Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 80

Snake Indians Defeat U. S. Army at Battle of Three Forks [otd 05/27]

The afternoon of May 27, 1866, a force of white infantry and cavalry encountered a band of about 500 “Snake” (Shoshone-Bannock-Paiute) Indians at the Three Forks of the Owyhee River. Major Louis H. Marshall had led the U. S. Army Regular infantry out of Boise Barracks in an attempt to “pacify” the tribes. Indian attacks on outlying ranches and passing stagecoaches had intensified as prospectors and ranchers poured into the Owyhee area.
Three Forks of the Owyhee.
Photo posted on flickr.com by L...

Idaho Territory Reduced in Size to Create Montana [otd 05/26]

On May 26, 1864, the U. S. Congress passed legislation that reduced the previously-massive Idaho Territory by creating Montana Territory and splitting off most of future Wyoming. President Lincoln signed the bill two days later. By this action, they solved one of the major problems with the original structure of Idaho Territory.
Original Idaho Territory.
Adapted from J. H. Hawley with future borders tinted in color.
When Congress created Idaho Territory in 1863 [blog, Mar 4], it encompassed toda...

Boise Veterinarian, Horse Breeder and State Veterinary Surgeon George Noble [otd 05/25]

Dr. George Edward Noble, Idaho’s first State Veterinarian, was born May 25, 1868 in Nashua, Iowa. (Nashua is about 100 miles west and a bit north of Dubuque.) There are conflicting accounts of his early education, but as a youth he apparently completed a business program at Upper Iowa University (in Fayette, a tiny town about sixty miles northwest of Dubuque).
Vet students learn about horses. Kansas State University Archives.
After “nine terms” of teaching school, George began studies at t...

Stock Growers Offer Reward to Catch Rustlers 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. Ho...

Cornerstone Laid for Idaho Soldiers Home in Boise [otd 05/23]

On May 23, 1893, dignitaries gathered in Boise City to lay the cornerstone for the new Idaho Soldiers’ Home. Meant to care for Union Army veterans of the Civil War who were “aged and in want,” the Home was completed the following year.
Union soldiers, ca. 1862. Library of Congress.
Idaho, of course, wasn’t even organized when the War started, and provided no Volunteer units for the conflict. However, by the time Idaho became a state, several thousand veterans had settled there. Not too surprisi...

Coeur d’Alene and Other Indian Reservations Opened to Homesteading [otd 05/22]

President Taft. Library of Congress.On May 22, 1909, President William Howard Taft issued a proclamation that opened "unreserved" agricultural, grazing, and timber lands on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation to white settlement under the homestead laws. The order also opened lands on the Flathead Reservation in Montana and the Spokane in Washington.

The Coeur d'Alene Indians (variously, “pointed hearts” or “hearts of awls”) were so named by early French-Canadian fur trappers. Purportedly th...

Richard Z. Johnson: Developer, Legislator, and Territorial Attorney General [otd 05/21]

R. Z. Johnson. Illustrated History.Richard Z. Johnson, who served in the Idaho Territorial Council and as Attorney General, was born May 21, 1837 in Akron, Ohio. Johnson had ancestors on both sides who fought in the American Revolution. The family had moved from Vermont to Akron three or four years before Richard was born.

He received a law degree from Yale in 1859, then practiced for five years in Minnesota. While there, he served two terms as City Attorney in Winona, about 25 miles northwest...

Skinner Toll Road Connects Silver City to California Supply Route [0td 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 sympathi...

Prospectors Discover Gold in the Owyhee Mountains [otd 05/18]

O.H. Purdy. Commercial Directory.On the morning of May 18, 1863, a band of twenty-nine men broke camp and marched south and west from Reynolds Creek over a regional divide.

Early that month, the group had set out from Placerville, in the Boise Basin. They were chasing rumors that Oregon Trail emigrants in the Forties had observed gold signs in southwest Idaho. After crossing the Snake River, they followed along it to the mouth of Reynolds Creek (which they named) and turned into the mountains....

Snake River Steamboat Shoshone Makes Trial Run [otd 05/16]

On May 16, 1866, the stern-wheel steamboat Shoshone made its first trial run on the Snake River. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company had built the vessel in a rough temporary shipyard near the confluence of the Boise and Snake rivers.
Shoshone look-alike.* Oregon Historical Society.
Unfortunately, Idaho at that time had virtually no manufacturing infrastructure. Every piece of machinery – boilers, engines, and so forth – had to be hauled from Oregon by freight wagon over the Blue Mountains. Th...