Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 136

Bonner County Split Off from Kootenai, Coeur d’Alene Ready to Pounce [otd 02/21]

On February 21, 1907, Idaho Governor Frank Gooding signed the legislative act that split Bonner County away from Kootenai County.

Creation of Bonner County was straightforward enough, and a general election confirmed Sandpoint as the county seat. Soon, they established a county government and built a courthouse.
Bonner County Courthouse, Sandpoint, ca 1910.
J. H. Hawley photo.However, the legislation left the new, reduced Kootenai County with some unfinished business. The Idaho Territorial legi...

Merchant, Mining Investor, Rancher, and Public Servant Alexander McKinlay [otd 02/20]

Pioneer rancher, prospector, and merchant Alexander Duncan McKinlay was born February 20, 1853 in Clayton County, Iowa, 20-40 miles northwest of Dubuque. In 1877, a year after he married in Iowa, he took up land on Idaho's northern Camas Prairie and went into farming.
Three-horse plow.
Library of Congress.
Almost immediately, he became involved in the Nez Perce War and the other Indian conflicts in 1878 and 1879 ... and acquitted himself well. The Illustrated History of the State of Idaho descr...

Lawyer, Public Servant, and Published Poet Herbert Ferguson [otd 02/19]

Herbert Ferguson.
H. T. French photo.Colonel Herbert Van Allen Ferguson was born February 19, 1852, in Three Mile Bay, New York state, about 65 miles north of Syracuse. After attending a preparatory institute in Rochester, he taught school in New York and in Michigan.

Clearly a talented and impressive young man, at the age of eighteen he served as a high school principal in New York. Ferguson then enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School, graduating with an LL.B degree in 1878.

After f...

Federal Land Grants for Territorial University Purposes [otd 02/18]

Congressman Justin Morrill.
Library of Congress.On February 18, 1881, Congress passed "an act to grant lands to Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming, for university purposes." These lands could then be sold to provide endowment funds for what we now call "land grant" universities; that is: "colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts."

The original "land grant college" law – the Morrill Act of 1862 – gave acreage "to the several states" based on their numbers of Congre...

Teacher and Newspaper Operator Frances Roberts, and Her Sister Nellie [otd 02/17]

Newspaper owner and publisher Frances Ida Roberts was born February 17, 1860, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her sister Nellie had been born in 1844. Their grandfather and father both ran newspapers, the grandfather in Kentucky and Indiana,
Early printing press.
Library of Congress.
Both girls learned the newspaper business from the ground up. Thus, as a pre-teen, Frances helped set type at her father's print shop. Toward the end of her high school years, she studied piano at a music institute in Miss...

Sheepmen John Wilson and Daniel Cummings Found Dead [otd 02/16]

On the morning of February 16, 1896, sheepman Edgar "Ted" Severe settled his flock and then set up camp. Twelve days earlier, a looming snow storm had chased him from the campsite, located about 26 miles south of the near-future town of Twin Falls. Ted was worried. His flock was well over into cattle country, west of the informal “deadline” that was supposed to separate sheep from cattle range.
Sheep wagon. Library of Congress.
He had received thinly-veiled threats, but no one had directly conf...

Wife, Sounding Board, and Philanthropist Lillian Bounds Disney [otd 02/15]

Lillian Marie Bounds, wife of the world-renowned entertainment innovator Walt Disney, was born February 15, 1899, in Spalding, Idaho. She grew up on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, where her father was a Federal marshal and a blacksmith.
Lewiston, ca. 1918. J. H. Hawley photo.
Around her, the Indians still wore traditional garb and the pioneer environment dominated. While the old “Wild West” was passing, horses were still far more common than cars. As a teenager, she surely visited the “big c...

Physician and Drug Store Operator William Anderson [otd 02/14]

Dr. William Hopkins Anderson was born February 14, 1835, in Florence, Pennsylvania, 20-25 miles west of Pittsburgh. He had family roots back to Revolutionary War times and his paternal grandfather participated in the War of 1812. His mother, Dorcas Hopkins, had a distant relationship with the founder of Johns Hopkins University.
Country doctor. National Archives.
Anderson graduated from a Cincinnati medical school in 1855. He immediately opened a practice in a rural section of Iowa, about seven...

Mining and Irrigation Developer, and Boise Founder John A. O’Farrell [otd 02/13]

John O'Farrell. H. T. French photo.World traveler and Boise pioneer John Andrew O'Farrell was born February 13, 1823, in Ulster, Ireland. He went to sea after two years in a naval school: The round trip from London to Calcutta and back made O'Farrell a seasoned sailor at 16. He then became a crew member on an East India Company ship that sailed to Syndey, Australia, and widespread points in between.

O’Farrell remained in England for a year or so, qualifying as a shipyard worker. He then signe...

Attorney, Developer, and Public Servant Albertus Freehafer [otd 02/12]

Attorney and legislator Albertus L. Freehafer was born February 12, 1868, in Mansfield, Ohio, about seventy miles southwest of Cleveland. After high school, he taught for three years, saving as much as he could.
Ohio Northern University, ca 1890.
Vintage postcard, Columbus Metropolitan Library.
With that “nest egg” and what he could earn during the summer, Albertus attended Ohio Northern University, then called Ohio Normal University. He graduated in 1893.

For three years, Freehafer served as a...