Rick Just's Blog, page 73

Idahoan Names Mouse (tap to read)

You probably know that Idaho celebrated its 100th birthday in 1990. Mickey Mouse celebrated his 60th about the same time. And, yes, there is a connection between Idaho and Mickey.

Lillian Marie Bounds was born in Spalding and grew up in Lapwai. She attended elementary school there, then later moved to Lewiston. She got her big break in Hollywood. Miss Bounds was "discovered" there by Walt Disney, but not in the usual way. She did not become a star at Disney Studios, where she worked as a secretary and an illustrator. She became Walt Disney's wife.

Walt Disney and Lillian Marie Bounds were married in Lewiston, Idaho July 13, 1925. That was just about the time Disney was creating his most famous character, Mickey Mouse. He had planned to call the famous rodent Mortimer Mouse. His Idaho wife changed his mind, and he changed the name... to Mickey.

From humble beginnings in a converted California garage, Mickey Mouse created an entertainment empire for the Disneys, from Disneyland on the West Coast, to Walt Disney World in Florida, with motion picture and recording companies in between.
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Lillian Disney didn’t forget her Idaho roots. She was well known for her philanthropy in her hometown of Lapwai, and she was an important part of Idaho entertainment. Mrs. Disney and her two daughters, Sharon and Diane, owned Retlaw Enterprises, which included KLEW-TV in Lewiston, and KIDK-TV in Idaho Falls, as well as nine other television stations out of state. Retlaw, by the way, is Walter spelled backwards. A tip of the hat to the man who invented the mouse, from the lady who named the mouse Mickey.
 
Lillian with her husband and the mouse.

Esmeralda Disappeared (tap to read)

There are lots of ghost towns scattered around Idaho. Today's story is about a town that came and went so fast, it probably doesn't even rate a proper ghost.

Alturas County was enormous. When it was created in 1864, it included practically all the land between the Snake and Salmon Rivers in the south-central part of the state.

Now, when you create a new county, you always like to name a county seat. About the only thing you really need for a county seat is a town. But Alturas County, with all those thousands of acres, didn't have a real town, so the legislature invented one. They called it Esmeralda, and it was located on a beautiful plateau near the South Fork of the Boise River, about a mile below what is now Featherville.

Esmeralda was never more than a handful of slap-dash cabins occupied by some early-day prospectors. Its moment of fame was little more than a moment. Two months after it was named the county seat of Alturas County, the county commissioners moved their operation to the new town of Rocky Bar, where gold had just been discovered. The commissioners and prospectors left Esmeralda, and the town just disappeared.

So did the county, eventually. Alturas County existed for over thirty years, but increased population within its boundaries prompted the legislature to split it up into smaller counties in 1896. Smaller, but not small counties. Blaine, Camas, Gooding, Lincoln, Jerome, Elmore, and Minidoka counties were all carved from Alturas.
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The map, courtesy of the Idaho Genealogical Society, shows the original boundaries of Alturus County and the counties that split off from it.

Scrooge in Boise (tap to read)

Reginald Owen was visited by three ghosts in 1938. One of them pointed a shaking, boney finger at a headstone with his name on it. Well, the name of his character, Ebenezer Scrooge. Owen’s actual headstone, though, is in the Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise.
 
Owen was widely acclaimed for his role as Scrooge. This time of year, the movie is played and replayed to—forgive the pun—death. Scrooge was probably his best remembered character, but he played many of them. Notably, he played both Sherlock Holmes and Watson several times each. The same year he played Scrooge, Owen appeared in another movie as a character named Grump. Fortunately, that didn’t typecast him.
 
Reggie Owen’s career in film began in 1911 when he appeared as Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII. His last film was Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971 in which he played Major General Sir Brian Teagler. Some might remember him as Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins.
 
His life on stage was at least equal to his film career and he was a radio star as well. In the TV era he had a part in an episode of Maverick with James Garner.
 
Finally, of trivial note, Owen rented his mansion in Bel Air to the Beatles when they performed at the Hollywood Bowl when no hotel would book them.
 
And, Boise? Owen had just wrapped up an appearance in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in New York, when he and his wife decided to visit her son from a previous marriage. Robert Haveman was a labor relations manager at Boise Cascade. The former Barbara Haveman, Owen’s third wife, was a descendent of Russian nobility who had married the actor when he was 69. He spent the last three months of his life in Boise. A stroke or heart attack took him in 1972 at age 85. ​Reginald Owen as Scrooge in 1938.

Richardson at the Ranch (tap to read)

The Railroad Ranch, which would become Harriman State Park, had many well-known visitors over the years. This was late in the history of the ranch. On the left is Steve Bly, who was the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation director in 1974 when the picture was taken. The fish belongs to Elliot Richardson. He was US attorney general during the Nixon and Ford Administration. He famously resigned rather than fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Nixon’s order during the Watergate scandal. 

Former Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick, who at the time was serving in the Nixon administration, also resigned in protest. 
 
By the way, fishing is no longer allowed in Silver and Golden lakes within the park. You can fish in Millionaires Hole on the Henrys Fork as it winds in front of the ranch compound. You can’t keep those trophy trout, though. It’s catch and release only. 

Idaho Coal (tap to read)

Coal is not a popular mineral in these days of climate change. But states where an abundance of it was found gained some prosperity for many years. Not Idaho, of course. No coal in Idaho. Or, as the Idaho Museum of Natural History states on their website, “Almost every important mineral except oil, gas and coal can be found in Idaho.”
 
Some would beg to differ. “A few thin beds” of coal have been found north of Horseshoe Bend and in the surrounding area. Also, geologists have found some coal near the Utah border in Cassia County. None of that amounts to much. But, how does 11 million tons sound? That’s the estimated amount of coal in several seams in the Horseshoe Basin near Driggs.
 
A small mine operated there beginning in 1905, but it was 1921 when things really got going with the development of a branch railroad to the Brown Bear seam where the Gem State Coal Company began working on a tunnel. By the following year the tunnel went 650 feet into the seam and coal had been shipped to nearby communities in Montana and Idaho. They mined into the 1930s, but a declining market for coal killed the operation. Most of that 11 million tons is still in the ground where, with the cost of other energy sources undercutting it, the coal will likely remain.
 
On a personal note, in 1924 my father-in-law was born in Sam, Idaho (long since abandoned) where his father was working for the Gem State Coal company.

Novelist Glenn Balch (tap to read)

When you're about ten years old there’s nothing better than curling up with a novel and stepping into the old time West with a story about a noble horse or a faithful dog. An Idaho man provided many of those perfect moments for kids.
Glenn Balch grew up in Texas. He came to Idaho to fight fires in in 1924 when he was 21 years. He wrote for the Idaho Statesman for several years, worked as an assistant to U.S. Senator John Thomas for a while, then served as a pilot in the U.S. Army-Air Force. During World War II, he flew over 100 hours in combat over enemy territory. In 1963, he retired as an army colonel.
 
Now, all that's an interesting life, but there was much more to the life of Glenn Balch. He also found time to write 35 books.
 
Balch wrote his first book, Riders of the Rio Grande, while snowbound at Pettit Lake in the Sawtooths. It was published in 1935. His books about animals and the wild West were favorites with juvenile readers, and he received many awards for them.
 
One of his best-known books, called Indian Paint, was made into a movie starring Johnny Crawford. His books have been translated into many foreign languages. One Glenn Balch novel, a dog story titled White Ruff, sold over a million copies, and the horse story Tiger Roan, has been reprinted 19 times.
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In September, 1989 at the age of 86, Glenn Balch died as the result of a car accident. The Boise author brought a lot of pleasure to generations of young readers. His books are largely out of print today.

Massacre Rocks (tap to read)

Massacre Rocks, sometimes called “Gate of Death” or “Devil’s Gate,” was a narrow choke point along the Oregon Trail where travelers passed between lava outcrops. The photograph on the left shows the old highway going through in the 1940s. On the right, I-86 follows the Oregon Trail through the substantially widened gap today.
 
The formation got its name because of fears of ambush. It was actually about two miles west of the rocks where a wagon train was ambushed. Travelers in five wagons clashed with Shoshoni Indians from August 9 to August 12, 1862, resulting in 10 immigrant deaths. Col. Patrick Conner and his troops retaliated for this and other skirmishes in January 1863 by attacking a Shoshoni winter camp along the Bear River, killing as many as many as 490 men, women, and children. That event is known today as the Bear River Massacre. Though nearly lost to history, the National Park Service is now undergoing efforts to identify the exact Bear River Massacre site and tell that sad story.
 
The skirmish at Massacre Rocks, which has been a state park since 1969, is probably the last reason to stop there. The park does interpret the events that gave the place its name, but the placid river, myriad birds, and killer disc golf are more likely to attract visitors today. 
Then and now. The photo on the left shows the old highway going through the "Gate of Death" in the 1940s. Today, most of the rock has been removed to accommodate the interstate.

An Aviation First (tap to read)

Idaho has a long aviation history, from the first commercial airmail service to wartime heroes like Pappy Boyington. Anneliese Satz, who grew up in Boise, added to that history in 2019.
 
Captain Satz became the first female Marine to pilot an F35B fighter jet. The F35B Lightning is a short takeoff/vertical landing aircraft that can reach speeds of 1,200 mph.
 
Satz is probably also the only member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes to pilot such an aircraft. She still has family living on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Southeast Idaho. She is a descendent of Chief Tahgee (Targhee). And, it’s likely she and her husband, Captain Anthony Pompei, are the only married couple flying the jets.
 
Satz is based in Japan with the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121. She has been in the Marine Corps since 2014. Prior to joining the service, Satz was a commercial helicopter pilot. She’s a graduate of Boise High School and Boise State University. ​Capt. Anneliese Satz puts on her flight helmet prior to a training flight aboard Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. Satz graduated the F-35B Lighting II Pilot Training Program June, 2019 and is assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 in Iwakuni, Japan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Ashley Phillips)
Senator Mike Crapo honoring Capt. Anneliese Satz and her husband, Capt. Anthony Pompei.

Dorthy Johnson (tap to read)

Largely because of the activities of the now defunct Aryan Nations, there is a lingering perception nationally that Idaho is not a place that welcomes diversity. Statistically, it is not a very diverse state. According to the Census Bureau, African Americans made up just .08% of the state during the most recent census in 2020. It was about the same in 1964, when an African American woman from Pocatello was chosen as Miss Idaho.
 
Yes, right in the middle of the civil rights movement, Idaho sent a woman of color to the Miss USA pageant. Nineteen-year-old Dorthy Johnson was not the first African American woman to compete in the pageant. That distinction went to Corinne Huff who served as an alternate for Miss Ohio in 1960. But Johnson was the first African American semi-finalist in the pageant.
 
There have since been several African American winners of the pageant, since. The first was Carole Gist, Miss Michigan, in 1990.
 
Idaho’s Dorthy Johnson would go on to become an award-winning educator. She was the Los Angeles Reading Association’s Teacher of the Year in 1992, listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and nominated for the Disney Teacher of the Year Award in 2002. Dorthy Johnson LeVels passed away in the town where she was born, Pocatello, in April 2017.

Coyote (tap to read)

If you raise sheep, it's almost a foregone conclusion that you aren't a fan of coyotes. Arguments rage over just how many sheep coyotes kill each year in Idaho, but the predators do enjoy an occasional lamb chop.
 
Coyotes aren't picky eaters. They consume mostly small rodents and rabbits, but they seldom turn up their nose at any meal, animal or vegetable. They would love to eat what your dog eats.
 
Coyotes are a lot like dogs. They're intelligent. They bark like dogs, and they look a lot like Bowser and ol' Blue, although a coyote's nose is pointier than most dogs, and his tail bushier. They are related closely enough to cross breed with domestic dogs.
 
When they run--at speeds up to 40 miles per hour--coyotes hold their tail down between their hind legs. They share that almost unique trait with only one other dog-like creature, the red wolf.
 
Coyotes are typically shy, nocturnal creatures. You're more likely to hear them than see them. They seem to love singing to the moon. What would a Western movie be without the sound of coyotes? If you hear one of those moon songs you can try singing back to a coyote. They will often answer your call.
 
Native Americans greatly admired coyotes. A common character in their stories, Coyote sometimes plays the part of a man, sometimes an animal, and sometimes a god. The creation story of the Nez Perce involves Coyote tricking a monster into swallowing him. Coyote frees all the animals the monster had swallowed and cuts up its parts to form many tribes saving the heart of the monster for the creation of the Nez Perce.
 
You can see the Heart of the Monster near Kamiah, Idaho, where the National Park Service retells that Coyote story.