Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 56

Reverend Henry Spalding Establishes Presbyterian Mission at Lapwai [otd 11/29]

Henry Harmon Spalding.
National Park Service.On November 29, 1836, Henry Harmon Spalding established a Presbyterian mission among the Nez Percés Indians. The initial location was on Lapwai Creek about 10 miles east of today's Lewiston. Two years later Spalding moved the mission to a spot on the Clearwater River near the mouth of Lapwai Creek.

Born in New York state, Henry was in his early thirties when he built the mission. After graduation from Western Reserve College (now part of Case Western...

Pure Food, Dairy & Oil Commissioner William C. Howie [otd 11/27]

Commissioner Howie.
H. T. French photo.Attorney William Clarence Howie, Idaho Food, Dairy & Oil Commission President, was born November 27, 1860, in Davis County, Iowa. He graduated from high school in Bloomfield, the county seat, which is located about 15 miles south of Ottumwa. In 1883, William graduated from a Normal School in Bloomfield and moved to Nebraska to teach.

Howie also read at a couple of law offices. The senior partner at his second stay later became a Chief Justice of the N...

Wilson Price Hunt Fur Trade Party Reaches Boise Valley [otd 11/21]

In November 1811, Wilson Price Hunt recorded in his journal, “On the 21st at daybreak we saw ahead of us a river that flowed to the west, its banks lined with cottonwood and willow trees. Some Indians who had pitched camp there had many horses and were far better clothed than those whom we had seen recently."

Hunt’s party thus became the first whites to report seeing the Boise Valley. (A smaller group led by Hunt’s associate Donald Mackenzie had probably seen it earlier, but the details of Mac...

Volstead Act (Prohibition) Causes Turmoil in Idaho, Death at Caldron Linn [otd 10/28]

On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act to provide a framework for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Prohibition, as it has always been known, did not ban the consumption of alcoholic beverages, per se. What it did was to ban the manufacture, transport, or delivery of beverages containing more than 0.5% alcohol – except for specific research and development uses.
Illegal brewery busted. National Archives.
Unfortunately, Prohibition became a pri...

Vengeful Assailant Murders Judge John C. Brady in Rathdrum [otd 07/05]

On the night of July 5, 1901, farmer Henry Williambusse shot and mortally wounded newspaper editor and Probate Judge John C. Brady. This event was the violent climax to a dispute of two years standing.
Kootenai County Courthouse, Rathdrum, ca 1908. City of Rathdrum.
During the summer of 1899, locals "charged" Williambusse with insanity and brought evidence for the accusation before Brady in his capacity as Kootenai County Probate Judge. After hearing the evidence, Judge Brady found for the pros...

Water Starts Flowing Through Egin Bench Irrigation Canal [otd 06/01]

On June 1, 1883, water flowed from a pioneer canal onto Egin Bench farmland. The Bench bends for about 12-14 miles along the west side of Henry’s Fork, some 25 to 35 miles north of Idaho Falls.
Egin Bench farmland near Henry’s Fork.
The first settlers arrived on the bench during the summer of 1879, shortly after Utah & Northern Railway tracks reached Eagle Rock (today’s Idaho Falls). While they saw potential there, they had to be content at first with cutting hay and raising stock. The rive...

Boise Brewer and Capitalist John Lemp, Early Idaho Millionaire [otd 04/21]

Brewer, investor and eventual millionaire John Lemp was born in a small town about twenty miles north of Frankfurt, Germany, on April 21, 1838. His father died when he was twelve years old and, two years later, young John emigrated to the United States. He then made his way to Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked as a clerk for seven years.

John Lemp.[Illust-State]In 1859, Lemp joined a band of hopeful prospectors headed for Colorado and the Pike’s Peak gold fields. He was able to locate a cl...

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 T...

Stricker Log Home at Rock Creek Burns Down [otd 03/09]

On March 9, 1900, the Rock Creek home of Herman Stricker and his family burned to the ground. In some ways, this was a blessing as well as a tragedy.
Rock Creek. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Even before white men arrived, travelers in south-central Idaho depended upon the stream that gave Rock Creek Station its name. In August 1812, Robert Stuart provided the first written description of the feature. He called it Precipice Creek because, he wrote, “The banks of this stream, at and some distanc...

Two Sheepmen Shot to Death, Could Spark Range War [otd 02/04]

On the morning of February 4, 1896, two riders guided their horses along a rough track through the scrub-covered foothills of south-central Idaho. Earlier, they had glimpsed another horseman galloping along the stony road.
Sheep camp. Library of Congress.
James E. Bower, a superintendent for the Sparks-Harrell Cattle Company, thought the hard rider might be a cattleman suspected of being in cahoots with encroaching sheep raisers. His companion, cowboy Jeff Gray, agreed that it might be.

The two...