Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 124

Correspondent Rover: Business Lull in Lewiston, but Future Prospects Great

On May 24, 1863, correspondent “Rover” sat down in Lewiston, Idaho Territory, and penned another long letter to the Evening Bulletin in San Francisco, California. He wrote, “Business continues dull in this city. A stranger would suppose, from the large amount of freight landed here by the steamers each week, that an immense business was done; but such is not the case.”

“Freights are now very cheap,” he said, because of the steamboat competition he had noted in his letter of April 12. Thus, mer...

Stockmen Battle Rustlers and Horse Thieves: Then and Now [otd 05/24]

On May 24, 1889, the Secretary of the Idaho County Stock Growers’ Association posted a notice in the Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville): The Association would pay $100 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of rustlers and horse thieves. The specific wording targeted those who illegally branded or marked the animals.
Branding on the range. Library of Congress.
That reward amounted to about three months pay for a typical cowhand back then, so the stockmen were deadly serious. Ho...

Eastern Newspapers Spread Information, and Misinformation, About Idaho

The May 23, 1863 issue of a newspaper in Gloucester, Massachusetts said, “The new Territory of Idaho, created by the late Congress, is formed out of Eastern Oregon and Western Dakota, and extends from the eastern boundary of Oregon to the 27th meridian of longitude, and from the 42d to the 46th parallel of latitude, covering a hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles. ”

Over a month after word filtered West about the true borders, this writer still clung to the old misconception about the...

Cornerstone Laid for Idaho Soldiers Home in Boise [otd 05/23]

On May 23, 1893, dignitaries gathered in Boise City to lay the cornerstone for the new Idaho Soldiers’ Home. Meant to care for Union Army veterans of the Civil War who were “aged and in want,” the Home was completed the following year.
Union soldiers, ca. 1862. Library of Congress.
Idaho, of course, wasn’t even organized when the War started, and provided no Volunteer units for the conflict. However, by the time Idaho became a state, several thousand veterans had settled there. Not too surprisi...

Coeur d’Alene and Other Indian Reservations Opened to Homesteading [otd 05/22]

President Taft. Library of Congress.On May 22, 1909, President William Howard Taft issued a proclamation that opened "unreserved" agricultural, grazing, and timber lands on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation to white settlement under the homestead laws. The order also opened lands on the Flathead Reservation in Montana and the Spokane in Washington.

The Coeur d'Alene Indians (variously, “pointed hearts” or “hearts of awls”) were so named by early French-Canadian fur trappers. Purportedly th...

Glowing Report Meant to Rebut Negative Opinion of the Boise Mines

On May 21, 1863, The Oregonian published extracts from a private letter from the Placerville area in the Boise Basin. The miner wrote, “What I have to say, in regard to these mines, I hope you will take with due allowance for the fallibility of human judgment.  Daly and McReynolds did not remain here long enough to gain a proper understanding of these mines.“

The mention of “Daly” refers to a letter written to The Oregonian by William A. Daly in November 1862. He had tried his hand at the...

Richard Z. Johnson: Developer, Legislator, and Territorial Attorney General [otd 05/21]

R. Z. Johnson. Illustrated History.Richard Z. Johnson, who served in the Idaho Territorial Council and as Attorney General, was born May 21, 1837 in Akron, Ohio. Johnson had ancestors on both sides who fought in the American Revolution. The family moved from Vermont to Akron three or four years before Richard was born.

He received a law degree from Yale in 1859, then practiced for five years in Minnesota. While there, he served two terms as City Attorney in Winona, about 25 miles northwest of...

Choirmaster, Musical Leader, and Operatic Composer Eugene Farner [otd 05/20]

Eugene Adrian Farner, who initiated Boise’s annual “Music Week,” was born May 20, 1888 in New York City. A child prodigy, he played his first public violin solo at the age of eight. He later became the director for his high school’s orchestra and continued to direct it for three years after he graduated at seventeen. Throughout all his years of regular schooling, Eugene also studied music under private tutors, “some of whom were noted musicians.”

In 1910, Farner opened a studio in Coeur d’Alen...

Skinner Toll Road Connects Silver City to California Supply Route [0td 05/19]

On May 19, 1866, with great fanfare in the Owyhee mining camps, the Skinner Toll Road opened for business. The new road vastly improved stagecoach and freight wagon traffic into Silver City and the other nearby mining towns.
Silas Skinner. Skinner Family Archives.
Silas Skinner, from the Isle of Man, followed the rush after the May, 1863 discovery of gold along Jordan Creek in the Owyhee Mountains [blog, May 18]. He prospected for a time, but the cost of supplies shocked him. Merchants sympathi...

Jordan Creek Discoveries: 150 Years Ago Today

It so happens that today’s sesquicentennial blog is identical to my regular “On This Day” item: For May 18, 1863.

This Sesquicentennial “On This Day” feature has turned out to be very interesting … and I’ve found quite a bit more material than I initially expected. So, in parallel with doing the blog, I am also in the process of compiling them – with some expansion – into book form. My working title is Idaho: Year One – A Chronology of Idaho’s First Year as a Territory. If all goes well, I sh...