparently, Roosevelt did, too. The next day he asked her to show him how well she could shoot. With a rifle he handed her, Emma hit the bullseye on a target.
Emma said, “I heard Mr. Roosevelt shout ‘Bravo!’ It was the first time I’d heard that word but I knew it meant something good. And the best was yet to come. Mr. Roosevelt called me by name. ‘Emma,’ he said, ‘I hereby present you with this rifle and hope it will ease some of the pain I caused you last night.”

I’d heard this story from an elderly family member of mine but wondered about its veracity. Emma was named after my great-grandmother, Emma Thompson Just. I thought it might just have been a good spin on a lesser story passed down through the years. The story seems to be true, though, and is mentioned in many accounts of Beaver Dick’s life, the most authoritative of which may be the 1982 book Beaver Dick, The Honor and the Heartbreak, by his great-grandson William Leigh Thompson and his wife Edith M. Shultz Thompson. The quotes from Emma were found in that book.​

The photo is Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh and his second family. L-R: Sue Tadpole, William, Emma, Leigh, and Rose.

Famous in Firth

Famous men and women get all the ink. People who never did anything worthy of a history book should get an occasional mention. That’s my mission today as I tell you about Harold Brighton, a man famous only in Firth.
 
Harold was the town barber for many years, working out of a tiny one-chair shop on main street. You could sit in the leather seat—or on the board placed across the arms if you were a little kid—and stare into infinity as your image bounced forth and back between the big mirrors on facing walls. The marble shelves beneath the mirror behind Harold was like a barback, bottles of various tonics and smell-goods sparkling in their reflections.
 
Those waiting for their haircut spent their time in chairs borrowed from an abandoned theater. They could read comics or mild men’s magazines. Mostly they talked about weather and farming.
 
The thing Harold will always be remembered for was his nickel rebate. It happened to be a pair of my cousins, Charlie and Frank Just, who as rambunctious kids started the tradition. They were bouncing around one day under the control of no one, their dad likely down the street at the drugstore or talking with someone at the International Harvester dealership nearby.
 
With no adult supervision handy, Harold bribed the kids. He offered them each a nickel to go get an ice cream cone after their haircut, if they’d sit still and be quiet. That was the best deal they’d heard all day, so the brothers were good as gold.
 
Harold might have forgotten about the nickels, but the Just kids didn’t. They expected it the next time they came in for their $1 haircuts. Further, they spread the word about the sit-still bribe among all their friends. Harold was on the hook for ice cream nickels from then on.
 
The tradition became so expected that some parents tried giving Harold 95 cents instead of the posted price of one dollar. Harold wouldn’t have it. Haircuts were a buck. The nickel belonged to a kid who worked hard at sitting still.
 
Harold Brighton often said that he could have bought a Cadillac with all the nickels he gave away over the years.
 
When Harold closed up shop and retired, my son, Jarad, was just about ready for his first haircut. I talked Harold into opening up the shop one more time so I could get the picture below of Jarad’s first haircut, and Harold’s last. It’s one of many treasured memories I have of a man famous only in Firth.

Finger Bowls

Perhaps you use a finger bowl with every meal at your house. Mine, not so much. I think I could count the times I’ve been given such a choice in restaurants on… a few fingers.
 
They were quite common into the first part of the Twentieth Century but seem to have fallen out of use during World War I when citizens were encouraged to be conservative in all things.
 
Finger bowls came out of a Russian tradition of dining, where meals were served one course at a time. Finger bowls often arrived before desert, perhaps on a small plate with a doily beneath the bowl. Diners gave their fingers a little rinse, drying them on a napkin.
 
Since I rarely give lessons in etiquette, one might wonder why I bring this up at all. Does one wonder? Well, it is because I came across multiple references to J.K. White during research on the Ada County Poor Farm. White was the chief health inspector for the state of Idaho. He was instrumental in shutting the place down because of deplorable conditions. One of those references was an article all about finger bowls, so here we are.
 
White, during the regular course of his duties inspecting restaurants, discovered a common practice that gave him the willies. That’s a technical term in the inspection business. As White explained in the December 7, 1913 edition of the Idaho Statesman, “As it is now, the bowls are used and then emptied and placed on the sideboard or shelf to be used again.”
 
Clever readers will have noticed that there was a missing step between a finger bowl’s use and its reuse. Washing.
 
White put it quite forcefully: “We insist that this is wrong, subjecting the users of these bowls to the danger of contracting contagious diseases. If the bowls were thoroughly cleaned after each using, as the dishes are, no complaint could be made.”
 
Restaurants and, notably railroad dining cars, took the news in stride and agreed to henceforth give the bowls a thorough cleaning. So, rest assured, the next time you twiddle your fingers in such a bowl it has almost certainly been cleaned since the last finger twiddler used it.

That Other Idaho Internment Camp

You probably know something about the Minidoka Internment Camp, sometimes called the Hunt Camp that was located near Jerome, Idaho, now the Minidoka National Historic Site.
 
Did you know there was a second Japanese internment camp in Idaho?
 
The Kooskia Internment Camp was located about 30 miles east of Kooskia on Canyon Creek. The men housed there—and they were all men—worked on the construction of U.S. Highway 12.
 
The Kooskia camp was unique among camps in the U.S. in that those housed there volunteered for the assignment. They were men of Japanese ancestry who had been placed in other internment camps, but who had volunteered to go to Kooskia because they received wages of between $55 and $65 a month. The camp’s remote location meant there was not even the need for a fence around the Canyon Creek site.  
 
A total of 256 men spent time working at the camp between May 1943 and May 1945. After the war, and with the completion of Highway 12, there was no need for the site. The buildings “walked” away or were torn down. Today only a concrete slab marks the site of the camp, which is on the Clearwater National Forest.
 
Some archaeological research has been done at the Kooskia Internment Camp, and Priscilla Wegars, PhD, has written extensively about the site. Her book As Rugged As The Terrain: CCC "Boys," Federal Convicts, And Alien Internees Wrestle With A Mountain Wilderness contains a detailed story of the camp as well as camps of different types in Idaho.
  The Kooskia Internment Camp.

Pop Quiz!

Below is a little Idaho trivia quiz. If you’ve been following Speaking of Idaho, you might do very well. Caution, it is my job to throw you off the scent. Answers below the picture.
 
1). Where was the Ada County Poor Farm located?
 
A. On Eagle Island.  
 
B. Where Hillcrest Shopping Center is today.
 
C. Where Vista Village is today.  
 
D. Where the Collister Neighborhood is today.
 
E. Where the KTVB studios are today.
 
 
2). What is Idahoan Holden Bowler often remembered for?
 
A. He was a medal of honor winner.
 
B. His friend, J.D. Salinger, used his first name as the name of his most famous character.
 
C. He was an airplane barnstormer.
 
D. Fittingly, he was a three-time Idaho State Champion Bowler.
 
E. None of the above.
 


3). How old was “Packer” John when he built his cabin?
 
A. 57.
 
B. 23.
 
C. 75.
 
D. 49
 
E. 20.

 
4). What was the Galloping Goose?
 
A. A bus converted to run on railroad tracks.
 
B. The bus Glenn Taylor and the Glendora Players travelled in.
 
C. The first passenger plane used by Varney Airlines.
 
D. The nickname of Roland Harriman’s amphibious aircraft.  
 
E. The truck Charlie Sampson used while marking his “Sampson Roads.”
 
 
5) What is a burbot?
 
A. Another name for a spittoon.
 
B. A leopard-spotted member of the cod family.
 
C. A typesetting case.
 
D. A rare Idaho mammal related to the fisher.
 
E. A robotic drink mixer.
   Answers (click on the letter to read the post)
1, D
2, 3, E
4, A
5, B


How did you do?
5 right—Why aren’t you writing this blog?
4 right—A true Idaho native, no matter where you’re from.
3 right—Good! Treat yourself to some French fries.
2 right—Okay! Eat more potatoes!
1 right—Meh. You need to read more blog posts.
0 right—Really, you should reconsider your recent relocation. ​