Rick Just's Blog, page 224

The Harriman Grumman Goose

A bit more today about the life of the Harrimans at Railroad Ranch, which the eventually donated to the State of Idaho to Create Harriman State Park.

In the late 1940s Roland and Gladys Harriman took a new twist on their visits to the Railroad Ranch in Island Park.  Roland, the Union Pacific Railroad baron, and four of his friends, commissioned the first five Grumman Goose airplanes. These amphibious aircraft, each powered by twin 450-horsepower engines mounted on the leading edge of their wings could land about anywhere. The landing gear was hand-cranked into position for field landing. The field often landed in was a hay pasture near the Henrys Fork of the Snake river as it flowed through the ranch.

This shot of the plane was taken in 1938 on a hunting trip the Harriman family took to British Columbia. Roland didn't fly the plane himself. He commissioned a pilot whenever he wanted to go somewhere. That's one of the pilots, name unknown, sitting on the the rail of a ranch jack fence with ranch hands Don Kroker (center) and Harold Hanstead (right) with the plane parked behind them.  #wsite-video-container-762105507138613136{ background: url(//www.weebly.com/uploads/plane_video_238.jpg); } #video-iframe-762105507138613136{ background: url(//cdn2.editmysite.com/images/util/videojs/play-icon.png?1535069946); } #wsite-video-container-762105507138613136, #video-iframe-762105507138613136{ background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position:center; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and ( min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and ( min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and ( min-resolution: 2dppx) { #video-iframe-762105507138613136{ background: url(//cdn2.editmysite.com/images/util/videojs/@2x/play-icon.png?1535069946); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position:center; background-size: 70px 70px; } } The video above was taken in 1938 or 1939 at the Railroad Ranch showing the Grumman Goose landing.  Harriman turned his airplane over to the Royal Canadian Air Force for the war effort in World War II. They US wasn't yet in the war. The Goose was sold to Central BC Airways after the war and in 1952 crashed and sank during bad weather north of Butedale, British Columbia, with five fatalities.

A Little Art Project

​Traveling the Oregon Trail wasn’t always a one-way trip. Several of those who made the trek came back along the trail years later to reminisce.
 
Ezra Meeker is probably the best-known Oregon Trail traveler to retrace his journey. He did it several times in order to memorialize the trail’s importance in U.S. history. In his late 70s, 1906-1908, and again from 1910-1912, he travelled the route in a covered wagon and encouraged communities along the way to install memorials to mark the trail. The trail was being obliterated by the passage of time. Without his efforts, we would know much less about that history than we do today. I’ll do an extended post about Meeker in the future.
 
Today, I want to tell a smaller story that relates only to Idaho, specifically to a single rock. The photo shows the image of an Indian chief scratched onto the surface of a lava rock. It’s a good rendition when you consider that the artist was seven years old. J.J. Hansen was in a wagon train on the Oregon Trail with his parents on their way to Portland, Oregon in 1866 when they stopped at Register Rock. Many travelers carved their names or initials on the big rock, which is a feature of Massacre Rocks State Park today. Young Mr. Hansen found a smaller rock to call his own and proceeded to chip out the image of an Indian and what looks like a cowboy across the rock facing the chief. Hansen called the man in the hat a preacher. He added the year to his artwork, 1866.
 
Hansen visited the site again in 1908, 42 years later. His youthful artistic leanings had blossomed as an adult and he had become a sculptor. He found the rock on which he had practiced his art and added the new year, 1908, to complete the circle. The latter date is difficult to see in the picture. It is on the lower right.
 

An 1899 Trip to Shoshone Falls

We know the Harriman family in Idaho mostly because Averell Harriman created Sun Valley as the first destination resort, and Roland Harriman (along with Averell) donated the Railroad Ranch to the State of Idaho to create Harriman State Park.
 
It was E.H. Harriman who first purchased shares in that ranch in 1908, but he died later that year before ever visiting it.
 
It may have been health concerns, in part, that lead E.H. to organize the Alaska Expedition of 1899. His doctor had told him he needed to get away from the stress of running Union Pacific Railroad. E.H. thought a little hunting trip to Alaska might be refreshing. The more he thought about it, the more he became intrigued with making an expedition.
 
He and 125 scientists, writers, naturalists, artists, professors, and photographers went on the expedition. PBS did a several-part series on the venture a few years back. Read more about it here. It would take me the whole post just to scratch the surface.
 
Today, I just want to share a story about a little side trip many of the expedition members went on. They would set off from Seattle aboard the steamer George W. Elder, which Harriman had specially outfitted for the trip. On their way to Seattle, the train carrying some of the luminaries made a stop in Shoshone, Idaho.
 
A telegram preceded the arrival of the train, according to a 2015 article on magicvalley.com by Mychel Matthews. “Word was sent around to the whole countryside to be on hand early on the morning of (May 27) with all the conveyances available to take this group to see Shoshone Falls,” H.J. Kingsbury, publisher of Kingsbury Printing Co., wrote in his book Bucking the Tide.

 “When the train arrived, the greatest collection of nondescript vehicles ever assembled in a small Western town was on hand to meet them,” Kingsbury said.
​
The two photos below show Expedition members returning to the train in Shoshone after visiting Shoshone Falls. They come from an album put together by Albert K. Fisher, an ornithologist and vertebrate zoologist who went along on the trip. The Library of Congress has the 127-page album and made these samples available. It’s unclear who took the pictures, whether it was Fisher or one of several other participants. The principle photographer was Edward Curtis, but it is unlikely these are his. ​That may be I.B. Perrine’s stagecoach in the background. He was said to have been one who answered the call for transportation to the falls.
​Do you recognize anyone in the photos? There are a couple of bearded men with hats, one in each photo. I could make either of them look like John Muir, who went along on the steamship, but maybe all men with long gray beards look alike. 
Most pictures of the falls are taken from the south side of the Snake River where there is a handy overlook and good access. This photo was taken from the north side and is of interest because it shows the hotel that was on the site for about 30 years. It was built in 1886 by W. A. Clark, a senator from Montana. There was a dispute about whether or not it was built on state land, a question that was ultimately decided in favor of the state. It operated as a popular hotel for much of its life, but fell into disrepair in later years, reportedly becoming a hangout for nefarious types, and finally burning to the ground in 1915. 

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

​If you picture the dollar coin that features Sacajawea (or Sacagawea, if you prefer) you may remember the eagle on the obverse, and you might remember that Shoshone Tribal member Randy’L Teton served as the model for Sacajawea. But, did you remember that there are two people depicted on the coin?
 
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was a part of the famous trip Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery made to the Pacific. He would not remember the trip, because he was just a baby on his mother’s back, as depicted on the dollar coin. He played an important role just the same. Seeing a woman with a child as part of that strange group, which included a black man and a giant black dog, helped assure tribes they encountered that this was not a war party.
 
William Clark took a liking to the boy, giving him the nickname Pomp. More than that, after the death of Sacajawea, Clark took him in and paid for his education.
 
Jean Baptiste spoke English and French fluently. His father was Toussaint Charbonneau, a French trader who also went along on the expedition. He knew Shoshone well, thanks to his mother, and could converse in several Indian languages. During six years in Europe, he also picked up German and Spanish.
 
Charbonneau led expeditions in the West and guided for others. In 1846 he was the head guide for the Mormon Battalion’s trek from Kansas to San Diego. He was a trapper, gambler, magistrate, and freighter. He prospected for gold, and once owned a hotel in northern California. He even served as mayor of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, near San Diego, for a time.
 
Pomp probably died as the result of an accident at a river crossing in Oregon when he was on his way, perhaps, to the mines in the Owyhees. His destination is uncertain as are the exact details of his death. An obituary for Jean Baptiste appeared in the Owyhee Avalanche in 1866, listing pneumonia as the cause of death.
 
There is a competing story about a Jean Baptiste Charbonneau who died on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, in 1885. Evidence that this was the Charbonneau that accompanied Lewis and Clark is slim.
 
The grave of John Baptiste Charbonneau, about 100 miles southwest of Ontario, Oregon is listed on the national register of historic places, and boasts no fewer than three historic markers. 

An Idaho Quiz

We’re going to try something different today, just for fun. 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.
 
A). One well-known Idahoan from the Twentieth Century was Farris Lind. He was known for a lot of things. Which one of this was true about Mr. Lind?
 He invented the popular carnival ride that was named after him.He flew the first air mail route in the nation out of Boise.He was once named Handicapped American of the Year.He patented the first cathode ray tube, the heart of broadcast television. 
B). Holden Bowler, who grew up in the Magic Valley, held a unique distinction. What was it?
 A friend of his used his first name for a character in a wildly popular novel called, Catcher in the Rye.He made the first trek across what would become Craters of the Moon National Monument—with his dog!He invented Teflon.He saw a UFO and his story about it coined the term “flying saucer.” 
C). Which one of the following are NOT associated with Edward Pulaski?He invented the firefighting tool that bears his name.He saved many men by leading them into a tunnel and pulling a gun on them to make them stay during the great 1910 fire.He pioneered the use of chemical retardants in fighting forest fires.He was at one time a miner, a railroad worker, and a ranch foreman. 
D). Which of the following are NOT associated with D.C. Updyke?
 He was the first Sherriff of Ada County.He ran one of the first livery stables in Boise.He was hanged by vigilantes.He had the first telephone in Boise. 
E). What was Joseph C. Rich famous for?
 He managed Bear Lake State Park for 50 years.He discovered the Minnetonka Cave in Bear Lake County.He invented the story about the Bear Lake Monster.He was a mountain man. Mountain Fawn Unit of Bear Lake State Park is named after him. A). 3,     B). 1,     C). 3,     D). 4,     E). 3
 
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. 

What's in Your Jockey Box?

​When you hear the term “jockey box” what comes to mind? If you’ve been around Idaho for a while, you probably think of what most people in the US call a glove compartment. If you’re new to the state, you’re likely baffled by the term.
 
Knowing that it was a mystery to a lot of folks, I did a little research. The first instance of the term I found in an Idaho paper was in the October 18, 1881, edition of the Idaho World. It was mentioned during an interview with convicted murderer Henry McDonald. In describing the murder of George Meyer. McDonald said, “He and I then got into a quarrel about the dog, and he came at me, I pushed him, and he fell over a sagebrush; he got up and started for the jockey box to get a six-shooter…” The jockey box in that instance was probably a box beneath the seat of the man’s wagon or buckboard.
 
The next mention of the phrase is from the Idaho Daily Statesman, June 23, 1896. A couple of lines tell the story,  “He opened the jockey box on his seat and rummaged around in it, finally producing a small hatchet and a big nail.
​
“‘I guess you’ll have to drive her out with this,’ said he, and he sat down on the ground and hung on to a buckeye bush with both hands, while one of his companions placed the end of the nail against the side of the tooth and hit it with the hatchet.”
 
Cowboy dentistry.
 
Note that those early mentions were about wagons, not cars. The term referred to a small (as jockeys are supposed to be) box in which one stored certain essentials, such as guns and dental tools. That small box inside automobiles that served the same purpose picked up the same name in Idaho and other Western states.
 
So, laugh all you want, but what do you store in YOUR glove box? Gloves? Maybe. More likely the owner’s manual, an old CD, your registration, a couple of pens that don’t work, 16 cents, and a four-year-old peppermint. So, why call it a glove compartment? Jockey box is a nice generic term to indicate that the box is equivalent to the junk drawer in your house. You know, a place to put your hatchet.

Lardo

​If you’ve driven through McCall you’ve likely noticed a bar and restaurant on the west side of town called Lardo. Most everyone calls it Lardos and the owners refer to the place that way on their website, sans apostrophe.
 
Lardos has a lot of local memorabilia nailed to the walls, big saw blades that harken back to timber days, historical photos, the occasional head of an ungulate, stuffed canids in threatening poses, and signs for various beverages. The outside is old time Western rustic. You can get burgers, mushroom skins, a Reuben sandwich, Lardo fries, and more. But where did the name come from?
 
Lardo was originally the name of a town. This town, sort of. But, it started in another location south of present-day McCall. That site was originally called Eugene, until the incident.
 
The story goes that there was a freight wagon hauling its load of supplies for the area miners. It would be a better story, perhaps, if there was some dramatic off-a-cliff wagon wreck, but that wasn’t what happened. It seems the road was rough enough to break open some of the flour sacks in the back of the wagon as it jostled along toward town. That was bad enough, with flour dusting out all over everything, but the bumpy ride also popped the lids on several pails of lard, glopping fat all over and mixing with the flour. The driver, reportedly with a southern drawl, saw the mess when he started to unload and exclaimed, “Lard, Oh, Lardo,” describing the lard and dough on its way toward becoming accidental biscuits.
 
The locals, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided Lardo was a better name than Eugene. So, in 1889, the post office there became the Lardo post office. When the gold played out, Lardo moved to the south end of Payette Lake, and was eventually absorbed by the City of McCall, which is prudently named after a family that lived there.

Idaho's Ivy League Towns

Looking for a good education? You might consider Purdue, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, or Cornell. They're all Ivy League universities, and they're all places in Idaho. All those sites are along the old Washington, Idaho, and Montana Railroad in north Idaho. You'll also find Wellesley, Vassar, and Stanford along the 47-mile-stretch of railroad.

The tradition of naming places along that route after colleges apparently started when railroad officials offered to name one site for a local man, Homer Canfield. He suggested they name the place Harvard, instead. An engineer named a siding Purdue, after his alma mater, and the die was cast. Students working summer jobs set about naming various sidings after their colleges.

Cambridge, Idaho, in Washington County, also owes its name to a railroad and Harvard University. Harvard was the alma mater of the president of the Pacific and Idaho Northern Railroad, and of course, Harvard is in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And what about Oxford? Surely that's a good choice to receive your advanced degree? In England, that's true, but in Idaho, Oxford is a site a few miles north of Preston. It wasn't named after the university at all. Oxford was named because some oxen forded the creek there.
​
You can learn something at any of these Idaho sites, but none of them, as far as I know, offer advanced degrees.

The ​Universal Life Church Picnic

Idahoans are seldom quick to embrace cutting-edge societal trends. “Idaho’s Woodstock” came along two years after the real thing. But it was the fame and infamy of that iconic music festival that caused the imaginations of many Idahoans to soar with hope or trepidation in the summer of 1971. The younger generation, in their teens and twenties, hoped for big-name bands like Iron Butterfly, Santana, and Grand Funk Railroad. The generation that had passed the age of 30, that famous barrier to trustworthiness at the time, envisioned drugged-out hippies by the thousands and the moral calamity of free love. The event did not live up to the imagination of either group. The poster below advertising the picnic belongs to former Idaho Park and Recreation Board Chair Steve Klatt of Sandpoint. He attended the picnic decades before his service on the board, and was lucky enough to find and save one of the posters, which were created by R. Crumb of “Keep on Truckin’” fame. The photos in this post are also courtesy of Steve Klatt.
​In May 1971, organizers of something called the Universal Life Church Picnic filed a form with Farragut State Park for a “church picnic attended by at least 200 people.” That probably seemed inconsequential to park manager John Grieg. Farragut had hosted nearly 35,000 people for six days just two years earlier, during the National Boy Scout Jamboree. It soon became obvious these folks were not Boy Scouts.
​Word reached local law enforcement personnel that hippies were about to descend. Law enforcement quickly asked the Idaho Department of Parks to deny the seemingly innocuous permit. As parks officials dithered, north Idaho leaders asked the governor to intervene. Gov. Cecil D. Andrus said that since all the concerns expressed were purely speculative, he had no reason to deny a church from meeting on state land.
​The bands that played were a who’s who of who’s that? Cadillac, Annakonda, Celebration, Greenfield Morning, and Sidartha were some of the bands that day. When it was all over, park manager Greig was quoted as saying, “As far as I’m concerned, they can have one of these every weekend, all summer. The picnickers left the park cleaner than the Boy Scouts did and we can really use all the money it collects at the entrance.”
​There were no arrests made at the event. Park rangers at the entrance charged a $2 camping fee and collected dollar bills in paper bags from some 15,000 attendees. A little skinny dipping and open use of marijuana were noted by the Spokesman Review. Meanwhile, the Universal Life Church was offering free minister’s licenses at the event, just as they do today online.
​Not everybody in Idaho was as pleased with the picnic as the park manager was. A self-appointed committee led by Stanley D. Crow of Nampa dissects every detail of the picnic in a document called “The Farragut Report: A Study of the Universal Life Church Picnic Held at Farragut State Park and Recommendations for Legislative and Administrative Action.”
The event, if not the report, inoculated the agency for 40 years against rock concerts at Farragut State Park. The 65,000-person amphitheater originally built for the World Scout Jamboree, along with available parking for hundreds of cars, would have made Farragut State Park a logical site for stadium-sized concerts serving Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, and other points in the Pacific Northwest, but agency officials showed little enthusiasm for another concert in subsequent years.
 
This story was taken from my 2017 book Images of America, Idaho’s State Parks.

Herbert Lemp

As I search through back issues of Idaho papers looking for something of interest for this series, I sometimes get an uneasy sense of foreboding. From my vantage point, decades hence, I often know what is about to happen as I skim stories leading up to a date. Such was the case as I followed the campaign for mayor of Boise in the 1927 newspapers. The Idaho Statesman headline on Wednesday morning, April 6, 1927, read, “LEMP OVERWHELMS EAGLESON FOR MAYOR THREE TO ONE.”

It was the headline of May 2nd I was looking for: “HERBERT LEMP INJURED DURING POLO MATCH.” Lemp was the captain of the Boise polo team. In the first practice game of the season, he was riding the ball toward the goal in the fourth chukker when his horse, Craven, stumbled. That sent the mayor-elect head-first into the dirt. The first report of his condition said that he was resting comfortably at St. Lukes and that friends were confident he would be able to attend his inauguration the next day.

Alas, no. The headline on May 7th read, “MAYOR H.F. LEMP DIES OF INJURIES SUFFERED IN FALL.” The story went on: “Herbert Frederick Lemp, mayor of Boise, died Friday morning at 7 o’clock, in St. Luke’s hospital.

“The fractious caprice of a half-tamed polo pony, which hurled the city’s mayor to the ground during a practice game last Sunday afternoon inflicted the injury which took his life.

“The death was announced to Boise citizens by the tolling of the Central fire state bell, which continued at 20-second intervals for an hour, and by flags flying at half-staff.”

Though he never got to serve Herbert, was not the first Lemp elected mayor of Boise. His father, John, turned a teacup full of Idaho City gold dust into a fortune through investments in brewing and real estate, making him the wealthiest man in Ada County. John Lemp served as mayor of Boise for a year, 1875-76.

A post in History of Boise 1863-1963 by Bob Hartman brought this story to my attention. Thanks, Bob. He also let me use the photo of Herbert Lemp on his horse, Scrambled Eggs, on the steps of the capitol. Not the hobbles on the horse.