Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 89

Attorney, Developer, and Public Servant Albertus Freehafer [otd 02/12]

Attorney and legislator Albertus L. Freehafer was born February 12, 1868, in Mansfield, Ohio, about seventy miles southwest of Cleveland. After high school, he taught for three years, saving as much as he could.
Ohio Northern University, ca 1890.
Vintage postcard, Columbus Metropolitan Library.
With that “nest egg” and what he could earn during the summer, Albertus attended Ohio Northern University, then called Ohio Normal University. He graduated in 1893.

For three years, Freehafer served as a...

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...

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...

Attorney and Legal Scholar Colonel Edwin G. Davis, D.S.M. [otd 02/09]

Colonel Davis. H. T. French photo.Colonel Edwin G. Davis was born on February 9, 1873, at Samaria, Idaho, near Malad City. An early interest in teaching led him to a year as school principal in Utah, followed by a year as a principal in Malad. Then, in 1896, a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Idaho secured him an appointment to the Military Academy.

Davis graduated from West Point in June 1900. Three months later, he found himself in the Philippine, where the Army was trying t...

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 hi...

Governor Bottolfsen Signs Junior College District Bill into Law [otd 02/07]

Governor Bottolfsen.
University of Idaho archives.On February 7, 1939, Governor Clarence A. Bottolfsen signed a bill that authorized the formation of local junior college districts in the state of Idaho. The new law allowed district voters to approve a local tax levy to support the school. Also, the district would receive half the state liquor store profits collected in the county where the school was located.

The law arose largely at the instigation of advocates in the Boise Valley, who had lo...

World War I Hero Army Lieutenant John Regan, D.S.C. [otd 02/06]

Timothy Regan. J. H. Hawley photo.U. S. Army Lieutenant John M. Regan, D.S.C., was born February 6, 1886, in Silver City, Idaho. John’s father Timothy, with ample capital from his hotel and other business interests, came into possession of many valuable mining properties as they fell on hard times. When the economy improved, Timothy grew not just prosperous, but quite wealthy. The family moved to Boise City in 1889 and father Regan quickly became a prominent leader in area development.

John R...

Congress Approves Appropriation for Mullan Military Road Planning [otd 02/05]

Governor Stevens. Library of Congress.On February 5, 1855, Congress approved a $30,000 appropriation to plan the construction of a military road from Fort Walla Walla, Washington to Fort Benton, Missouri. Major impetus for such a road came from Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, with support from the U. S. Army’s Department of the Columbia.

In theory, a northern route to match the Oregon Trail would encourage Washington settlement, one of the Governor’s cherished goals. He al...

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...

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...