Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 4

Opening Day for the Academy of Idaho (Now Idaho State University) Classes [otd 9/22]

On Monday September 22, 1902, the Academy of Idaho – precursor to today’s Idaho State University – celebrated its first opening exercise. Ironically, the people of Pocatello wanted the Academy so badly, it almost didn’t get off the ground.
Pocatello, ca 1895. Bannock County Historical Society.
Pocatello was incorporated in 1889. As a major railroad junction, it grew explosively, topping 4,000 citizens by the 1900 census. After hard lobbying by locals, the governor signed a bill, in March 1901, th...

Idaho Medical Association Holds Its First Organizational Meeting [otd 09/12]

On Tuesday, September 12, 1893, a number of Idaho physicians arrived in Boise City from all over the state. They had assembled to organize a state professional medical association. One historian has commented that “the state was overrun with quacks” at the time. A letter from Dr. Carol Lincoln Sweet to physicians statewide prompted the meeting, which was held at the new City Hall.
Boise City Hall, first occupied in May 1893.
[Illust-State]
A New Yorker with a degree from Albany Medical College, Swe...

Lewiston State Normal School President George Knepper [otd 9/7]

President Knepper. J. H. Hawley photo.Lewiston State Normal School President George E. Knepper was born September 7, 1849 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 40-60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Later the family moved to Illinois.

George did well with a “common” education, finding a job as a teacher while also doing farm work. Later, he taught part-time and served as a school administrator to help finance an A.B. degree and then a Master’s. (He would earn a Ph.D. from a Kansas university in 1904.)

M...

Idaho Falls Medical Pioneer Clifford M. Cline, M.D. [otd 08/11]

Idaho Falls physician Clifford M. Cline, M.D., was born August 11, 1884 in a rural area sixty miles or so north of Des Moines, Iowa. Accounts of his early life are a bit skimpy. However, in 1900 he was living west of Des Moines with his mother and stepfather, a physician. Years later, Dr. Cline said that browsing his stepfather’s medical library inspired him to pursue that career. He proved to be an outstanding scholar. In 1902 – aged 18 – he was listed among the anatomy faculty of the Universit...

Bartleson-Bidwell Emigrant Party Enters Idaho, Headed for California [otd 08/08]

John Bidwell, 1840.
Meriam Library, Chico State University.On August 8, 1841, the group generally referred to as the Bartelson-Bidwell emigrant party entered what would one day become the state of Idaho. By most accounts, John Bidwell had been the driving force behind this first larger movement of settlers to the West.

John was born in 1819, in New York state. Later, the family moved west as far as Ohio. John himself continued further west, and 1840 found him teaching school in Missouri. Unhappy w...

Army Establishes Fort Lapwai on the Nez Percé Indian Reservation [otd 07/22]

According to Idaho State Historical Society records, a troop of Oregon Volunteer cavalry established Camp – later Fort – Lapwai on July 22, 1862. The location selected was near the mission established by Presbyterian minister Henry Harmon Spalding in 1836 [blog, Nov 29]. Although the church abandoned the mission after the Whitman Massacre in 1847, the Nez Percé Indians continued to occupy the site.

When Elias Pierce discovered gold on Orofino Creek, in 1860, prospectors poured into the region. Ho...

Stock Growers Offer Reward to Catch Cattle and Horse Thieves [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. Horse...

Gold Rush Fuels Murray Building Boom [otd 03/05]

The Lewiston Teller for March 5, 1885 published a glowing report from a correspondent in the new town of Murray, Idaho. The observer first noted that people in the entire mining district exuded confidence. At a settlement 3-4 miles west of Murrayville (Murray's original name), the reporter "counted eleven buildings under construction."
Placer mining, Murray area, 1884. Note miners in foreground.
University of Idaho Archives. Miners were running large placer rigs on streams throughout the area. Whi...

Six Miners Killed in Sudden Mining District Fire [otd 02/25]

On Tuesday, February 25, 1902, about three o'clock in the morning, the residents of the connected Standard Boarding and Lodging houses slept quietly. Most of them worked for the Standard Mine, located on Canyon Creek, about five miles northeast of Wallace, Idaho.
Standard Mine, ca. 1910. University of Idaho archives.

Placer miners prospected Canyon Creek for gold in 1884. However, as happened for many Coeur d’Alene strata, they failed to note the valuable lead-silver lodes buried in these ridges. ...

University of Idaho Language Professor and Dean Jay Eldridge [otd 11/08]

Dean Eldridge.
University of Idaho Archives.University of Idaho Dean of the Faculty Jay Glover Eldridge was born November 8, 1875, in Janesville, Wisconsin (about 60 miles southwest of Milwaukee).

After much moving around the country, the family ended up in New York state where the young man received his early education. He then graduated with highest honors from Yale University in 1896. (He received a Ph.D. from the school ten years later.)

He then studied modern languages at Yale while also servi...