Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 8

Inventor, Atomic Bomb Witness, and University Professor Larry Johnston [otd 02/11]

Larry Johnston, ca 1945. U. S. Army.
Physicist Lawrence Harding “Larry” Johnston was born February 11, 1918, in Shantung (Shandong) Province, China. His parents were missionaries, who returned to the U. S. in 1923, probably to avoid Nationalistic unrest in the area. By 1930, his father held a position as a Presbyterian pastor in Santa Maria, California.

Like many boys of that era, Larry was fascinated by electricity. That led him to a B.S. degree in physics from the University of California at Ber...

Arthur Pence: Stockman, Legislator, and Hot Springs Owner [otd 02/10]

Senator Pence. H. T. French photo.Idaho rancher Arthur Lee Pence was born February 10, 1847, near Des Moines, Iowa. He chose to make his own way at an early age. In 1864, his brother-in-law and sister Martha decided to move to the West. Arthur examined his prospects in Iowa, and then found himself a job driving an ox team for a wagon train. The column disbanded at Boise City, so Arthur drove a load of hay to Idaho City.

Pence briefly tried his hand at prospecting but soon turned back to freightin...

Idaho U. S. Senator, Lawyer and Judge Kirkland I. Perky [otd 02/08]

U. S. Senator from Idaho Kirtland Irving Perky was born on February 8, 1867 in Smithville, Ohio, about 22 miles southwest of Akron. The family surname is generally considered an Americanization of the Swiss and south-German name “Bürki.” His physician father had contracted health problems serving during the Civil War and died when Kirtland was about five years old.
Lawyer Kirtland Perky. [Hawley]
His widowed mother moved the family to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1880 and then to a small town north of Lin...

Landowner, Sheep Rancher, and Supreme Court Justice Charles O. Stockslager [otd 02/08]

Judge Stockslager.
Illustrated History photo.Idaho Supreme Court Justice Charles O. Stockslager was born on February 8, 1847, in Indiana, about ten miles west of Louisville, Kentucky. He attended a Normal school in Lebanon, Ohio, but apparently never taught school himself. Charles decided to become a lawyer instead. He read law at his brother’s office in Indiana, and then with some “prominent attorneys” in Kansas.

Admitted to the Kansas bar in 1874, he practiced there until 1887. Along with his p...

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. James E. Bower, a superintendent for the Sparks-Harrell Cattle Company, had headed south from Rock Creek after breakfast. He was in no particular hurry and, after about a half hour, cowboy Jeff Gray had overtaken him. Not long after they joined up, they glimpsed another horseman galloping far ahead of them along the stony road.
Sheep camp. Library of C...

Avalanche Cluster Brings Tragedy to Coeur d’Alene Area, Six Killed at Custer Mine [otd 02/03]

At suppertime on Monday, February 3, 1890, a dozen miners who worked at the Custer Mine sat eating after a long day. The mine, high above Nine Mile Creek about six miles northeast of Wallace, had been located in 1885.
Custer Mill, ca 1890. University of Idaho archives.
Actually, according to the Illustrated History of North Idaho, eager prospectors had combed that area the year before, "but they were looking for placer gold, and were, perhaps, without much skill in their business, so failed to se...

Attorney, Montpelier Mayor, and U. S. Congressman Thomas Glenn [otd 02/02]

Congressman Glenn.
H. T. French photo.U. S. Congressman Thomas L. Glenn was born February 2, 1847 near Bardwell, Kentucky, in the extreme southwest corner of the state. His father died two years later. The family moved first to Indiana and then to Illinois, ending in Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

When the Civil War began, Thomas clamored for a chance to fight, despite his youth. (Like many Kentuckians, he supported the Confederacy.) Then, in 1862, his mother died, le...

William A. Foster, Boise Fireman and Long-Time Fire Chief [otd 01/28]

Chief Foster.
Boise Fire Department.Boise Fire Chief William A. Foster was born on January 28, 1870, in Grinnell, Iowa. The family relocated to the high plains of northwestern Kansas when William was about fifteen years old. Then, in 1890, he moved to Idaho. He worked as a teamster hauling lumber for a time and then went into the freight business for himself.

After that, Foster spent five years representing a lumber company before moving out of state for a couple years. He returned to Boise in 18...

Freighter and Rancher “Doc” Rankin – A Legend in His Own Time [otd 01/24]

"Doc” Rankin. H. T. French photo.
William Allen “Doc” Rankin was born January 24, 1836, in Lafayette, Indiana. Several ancestors in his paternal line fought in the American Revolution, later being plantation owners in Virginia. Although Doc’s family moved to the Midwest (to Iowa after Indiana), they retained strong family ties to Virginia.

Thus, because his forebears were “old line” Virginians, the young man sympathized with the South during the Civil War. When the war began, Rankin was in Iowa fa...

Idaho Falls Businessman and Booster Frank C. Bowman [otd 01/20]

Idaho Falls businessman and civic leader Frank C. Bowman was born January 20, 1870 in Morgan County, Utah, fifteen to twenty miles southeast of Ogden. Frank started farm work at an early age, but around 1881 the family moved to Salt Lake City.

Two years later, Frank took a job as a “cash boy” at a large dry goods and millinery store. (The cash boy ran money received from a customer by a salesman to the main – often the only – cashier and returned with the proper change.) Starting with that as a b...