Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 31

School Superintendent and Probate Judge Thomas Jeffreys [otd 04/07]

Judge Jeffreys. Illustrated History.Thomas M. Jeffreys, Probate Judge and Washington County Superintendent of Public Instruction, was born April 7, 1852 in Yamhill County, Oregon. The family had moved there from Missouri in 1845. Three years later, after the U. S. and Great Britain resolved the status of the Oregon Country [blog, June 15], Congress created Oregon Territory.

Attracted by opportunities in Idaho, his father Woodson took up land along the Weiser River in 1864. Woodson soon...

Investor and Mining Millionaire Amasa Campbell [otd 04/06]

Amasa Campbell. Illustrated History.Mining investor and executive Amasa B. Campbell was born April 6, 1845 in Salem, Ohio, about twenty miles southwest of Youngstown. In 1862, he took a clerks job at a firm engaged in grain and wool commission trading. After five years there, he worked two or three years in the west for the Union Pacific Railway.

During this period, Amasa developed an interest in Western mining prospects. For over a decade after 1871, he followed the industry in Utah,...

Aircraft Carrier Boss and Decorated Naval Hero Dixie Kiefer [otd 04/05]

Captain Dixie Kiefer.
U. S. Navy photo.U. S. Navy Commodore Dixie Kiefer, winner of the Navy Cross and other medals, was born April 5, 1896 in Blackfoot, Idaho. The family moved around while Dixie was young: The 1900 Census shows the family in Spokane. In 1910, his widowed mother Christena was listed as head of the household, in Lincoln, Nebraska.

It was from there that Dixie received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He graduated from the Academy in 1918. Kiefer first...

Steamer Accident Kills Five on the Coeur d Alene River [otd 04/04]

On April 4, 1887, the steamer Spokane pulled away from the dock at Kingston, Idaho. (That's about seven miles west of Kellogg.) The little boat chugged along the winding course of the Coeur d'Alene River. The Spokane had been built in 1882 for trade on the Snake River below Lewiston. Several transfers later, she was operating as an excursion steamer on Lake Pend Oreille. In 1887, a new owner moved the boat south to Lake Coeur d'Alene and modified it to handle freight as well as passengers.
...

Spud Farmer, Expert, and Booster Joe Marshall – Idaho® Potato King [otd 04/03]

Joe Marshall. Beal & Wells photo.Joseph P. Marshall, who did more than any other one person to improve and popularize the Idaho® potato, was born April 3, 1874 in Versailles, Ohio, about thirty miles northwest of Dayton. He moved west to Montana in 1892 and went to work at a stock ranch north of Billings. Over a period of years, he taught himself civil engineering as it related to canal building and irrigations systems.

 While shuttling between projects in Montana, North Dakota, and...

Cattle Rancher, Idaho Governor, and U. S. Senator George L. Shoup [otd 04/01]

Senator George L. Shoup.
National Archives.On April 1, 1889, President Grover Cleveland appointed Lemhi cattleman George Laird Shoup governor of Idaho Territory the last to hold that position. He was also, therefore, first to hold the position of state Governor. Shoup then became one of the state's first two U. S. Senators. Records suggest that some convoluted political machinations lurked behind this progression.

Shoup was born in Kittanning, about forty miles northeast of Pittsburgh,...

Novelist & Newspaper Columnist Vardis Fisher [otd 3/31]

Vardis Fisher.
Bonneville County Historical Society.Vardis Alvero Fisher, best known for his Western-themed novels, was born March 31, 1895 in Annis, Idaho. (Annis is about 4 miles north of Rigby.) He grew up in that area before going off to school at the University of Utah. After receiving his Bachelor's and Masters degrees there, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1925.

From 1925 to 1931, Fisher worked as an English professor at the University of Utah and then New York...

Medical Researcher and St. Luke’s Chief Surgeon Warren Springer [otd 03/30]

Dr. Springer. J. H. Hawley photo.Eminent Boise physician Warren David Springer was born March 30, 1864, near Toronto, Canada. He received a college degree and then went on to medical school at Trinity College in Toronto. After graduating with his medical degree, he took additional courses at the College of Physicians of Ontario.

Springer ran a practice near Toronto for a time and then moved to Ogden, Utah. After a relatively brief stay there, he opened a Boise office in 1892. Noted for his...

Prominent Attorney and Exposition Secretary George Huebner [otd 03/29]

Attorney George C. Huebner was born March 29, 1879 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. (Older records show the name as Huebener.) After graduating from high school there, George apparently worked at a store his father owned in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the same time, he attended the University of Minnesota Law School.

He received his degree in 1903 and moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the following spring. He was quickly admitted to the state bar and practiced in North Idaho for about a year. In 1905,...

Governor Issues Proclamation to End Owyhee War [otd 03/28]

Idaho Governor D. W. Ballard issued a proclamation on March 28, 1868 to halt a shooting war near Silver City. The statement said, in part, "the lawless proceedings of the parties referred to must cease and peace and order be restored, and to that end the whole power of the territory will be used."
Mine and mill buildings on War Eagle Mountain, 1866.
Historical ... Directory of Owyhee County.
The conflict, now known as the "Owyhee War," occurred between two competing mining companies: the Ida...