Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 125

Prospectors Discover Gold in the Owyhee Mountains [otd 05/18]

O.H. Purdy. Commercial Directory.On May 18, 1863, a band of twenty-nine men broke camp and marched south and west from Reynolds Creek over a regional divide.

Early that month, the group had set out from Placerville, in the Boise Basin. They were chasing rumors that Oregon Trail emigrants in the Forties had observed gold signs in southwest Idaho. After crossing the Snake River, they followed along it to the mouth of Reynolds Creek (which they named) and turned into the mountains.

According to t...

Second Major Fire Devastates Idaho City [otd 05/17]

The Illustrated History (published 1899) observed, “The second great fire of Idaho City, on the 17th of May, 1867, did not spare St. Joseph's as the first had done.”

The statement referred to the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which survived a fire that devastated Idaho city in 1865. Fathers Toussaint Mesplie and A. Z. Poulin had been sent by the Roman Catholic Archbishop in Portland to establish a presence in the mining camps. Originally from France, Mesplie had spent years as a missionar...

Divisions Among the Nez Percés Will Complicate Treaty Negotiations

The correspondent for The Oregonian penned another letter from Lapai on May 16, 1863. This was a follow-up to his report of four days earlier. He wrote, “Since my last there has been two or three talks with the Chiefs.  It was arranged that ‘Lawyer’ should have all his tribe in here by Monday next, and that the Council should commence then.”

He then named several other prominent chiefs and went on, “There seems to be great animosity existing between the bands of ‘Lawyer’ and ‘Big Thunder,...

Snake River Steamboat Shoshone Makes Trial Run [otd 05/16]

On May 16, 1866, the stern-wheel steamboat Shoshone made its first trial run on the Snake River. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company had built the vessel in a rough temporary shipyard near the confluence of the Boise and Snake rivers.
Shoshone look-alike.* Oregon Historical Society.
Unfortunately, Idaho at that time had virtually no manufacturing infrastructure. Every piece of machinery – boilers, engines, and so forth – had to be hauled from Oregon by freight wagon over the Blue Mountains. Th...

Improved Weather Allows Mining to Begin Around Florence

On May 15, 1863, the owner of a claim near Florence wrote to a friend in Lewiston and said, “We are having excellent weather now, and, the snow is rapidly disappearing. We expect to commence sluicing tomorrow.”

This was a turnaround from the previous month [sesquicentennial blog, April 16], when the snow was three feet deep. Then, continued cold weather had produced little run-off, so there was no water for placer mining. That had not, however, kept prospectors from searching for new, rich gro...

Miner, Rancher, Bank Founder, and Legislator Joseph Ireland [otd 05/15]

J. N. Ireland. H. T. French photo.Joseph N. Ireland, co-founder and namesake of the J. N. Ireland Bank, was born May 15, 1839 in Calvert County, Maryland. That's on Chesapeake Bay about twenty miles southeast of Washington. His father died when Joseph was eight, and at fourteen he went to Baltimore to learn saddle-making.

Many Marylanders had strong southern sympathies when the Civil War broke out. Ireland’s reminiscences give no indications, but it seems he might not have wanted to “take side...

High Gold Yields at Placerville. War News: Grant Takes Jackson, Mississippi.

The May 14, 1863 issue of  The Oregonian in Portland said, “At the lowest possible estimate the diggings of Placer District are now yielding $50,000 per day, and the balance of the districts in the county are yielding twice as much more. California Gulch, in Placer District, of itself yields $10,000 of this amount.”

Coincidentally, on that same day, the forces of General Ulysses S. Grant drove the Confederate garrison out of Jackson, Mississippi, and captured the city … the state capital....

Boise Founder, Idaho Legislator, and Rancher Henry Riggs [otd 05/14]

Henry Chiles Riggs, one of the founders of Boise City, was born May 14, 1826 in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, about thirty miles due east of Lexington. At the age of twenty, he joined the First Missouri Mounted Volunteers and saw action during the Mexican War.
H. C. Riggs. J. H. Hawley photo.
In 1850, Riggs traveled by wagon train to California, where he operated a hotel. He returned to Missouri to get married in 1852, but brought his bride back to California two years later. From there, they moved...

Boise Basin Mining Has Heated Up, Prospects Look Great

On May 13, 1863, the Golden Age in Lewiston reported the experiences of one “W. Miller,” who had “ just returned from the Boise mines, having been only seven days from Placerville.”

The item does not indicate what business Miller, who was said to be from Orofino, conducted in the Boise Basin. However, the traveler did find that the supply situation had eased considerably: “He reports provisions of all descriptions in abundant, and at low prices for that country. He met several trains also on t...

Movie and Television Costume Designer Eddie Stevenson [otd 05/13]

Susan Hayward costume,
David and Bathsheba, 1951.
Edward Stevenson Collection, ISU.Long-time Hollywood costume designer Edward Manson Stevenson was born May 13, 1906 in Pocatello, Idaho. Stevenson spent over thirty years designing movie costumes before switching over to television in 1955. Along the way, he created wardrobes for many of Hollywood’s biggest stars: Susan Hayward, Maureen O'Hara, Shirley Temple, Ginger Rogers, Edward G. Robinson, and many others.

Eddie credited an aunt who ran a m...