Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 51

Dr. Edward E. Maxey and Research on Spotted Fever [otd 8/21]

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 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 then...

Philo Farnsworth, Inventor of the First Practical Television Recorder [otd 8/19]

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). He...

Pioneer Miner, Merchant, and Stockman Orville P. Johnson [otd 08/10]

Western pioneer and Idaho freighter and stockman Orville Payne Johnson was born August 10, 1832, somewhere in Tennessee. Orphaned young, he knew his parents only by their first names, William and Sarah. Still, he somehow had the wherewithal to become a Forty-Niner, taking the isthmus route to the California gold fields. “O. P.” made a small fortune mining, but the raw teen-ager frittered it away in the dives and gambling dens of San Francisco.
O. P. Johnson. [French]
He almost quit and returne...

Rancher, Businessman, and Party Leader Robert Coulter [otd 8/9]

Robert Coulter.
Family portrait photo.Political operator, state Representative and agricultural pioneer Robert Coulter was born August 9, 1875 in Richmond, Kentucky, about eighty-five miles southeast of Louisville. In 1892, he moved to Oregon, where he worked at various jobs, including insurance and real estate, ranching, and boiler room operations. He married in 1901, in Portland, and moved to Washington County, Idaho the following year.

He first ran a dairy operation near Cascade (later count...

Madison County Farmer, Canal Builder and Probate Judge James A. Berry [otd 08/06]

Idaho pioneer and Probate Judge James Allen Berry was born August 6, 1854 in Bristol, England. His father, foreman at a basketmaking plant, suffered from ill health, so James began working at the age of nine. Sadly, the father died in 1870. Two years later, the widow brought the family to the United States. They settled in Salt Lake City.
James A. Berry. [Hawley]
Berry found work with the Utah Northern Railroad. He married in 1876 and they had three children within four years, but only one of t...

Boise and Southwest Idaho Automotive Pioneer Harry H. Bryant [otd 08/05]

Boise Ford dealer Harry H. Bryant was born August 5, 1871 on a farm about eight miles northwest of downtown Detroit. The family homestead was just four to five miles north of where automotive pioneer Henry Ford had been born eight years earlier. Harry grew up with two of Henry’s younger brothers, and his older sister Clara was a close friend of Henry’s oldest sister. Henry Ford and Clara Bryant were married in 1888.
H. H. Bryant. [Hawley]
Around 1890, Harry left home to find work. He married th...

Lewiston Newspaper Golden Age distributed Its First Issue [otd 08/02]

On Saturday, August 2, 1862, the Golden Age newspaper released its inaugural issue in Lewiston, Washington Territory. The Age thus has the honor of being the first newspaper published in what would become, seven months later, Idaho Territory.

The publisher was a man named A. S. Gould. We know very little about him beyond the fact that he had previously run a newspaper in Portland. He expected the Lewiston paper to flourish along with the regional gold rush.
Front page, Golden Age.
Timothy Hughe...

Construction Manager, Entrepreneur, and Prolific Bridge Builder James H. Forbes [otd 07/27]

Pioneer Idaho bridge builder James Hunter Forbes was born July 27, 1862 near Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents were both Scottish emigrants. With only a common school education, James began his working life as a farm laborer. However, after 1884, he spent about three years as a stonemason at various locations in Kansas.
James H. Forbes. [French]
Next, he found a job with a firm that specialized in bridge building. After perhaps ten years of that, Forbes went into business for himself, both directly...

Long-Time U. S. Senator Frank Church [otd 07/25]

Senator Church. Library of Congress.U.S. Senator Frank Forrester Church was born July 25, 1924 in Boise. He was a third generation Idahoan. His grandfather and namesake came to Placerville, Idaho in 1870-1872. In 1893, he was appointed to a four-year term as chief assayer at the U. S. Assay Office in Boise [blog, May 30]. Frank, Jr. operated a sporting goods store in Boise.

Future senator Frank III started school at Stanford University, but left to enlist in the U. S. Army the following year....

Rexburg Banker, Business Investor, and Landowner Ross J. Comstock [otd 07/22]

Long-time Rexburg pioneer Ross J. Comstock was born on July 24, 1875 in a remote part of northeast Missouri. The Comstocks had been among the earliest emigrants to New England, settling in Connecticut around 1637. Thus, several of Ross’s forebears fought for the Colonies during the American Revolution. His line moved to Missouri about the time of the Civil War.
Ross J. Comstock. [Hawley]
He said little about his early life, other than that he was on his own as a teenager. Thus, he married youn...