Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 106

Sesquicentennial Silver Excitement

My book Idaho: Year One, The Territory's First Year includes a news item gleaned from  The Oregonian for October 23, 1863. The item has now been displayed on the Sourdough Publishing blog, where you can also find the Table of Contents and other descriptive material about the book.

Sesquicentennial: Silver Discoveries

My book Idaho: Year One, The Territory's First Year includes a news item gleaned from  The Oregonian for October 23, 1863. The item has now been displayed on the Sourdough Publishing blog, where you can also find the Table of Contents and other descriptive material about the book.

Idaho Falls Gets Hydropower, William Jennings Bryan Stumps Idaho [otd 10/22]

Early spillway photo from Idaho Falls Power – History.
On October 22, 1900, Idaho Falls Mayor Joseph A. Clark initiated "official" municipal operation of a 125-horsepower hydroelectric plant. A diversion canal from the Snake River supplemented water from Crow Creek to run the plant: The generator basically ran off an irrigation ditch.

About five years earlier, a number of Idaho Falls businesses and residents had begun to express interest in obtaining electrical  power for the city. After a...

Sesquicentennial Samples Moved to Sourdough Publishing

By book Idaho: Year One, The Territory's First Year includes a news item gleaned from San Francisco Evening Bulletin for October 15, 1863. To make it simpler to access those samples along with the Table of Contents and other descriptive material, those items will be posted on the Sourdough Publishing blog from here on.

Bannock (Idaho) City Trader Absconds with Money, Provisions Shipped

On October 8, 1863, The Oregonian reported details on the census of Idaho Territory. (Those details were known and used earlier – after September 21 – by Governor Wallace in Lewiston, to establish legislative and judicial districts.)

The article then gave news from Bannock City: “Our mercantile community were a little startled a few days ago at the sudden disappearance of a Mr. Hoyt, formerly of Olympia.  He has been a successful trader – his profits in less than two months, have amounte...

Idaho History and Historic Preservation Conference

From mid-day September 25 through mid-day September 27, I attended Idaho’s Heritage Conference in Boise. (They invited me to take part in a book fair on the 25th.) It took me awhile to write about the event because I was finishing the newsletter I co-Edit for the Idaho Academy of Science.
Old Idaho Penitentiary.
The Conference was keyed off the Sesquicentennial of the creation of Idaho Territory, with sponsorship by the Idaho State Historical Society, Preservation Idaho, the Idaho Archaeologica...

Classes Start at College of Idaho, Boise Basin Gold Towns [otd 10/7]

On October 7, 1891, classes began at the new College of Idaho in Caldwell. The Presbyterian Church's Wood River Presbytery began discussing the idea of an Idaho college in 1884. Leaders canvassed the membership and found a considerable groundswell of interest. That interest grew, so in 1889 the Presbytery asked the Reverend William Judson Boone [blog, Nov 5] to explore the idea further.
College of Idaho, ca. 1900. College of Idaho photo.
The 1891 meeting of the Presbytery’s Education Commi...

First Women on Jury Duty in Idaho [otd 10/4]

On October 4, 1897, Idaho saw its first trial in which women sat on the jury – they having been granted equal suffrage the year before [blog, Nov 3]. Quoting historian Hiram T. French: “The women who, with W. R. Cartwright and R. F. Cooke, served on this jury were Mrs. R. E. Green, Miss Frances Wood, Mrs. Boyakin, and Mrs. E. J. Pasmore.”
All-woman Jury, Later. Library of Congress.
All the women included in that first jury had been active in Idaho women’s suffrage campaign. Mrs. Richard E. Gre...

University of Idaho Greets Its First (Under-Qualified) Students [otd 10/3]

On Monday, October 3, 1892, the University of Idaho in Moscow greeted its first prospective students, about 40 of them. That event completed one of the odder paths to the creation of an American university.

The story really began with the creation of Idaho Territory in March 1863. The Federally-appointed Governor, William H. Wallace, made Lewiston the capital, even though the region’s population had already moved south: The 1863 Census showed roughly 1,500 along the Clearwater River and in Lew...

Prospectors led by Elias Pierce Find Gold on Orofino Creek [otd 10/2]

E. D. Pierce. [Hawley]Speaking of this day in October 1860, Captain Elias D. Pierce said, “[On] the second we moved down and camped on the stream, afterwards called Oraphenia creek. Here we found better prospects than further up the stream where we first made the discovery, which was a sufficient guarrentee that we had a rich and extensive mining camp, and organized a new mining district, and gave its boundaries, drafted a code of mining laws, to govern our new mining district.”

Their discove...