Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 17

Dr. Edward E. Maxey and Research on Spotted Fever [otd 08/21]

Dr. Maxey. H. T. French photo.Prominent Boise physician Edward E. Maxey, M.D, was born August 21, 1867, in Irvington, Illinois, about sixty miles east of St. Louis, Missouri. His father, also a physician, served in the Civil War and then moved the family to Caldwell, Idaho in 1887.

In 1891, Edward graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, and followed up with post-graduate work.

After his studies, he returned to Caldwell to join his father’s practice. For some reason, he t...

Wildfire -- "The Big Burn" -- Ravages North Idaho [otd 08/20]

On August 20, 1910, serious forest fires in and around Northern Idaho “blew up” into arguably the worst wildfire in U. S. history. More than anything else, weather conspired to set the stage for this catastrophe, starting as winter rolled into spring. April brought record temperatures to the Bitterroot Range along the Idaho-Montana border.

May … June … July … barely any rainfall and unprecedented heat turned the great forests into gigantic tinderboxes. By early August, scores of fires burned in t...

Wildfire -- "The Big Burn" -- Ravages North Idaho [otd 8/20]

On August 20, 1910, serious forest fires in and around Northern Idaho “blew up” into arguably the worst wildfire in U. S. history. More than anything else, weather conspired to set the stage for this catastrophe, starting as winter rolled into spring. April brought record temperatures to the Bitterroot Range along the Idaho-Montana border.

May … June … July … barely any rainfall and unprecedented heat turned the great forests into gigantic tinderboxes. By early August, scores of fires burned in t...

Philo Farnsworth, Inventor of the First Practical Television Recorder [otd 08/19]

Inventor and television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906 in Beaver County, Utah. The family moved to a farm near Rigby, Idaho during World War I. There, Philo set off on the path that would earn him the designation as “the father of television.”

Farnsworth accomplished much in his lifetime, despite seemingly endless fights in patent court. (In his lifetime, he was granted around 165 patents.) The whole story is beyond the scope of this article (but is readily available). Here,...

Desert Land (Carey) Act Signed to Encourage Irrigation in the West [otd 08/18]

On August 18, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the Desert Land Act of 1894, better known as the Carey Act. Sponsored by Wyoming Senator Joseph M. Carey, the Act was meant to improve the success rate for the settlement of the public lands. The law specifically addressed the millions upon millions of acres in the western states that required irrigation for productive farming – the so-called “arid lands.”
Joseph M. Carey.
Wyoming State Archives.
Individuals and irrigation cooperatives had alrea...

Mountain Man, Explorer, and Survivor John Colter [otd 08/17]

On August 17, 1806, discharged Army Private John Colter headed up the Missouri River with his two new partners, Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson. Captains Lewis and Clark had released him early from his enlistment because the Corps of Discovery no longer needed him. Clark wrote, “We were disposed to be of Service to any one of our party who had performed their duty as well as Colter had done.”

In particular, Colter was considered one of the best, if not the best hunter in the entire Corps. He al...

Captain Relf Bledsoe: Indian Fighter, Businessman, Prospector, Mine Manager ... and More [otd 08/16]

Capt. Beldsoe. Oregon Historical SocietyIndian fighter, business leader, and public servant Relf Bledsoe was born August 16, 1832 in Henderson County, Kentucky. That small county is located along the Ohio River, about a hundred miles west and a bit south of Louisville.

The family resettled first to Missouri and then Texas. In 1850, Bledsoe moved to California. He apparently had a knack for mining management, because by the age of twenty-two, he had attained a position as a mine Superintendent in ...

First Documented Visit to, and Sketch of, (Renamed) Shoshone Falls [otd 08/15]

On August 15, 1849, a guide led two men from a column of U. S. Army Mounted Rifles to see a great waterfall on the Snake river, three to four miles northeast of today’s Twin Falls, Idaho. They later told their commander that the huge falls compared favorably to Niagara Falls. (The falls are, in fact, about 45 feet higher than Niagara, although not as wide.)
Shoshone Falls, ca. 1868. Library of Congress.
At that time, the feature was known as “Canadian Falls,” a name picked by early trappers or per...

Snake River Steamboat Annie Faxon Explodes, Killing Eight [otd 08/14]

On the morning of August 14, 1893, the Snake River steamer Annie Faxon exploded, killing eight people and injuring eleven.
Steamer Annie Faxon. Washington State University archives.
Steamboats plied the waters of the Columbia River on a regular basis after about 1850. The most active stretch lay below the Cascade Rapids, about forty miles upstream from Portland. With the 1860 discovery of gold in Idaho, steamship companies found it profitable to extend their routes up the Snake.

That soon led to th...

Butch Cassidy and Two Gang Members Rob Montpelier Bank [otd 8/13]

On Thursday, August 13, 1896, Montpelier, Idaho sweltered under a blistering afternoon sun. Three riders walked their horses along a street, trailing a pack mare behind them. Had the local jeweler seen them, he might have recognized the three men he’d hired to gather hay on his ranch near the Wyoming border. His wife, who handled the spread while her husband ran his shop, considered them good workers.
Montpelier, ca. 1910.
Source uncertain: Wyoming Tales & Trails.
Founded by Mormon colonists in 1...