Rick Just's Blog, page 55

Treasure for the Taking!

In the late 1880s many thousands of tons of ore were floated across Lake Coeur d'Alene from the Silver Valley mines in the Wallace and Kellogg area. They loaded ore onto barges at Mission Landing near the Cataldo Mission and towed them by steamer down the Coeur d'Alene River and across the lake. In the winter, the ice breaker Kootenai assisted with the job of transporting the ore.

Legend has it that late in the fall of 1889, the captain of the Kootenai received orders to bring two barges, each loaded with 150 tons of ore, down from Mission Landing. The Kootenai pushed one barge and towed the other for a while, but the captain had trouble breaking through the ice, that way.

He decided to tie up the front barge, leaving it behind, and tow the second barge on down to the ice-free lake.

As the story goes, about midnight, near McDonald's Point, on Lake Coeur d'Alene, something happened that caused the loose ore on the barge to shift. The barge tipped first one way, then the other, and 135 tons of high grade silver ore poured into the lake. That was about $15,000 worth in 1889.

So, is there a fortune in ore on the bottom of Lake Coeur d’Alene? The tale is told in the book Lost Treasures and Mines of the Pacific Northwest, by Ruby El Hult. A few other sources mention it, but I’ve yet to find a contemporaneous newspaper account of the incident. Divers have looked for it a few times, without reported success. Mining it off the bottom of the lake would likely be impossible given water quality regulations. 

A Little Idaho License Plate History

Today’s post owes much to Dan P. Smith’s little publication, A Complete Guide for Idaho License Plates and DAV Tags. Dan is a license plate collector and authority on Idaho plates.
 
I’m revisiting this subject because one of my readers asked when Idaho began using the numeral/letter county designators on license plates (see list below). The answer is 1932. Those designators have appeared ever since on most plates, but do not appear on specialty and personalized plates.
 
I was surprised to learn that there were Idaho plates issued before the state issued them. That is, six cities issued automobile license plates in the early years, starting in 1910. They are extremely rare. Only 14 are known to exist. Some were made of porcelain and some of steel. Some were made of leather by the car owners themselves and featured metal numbers of aluminum or brass. Issuing cities were Boise, Hailey, Lewiston, Nampa, Payette, Twin Falls, and Weiser.
 
State of Idaho plates were sold beginning in 1913. Motorcycle plates came along in 1915.
 
Information is hard to come by for plates issued before 1950. In 1950, according to Dan’s book, Idaho Governor C.A. Robbins offered the job of state transportation director to the Gooding County Assessor. The man wasn’t interested in the job, but did agree to travel the state visiting all 44 counties on a consulting basis to determine the needs of each county. The trip was reportedly a success, with many best practices implemented. While the man was out of his temporary office, someone decided it would be a good idea to clean it. They disposed of all the piles of paper and boxes of old records that were cluttering up the place. Those records happened to be the historic records of Idaho license plates.
 
Early license plates that cost a few dollars can fetch a few thousand dollars today, if they’re rare.
 
I guess I collect plates a bit, myself. Those pictured are some of the personalized plates I’ve used over the years. I still use the bottom two.

That's Not a Light Saber in His Hand

Charles Ostner immigrated from Austria to find his fortune in Idaho. He was working in the Florence area when he decided to make a grand gesture for his new home territory.
 
Ostner had some patience. It took him four years to carve the wooden statue of George Washington astride a horse that stands on the fourth floor of the Idaho statehouse today. Ostner modeled the statue in snow before committing it to pine. He studied the likeness of George Washington on a postage stamp to get the face right.
 
Ostner donated the statue to Idaho Territory in 1869. The Legislature granted him $2,500 for the work. It stood outside the statehouse for 65 years, before it was brought inside and gilded. It stood for years outside of the attorney general’s office, giving the secretary behind those glass doors an unobstructed view of the tail end of a golden horse. The statue was moved to the fourth floor during the 2007 renovation of the building.
 
Ostener died in 1913 and is buried in Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise.
It would be so cool to report that in this depiction George Washington has a light saber in his hand. Sadly, it's just a retracted telescope.

Idaho's First Railroad Didn't Last Long

The first train rolled into Idaho in 1874. The railroad, built by Mormon investors to serve LDS communities in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho, brought its first steam engine into Franklin that year. Before 1874, Corrine, Utah, was the nearest railroad station to Idaho. Upon successful completion of the Utah Northern Line to Franklin, many suppliers from Corrine set up satellite operations in Idaho’s first town.
 
The Utah Northern was intended to go at least to Soda Springs, but financial problems put the kibosh to that. The railroad, promoted by John H. Young—the son of Brigham—went bankrupt by 1878.
 
But Idaho’s railroad history was far from over. That first line to Franklin was quickly taken over by Union Pacific. At the peak, there were 2,877 miles of track crisscrossing Idaho. That peak was in 1920. Today, about 1,630 miles of track are in regular use in the state. By trains, that is. You can still hike and bike some of those abandoned rail lines, notably the Trail of the Hiawatha, Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, the Ashton-Tetonia Trail, and the Weiser River Trail.
This Union Pacific engine traveled the tracks between Ashton and West Yellowstone in 1930. You can take most of that route today on your bicycle on the Ashton-Tetonia Trail.

The Grave Story of Gobo Fango

Gobo Fango is not a name you often encounter in Idaho history, memorable as it is. Fango was born in Eastern Cape Colony of what is now South Africa in about 1855. He was a member of the Gcaleka tribe. He was saved from a bloody war with the British that would kill 100,000 of his people, only to end up the victim of a range war some 27 years later in Idaho Territory.
 
Fango’s desperate, starving mother left him in the crook of a tree when he was three when she could no longer carry him. The sons of Henry and Ruth Talbot, English-speaking settlers, found him. The family adopted Gobo Fango. Or maybe they simply claimed him as property. In either case, they probably saved his life.
 
The Talbots became converts to the LDS religion. Records of their baptisms exist, though none such for Fango.  They smuggled Fango out of the country and into the United States where they found their way to Utah in 1861.
 
Gobo Fango worked for the Talbots as an indentured servant, by some accounts, as a slave by others. He lived in a shed near their home. When a teenager he was sold, or given to another Mormon family.
 
Eventually Fango was on his own and working for a sheep operation near Oakley, in Idaho Territory. He was even able to acquire a herd of his own.
 
Cattlemen viewed sheep as a scourge that was destroying the range. Range wars broke out all over the West between sheep men and cattlemen.
 
It was one of those conflicts that brought an end to Gobo Fango.
 
The Idaho Territorial Legislature had passed a law known as the Two-Mile Limit intended to keep sheep grazers at least two miles away from a cattleman’s grazing claim. Early one day cattleman Frank Bedke and a companion rode into Fango’s camp to tell him he and his sheep were too close to Bedke’s claim and that he should leave. Fango resisted. Exactly what happened will never be known, but the black man ended up with a bullet passing through the back of his head and another tearing through his abdomen.
 
The cattlemen rode away. Gobo Fango, who, incredibly, was still alive, began crawling toward his employer’s home, holding his intestines in his hand as he dragged himself four and half miles.
 
Gobo Fango lived four or five days before succumbing to his wounds. He made out a will leaving his money and property to friends. Frank Bedke would be tried twice for his murder, with the first trial ending with a hung jury. The second time he was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.
 
The headstone of Gobo Fango can be seen today in the Oakley Cemetery.

Idaho's First Female Legislators

In 1896, Idaho became the fourth state in the nation—preceded by Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah—to give women the right to vote. If you want to get technical, Idaho was actually the second state to do so, since Wyoming and Utah were both territories at the time. This was 23 years ahead of the 19th Amendment which gave that right to all women in the United States.
 
It wasn’t just voting that interested women. They wanted to be a part of the political process at every level. In 1898 voters elected three women to the Idaho Legislature, Mrs. Mary Wright from Kootenai County (left in the photo), Mrs. Hattie Noble from Boise County, and Mrs. Clara Pamelia Campbell from Ada County. It was the fifth Idaho Legislature.
 
On February 8, 1899, the Idaho Daily Statesman noted that Mrs. Wright had become the first woman to preside over the Idaho Legislature, and perhaps the first to preside over any legislature in the nation. She was chairman of the committee of the whole during the preceding afternoon and “ruled with a firm but impartial hand.”
 
Mary Wright was elected Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, and went on to take a job as the private secretary of Congressman Thomas Glenn.
 
All of this seemed not to sit well with her husband, who “filed a red hot divorce bill” according the Idaho Statesman, reporting on the proceedings in a Sandpoint court in the April 26, 1904 edition. Mr. Wright claimed that while in the legislature in Boise she “mingled with diverse men, at improper hours and times, making appointments with strange men at committee rooms and hotels.” He also claimed she lost $2,000 on the board of trade, and “used improper language before their son, a lad of 16.”
 
Mrs Wright shot back with a suit of her own claiming her husband had slandered her. The paper reported that “She produced two witnesses in court and showed that Wright had done little toward her support in years.” The divorce was granted… In favor of Mrs. Wright.
The first women to serve in the Idaho Legislature (back) Mrs. Mary Wright, Kootenai County; (left) Mrs. Hattie Noble, Boise County; (right) Mrs. Clara Pamela Campbell, Ada County. They served during the fifth session of the Legislature, 1998-99. Photo courtesy of the Idaho State Archives, a division of the Idaho State Historical Society.

Tie Up Your Boat in Idaho

I’ve written about Idaho songs and songs that mention Idaho several times. A reader recently pointed out that I hadn’t written about one of my favorites. Forgive me for rattling on, but this is why that song sometimes earworms into my brain.
 
In March of 1969, I found myself spending a few weeks in Los Angeles. My brother Kent, and I, along with a friend, went down there for radio school. When I say radio school, you probably envision some kind of repair course or maybe something to do with ham radio. Or you might assume we were going there to learn how to be radio announcers. There were several schools in L.A. at that time devoted to the profession. But, no, we were already radio announcers.
 
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at that time required announcers to have either a third-class FCC license or a first-class license. Both licenses required taking a test. We already had our third-class licenses. That test was easy. You had to study for about eleven minutes to pass it. A third-class permit allowed you to work on low-powered stations. If you wanted to work at higher power stations and those with antenna arrays, you had to pass the test to become a first-class radio engineer. This was a hold-over from the early days of radio when you actually had to know something to operate a transmitter. By 1969, radio transmitters largely ran themselves. I knew how to turn one on and off and how to read the meters. If the meters were straying out of a certain tolerance range, you called the station engineer. He knew electronic stuff.
 
To move up in radio, you had to pass a very difficult test in engineering. Your average DJ knows squat about engineering, but they had to have that first-class license to work on, for instance, KBOI. This idiotic requirement meant that ambitious DJs, such as us, went to six-week schools to learn enough about electronics to pass the test.
 
So, there we were in Los Angeles, learning about capacitors and stuff. On the way to the day-long classes, we learned how to be a big-time DJ from the likes of Robert W. Morgan and Charlie Tuna on the monster L.A. rocker of the day, KHJ. This was a particularly cool thing for us because we knew those guys (long distance) from their stints on KOMO, Oklahoma City, which blasted into Southern Idaho during our high school days.
 
One of the songs we heard a lot when we were down there (this is about a song, remember?) was called Day after Day (It’s Slippin’ Away). This catchy little Caribbean-inspired tune was performed by the rock group Shango. As newbie sorta Angelenos from Idaho, who got to experience an earthquake while we were there, this song hit home. Here are some of the lyrics, courtesy of genius.com.
 
Day after day
More people come to L.A
Shhh! Don't you tell anybody
The whole place slippin' away
Where can we go
When there's no San Francisco?
Shhh! Better get ready
To tie up the boat in Idaho
 
And, there you have it. One of my favorite songs to include Idaho in the lyrics. Listen to it here.
 
This was Shango’s only hit. Well, maybe not a hit, but it did make number 57 on the pop charts. With no more hits coming, Shango broke up.
 
Two members went on to play in groups you may have heard of. Tommy Reynolds became the third name in Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. Drummer Joe Barile went on to play with the Ventures. To my knowledge, they never sang about Idaho again.

Idaho's Famous Bulging Elk

I’ve posted this story before, only to have people look at the headline and suggest that I dohn’t know how to spell bugling. But you’re actually reading the story, so YOU won’t look follish!
 
So, listening to NPR one morning on our way to work a few years back my wife and I heard a story about a painting of an elk that was being hung in some congressional office in Washington, DC. The reporter noted that it was a painting of a “bulging” elk. Whether the reporter was caught by a typo, or simply didn’t have a clue about elk did not matter. We couldn’t get the image of “bulging” elk out of our minds.
 
Had the reporter ever heard elk bugling he probably would have caught the error. A bugling elk is hard to forget, as is someone imitating an elk by applying what looks like a radiator hose to their lips and proceeding to make a series of whistling, gasping, alien sounds that would seem designed to attract a steam engine.
 
Whether or not you or I are attracted to the sound of a bugling elk is beside the point. Other elk find it well worth their notice, and this mating call seems to be working. Idaho has an abundance of elk. In 1935, when the Idaho began keeping records, there were 1,821 elk harvested in the state. That was three years before the citizen initiative that created the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, so there were likely some elk taken that weren’t counted. Elk harvest today is more than ten times that number, with 24,547 taken in 2015.
 
Not a few of those were lured to their demise by someone playing a weird tune on a modified radiator hose.
 
Elk numbers are likely much higher today than they were when Lewis and Clark trekked through what would become Idaho. Elk are creatures that like grassy, open spaces with trees nearby where they can quickly

If it Walks Like a Bear...

Not all property owned by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation (IDPR) is a state park. One little-known site is called “Bear Track” Williams Recreation Area. Though owned by IDPR, it is managed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. That’s because the site is primarily for fishing access.
 
Two parcels, totaling 480 acres, are along Hwy 93 between Carey and Richfield, near Craters of the Moon National Monument.
 
Ernest Hemingway’s son, Jack, donated the property to the Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands in 1973, with the intent that they would turn it over to the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation when the donation could be used as a match for acquisition or development of state park property.
 
IDPR took over ownership of two parcels in 1974 and 1975.
 
Jack Hemingway purchased the property with the intention of making the donation and specifying that it be named for Taylor “Bear Tracks” Williams.
 
So, who was “Bear Tracks” Williams? He was one of several hunting and fishing guides who began working in the Wood River Valley when Averell Harriman built his famous Sun Valley Resort. The guides often found themselves rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and famous. Williams guided for Ernest Hemingway, and they became good friends. He often accompanied Hemingway to Cuba. They spent many hours together along Silver Creek and the Little Wood River.
 
One would assume this outdoor guide got his nickname because of his proficiency in tracking or because of some harrowing tale. Nope. He got the nickname because he walked with his toes pointed out.
 
“Bear Tracks” Williams Recreation Area is prized for its angling opportunities in the sagebrush desert. Fly fishing there is catch and release. There has been virtually no development on the site since Jack Hemingway donated it more than 40 years ago, which is probably just the way he would have wanted it.

Stagecoaches Hauled in the Money for One Man

Stagecoaches are an icon of Westerns. They were always getting robbed and occasionally attacked by Indians. Unlike six-gun duels in the street, which were largely an invention of dime novels, stagecoaches deserve their icon status.

The best known and most successful of the stagecoach companies was the Overland Stage. Stagecoaches brought passengers and supplies, but their most important cargo was mail. Ben Holladay, who ran the company, had the US Mail contract which brought him more than a million dollars a year for a time. He built a mansion in Washington, DC just so he could lobby Congress for contracts.

Running a stage line was profitable, but it was also expensive and complicated. Holladay had to set up stage stations every 10 to 15 miles along his routes. The one that ran through Idaho started in Kansas. The stations had vast stores of shelled corn for the horses and men to take care of the animals. The Overland Stage could boast the capability of moving along at 100 miles a day, by rolling day and night. There were frequent delays, like the ones that ended up in the movies.

Newspapers depended on the arrival of other newspapers from across the country to supplement their local editions. On August 2, 1864, the Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman published a story under the standing head By Overland Stage. It explained the delay in getting news from the company by listing some of the issues coaches had run into in recent days. About 100 miles out of Denver Indians had stolen all the Overland Stage Livestock. A stage near Fort Bridger, Wyoming had also been stopped by Indians. A third stage was attacked near Platte Bridge.

The coaches were comfortable when compared with walking. All the Overland Stages were built on a standard pattern called The Concord Coach. They had heavy leather springs and were pulled by four or six horses. Passengers piled in and piled on. The company was all about profit, so they didn’t necessarily go on a schedule. They would often wait until a stage was full of people and supplies. The picture shows a stagecoach (perhaps not an Overland) on a road along the Snake River Canyon near Twin Falls. It is one of the Idaho State Historical Society’s photos from the Bisbee collection.

As important as they were, stagecoaches roamed the West for a fairly short time. The Overland Stage Company, which made Holladay a fortune, lasted about ten years. Holladay transitioned to railroads, which is the way the mail went. He lost most of his fortune trying to run trains.