Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 9

Mining Investor, Attorney, and Boise County Prosecutor Harry Fisher [otd 01/20]

Attorney Fisher. H. T. French photo.Attorney Harry Leroy Fisher was born January 20, 1873, on a farm in Daviess County, Missouri, 40-60 miles east of St. Joseph’s. He taught school there and also for a time in Ada County after coming to Idaho in 1891. Fisher then spent a year or two prospecting around the Boise Basin. From time to time, he also worked as a farm laborer.

For some years, along with his other jobs, Harry read law in private law offices in Missouri as well as Idaho. Then, in 1894, he...

Freighter, Lumber Man, Rancher, and Mining Investor Josiah Hill [otd 01/18]

On January 18, 1844, Coeur d’Alene pioneer Josiah Hill was born in New Brunswick, Canada. Like others in that part of the country, his father was from the state of Maine.
Clipper ship in Cape Horn ice, Currier & Ives print.
Library of Congress.
In about 1864, he traveled around Cape Horn to San Francisco and then to Seattle. He looked for opportunities there, but then returned to California. For three years, Josiah worked in the lumber industry, drove a stagecoach, and had various other odd jobs. ...

Geologist, Mining Engineer, and State Mine Inspector Robert Bell [otd 01/16]

Inspector Bell. J. H. Hawley photo.On January 16, 1864, mining engineer Robert N. Bell was born in Yorkshire, England. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1877-1880 and worked first on a farm in Wisconsin. After a year or two there, he moved to Montana and joined a railroad construction crew near Bozeman. When that was completed, Bell found work in a nearby coal mine.

He moved to Salmon, Idaho in 1884 and began prospecting in the surrounding mountains. Two years later, he and a partner made a valuable fi...

Town of Franklin Accepts Being in Idaho and is Formally Incorporated [otd 01/10]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch. Family Archives.On January 10, 1873, the Idaho Territorial legislature passed a “special act” to incorporate the village of Franklin. The Act defined the boundaries of the town, specified that it should have a mayoral form of government, and decreed that it should hold its first election “on or before the first Monday in August, A.D. 1873.” At that election, Mormon Bishop Lorenzo Hatch became the first mayor.

Franklin had begun as a normal extension of the Mormon colonies pus...

Outdoorsman, Writer, Photographer, and Game Warden Otto Jones [otd 01/08]

Outdoorsman Otto Jones.
J. H. Hawley photo.
Photographer and journalist Otto M. Jones was born January 8, 1886 on a ranch near Dillon, Montana. Two years later, the family relocated to a sheep ranch about twelve miles northwest of Boise City. They moved into the city about 1892.

Rather than attending high school in Boise, Otto went to a military academy in Virginia for a year and then spent two years in prep school at Washington State College (now University). He traveled around a bit, and then se...

Army Scout, Yellowstone Park Protector and Ashton Postmaster Felix Burgess [otd 01/06]

Army scout and Fremont County postmaster Felix Burgess was born January 6, 1847 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father, an immigrant from northern France, moved the family from Reading to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1856. After a brief time there, they moved on to Sauk Rapids, a town about 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Scout Burgess. [French]
For reasons he never explained, Felix ran away from home when he was about ten years old. He was taken in by an Army captain at Fort Ripley, about 40 miles nor...

Lewiston Normal School Receives its First Students [otd 01/06]

On Monday, January 6, 1896, Lewiston State Normal School – today’s Lewis-Clark State College – opened its doors to receive its first students. That event was a key milestone on the long path to establishing a teacher’s college in the town.
Young students with teacher, ca 1892. Arizona State University.
The second session of the Territorial Legislature, in 1864, passed a “common” school law, but the system developed slowly at first. In fact, most of the earliest local schools were private ventures...

Silver City Merchant and Postmaster M. M. Getchell [otd 01/05]

Meserve Getchell.
Directory of Owyhee County.On January 5, 1868, Postmaster Meserve M. Getchell was born in Baring, Maine, on the Canadian border and perhaps 25 miles inland from the Bay of Fundy. Mr. Getchell had a distinguished ancestry: his great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution and his mother was a Mayflower descendant.

He grew up on a farm, then found work in a sawmill as a teenager. Wanting something better, he clerked for a short while, then moved south into New Hampshire. Afte...

Major Fire Devastates the Silver Mining Town of Wardner [otd 01/04]

On January 4, 1890, a major fire broke out in a laundry behind a popular restaurant in the village of Wardner, Idaho, about a mile south of Kellogg. The small fire department and “hundreds” of volunteers responded quickly, but for some reason they did not have enough water available to check the flames. This being the dead of winter, firefighters heaved snow as fast as they could. Unfortunately, that failed to stop the fire, which continued for four hours.
Mining Town Fire damage, 1893. National ...

Businessman Peter Sonna Dedicates an Opera House for Boise City [otd 01/03]

On January 3, 1889, the Idaho Daily Statesman, Boise City, Idaho, headlined, “Dedication of the New Opera House under the auspices of the Boise City Board of Trade … ” The article went on, “The dedication … will take place in the above opera house, in Sonna’s new block … ”
Sonna Building. Boise Architectural Project.
The location reference was to a large construction project financed and planned by businessman Peter Sonna.

Born in New York City in November 1835, Sonna followed the gold rush to Cal...