Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 5

Today's On This Day items gives me a chance to plug my b...

 Today's On This Day items gives me a chance to plug my book: Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho.

Con Shea was a major player in that history, along with many, many other pioneer stock raisers. Have a look at: Before The Spud.

Opening Day for Boise Junior College, Precursor to Boise State University [otd 09/06]

On September 6, 1932, Boise Junior College greeted its first students, 41 men and 37 women. BJC can actually trace its roots back to 1892, when the Episcopal church started St. Margaret's School. For forty years, St. Margaret's offered a “classical education” to girls in Boise.
Opening day, BJC. Boise State University photo.
By 1910, Boise was the largest city in Idaho. Other towns like Caldwell and Nampa further skewed the state’s population toward the Boise River valley. Yet, for reasons too co...

Philo Farnsworth, Inventor of the First Practical Television Camera [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,...

Butch Cassidy and Two Gang Members Rob Montpelier Bank [otd 08/13]

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...

Track Star, Olympic Athlete, and Coach "Hec" Edmundson [otd 08/03]

Coach, University of Idaho track star, and Olympian Clarence “Hec” Edmundson was born August 3, 1886 in Moscow, Idaho. In 1901, Clarence enrolled in the UI prep school and soon established himself as an outstanding distance runner.
Edmundson wins! University of Idaho archives.
Hec – “Aw Heck!” being his preferred expletive – basically put UI track & field athletics on the map. At most meets, he ran the quarter mile, the half, the mile, and anchored the mile relay. In 1905, Hec led a three-man “tea...

Railroad Town of Burley Incorporated [otd 7/19]

The town of Burley, Idaho, was incorporated on July 19, 1909. The village had grown explosively since being platted four years earlier, and many businesses supported the growing farm population. That included a new Bank of Commerce, founded in the spring of 1909 with former Boise Mayor James H. Hawley as Vice President.
Burley, ca 1918. [Hawley]
The location, near where Goose Creek emptied into the Snake River, was a familiar landmark on the Oregon Trail. Other than the river itself, the creek re...

Skinner Toll Road Connects Silver City to California Supply Route [otd 05/19]

On May 19, 1866, with great fanfare in the Owyhee mining camps, the Skinner Toll Road opened for business. The new road vastly improved stagecoach and freight wagon traffic into Silver City and the other nearby mining towns.
Silas Skinner. Skinner Family Archives.
Silas Skinner, from the Isle of Man, followed the rush after the May, 1863 discovery of gold along Jordan Creek in the Owyhee Mountains [blog, May 18]. He prospected for a time, but the cost of supplies shocked him. Merchants sympathized...

Grand Opening for Owyhee Hotel in Downtown Boise [otd 05/09]

On May 9, 1910, the Owyhee Hotel in downtown Boise opened for business. Naturally, managers touted their new establishment as the best, with the most modern features and richest décor in all the Pacific Northwest. The lobby and surrounding balcony, for example, could seat a thousand people for grand events.
Owyhee Hotel, ca. 1920. J. H. Hawley.
Hotels appeared early in the history of Boise City. Among these, the Overland Hotel, located just three blocks from the capitol building, was the place to...

Idaho Woolgrower, Businessman, and Legislator Fred W. Gooding [otd 05/08]

Fred Gooding. H. T. French photo.On May 8, 1856, woolgrower and state legislator Fred W. Gooding was born in Devonshire, England. Fred began work in a factory there at the age of eight, laboring in the morning and attending school in the afternoon.

The family emigrated to the U.S. in 1867 and settled in Michigan. As a young man, Fred worked on a farm in California before returning to the Midwest. There, he took business classes at what later became Valparaiso University in Indiana.

In 1882, he mov...

Idaho and the U.S. Armored Corps

Idahoans have a long tradition of military service. That history through World War I has been described in over a half-dozen articles here. Sources show that Idahoans served in all branches, including the “aero corp” and even the U.S. Coast Guard. The Idaho National Guard itself generally saw duty as infantry or in the field artillery.

Just recently, however, I learned of yet another historical role played by Idaho servicemen. This information came from an informant whose father, Theodore Thomps...