Evan E. Filby's Blog: South Fork and More, page 94

Freighter, Stagecoach Driver, and Eagle Developer John Carpenter [otd 03/26]

John R. Carpenter.
J. H. Hawley photo.Pioneer John R. Carpenter was born March 26, 1846 near Albany, New York. In 1859, John helped his father drive a covered wagon to California while his mother traveled by ship around Cape Horn. After mining and ranching in California and then Oregon for awhile, the family moved to Idaho in the spring of 1863.

John and his father hauled logs and carried freight for several years. On one early trip to procure supplies in Oregon, highwaymen attacked and robbed...

Rocky Mountain Fur Company Advertises for "Enterprising Young Men" [otd 03/20]

William H. Ashley.
Legends of America.Missouri Republican, St. Louis, March 20, 1822: "To enterprising young men. The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri river to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years … "

Signed by William H. Ashley, the job posting marked the first public presence of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company (RMFC).

At the time, independent American trappers and small fur companies were focused on exploiting the Missouri Ri...

Boise Developer and Saloon Owner Madison Smith [03/15]

Madison Smith. H. T. French photoBoise pioneer Madison C. Smith was born March 15, 1839 in Richmond, Missouri, about 35 miles northeast of Kansas City. The family moved West in 1851, crossing Idaho in a wagon train. Local Indian unrest was rising at that time, but the party had no trouble. They settled in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Unfortunately, Indians killed Madison’s father in 1856, so he had to work the family ranch until his mother remarried.

Madison was out on his own by 1860, and...

Idaho State Highway Commission Created to Improve Transportation System [otd 03/13]

On March 13, 1913, the Idaho legislature established the State Highway Commission. They thus joined a nationwide trend to raise highway planning and construction to the state level. Prior to that, roads had been almost exclusively a local concern.
Country "Road." National Archives.
Of course, emigrant wagons cut the first roads across Idaho, starting in the early 1840s. The pioneers naturally did only enough to make the route passable. In 1857-1860, the U. S. Army built the first planned roads...

Act Signed to Create Academy of Idaho, Today’s Idaho State University [otd 03/11]

On March 11, 1901, Governor Frank W. Hunt signed an Act to establish an educational institution in Pocatello. Incorporated in 1889, the town had grown explosively and topped 4,000 citizens in the 1900 census.

The authorization for a school, to be called the “Academy of Idaho,” came with a catch, however. The townspeople had to supply land for the institution. The subsequent dispute almost killed the Academy before it started.
Administration Building, Academy of Idaho, ca. 1912.
H. T. French ima...

Arthur Goody: Canal Company Executive, County Commissioner, and Lewisville Farmer [otd 03/06]

Commissioner Goody.
J. H. Hawley photo.Prominent farmer and Jefferson County Commissioner Arthur James Goody was born March 6, 1871 in Cache County, Utah, 10-15 miles northwest of Logan.

His father, Arthur Joseph, had come to the United States from England in 1863, when he was in his early teens. The parents – Mormon converts – followed a year later and settled on land north of the Great Salt Lake. By 1870, Arthur Joseph had married and moved to the area where Arthur James was born.

In 1883, the...

Commission Created to Oversee Idaho Capitol Construction [otd 03/03]

On March 3, 1905 Governor Frank Gooding signed an Act to create a "Capitol Building Board." For some years prior to this, state officers and citizens had begun to find the old Territorial capitol building inadequate to the needs of a new and growing state.
Old Territorial/State capitol building, ca 1898.
Illustrated History of the State of Idaho.
Before 1884, the Territorial legislature apparently met in various hotels where they could find enough rooms, and Territorial offices were at scattere...

Idaho Supreme Court Justice George Stewart [otd 02/26]

Idaho Supreme Court Justice George Harlan Stewart was born February 26, 1858 in Connersville, Indiana, about fifty miles east of Indianapolis. He was something of an intellectual prodigy: George leaped through a “common” education to himself teach at country schools.
Law School at Valparaiso, ca 1880. Valparaiso University Archives.
After several years, he entered Northern Indiana Normal school, in Valparaiso. (In 1900, the school became Valparaiso College, now University.)

George completed thei...

Emma Russell Yearian: Wife, Mother, and “Sheep Queen of Idaho” [otd 02/21]

Emma Russell, “Sheep Queen of Idaho,” was born February 21, 1866 in Leavenworth, Kansas. Her father had been born in Illinois and served in an Illinois regiment in the Civil War. By 1870, the family was back in Illinois, living near Chester, about 35 miles west and a bit north of Carbondale. After completing high school, Emma attended Southern Illinois Normal College (now Southern Illinois University) in Carbondale. She received her teaching certificate in 1883 and immediately came west to Id...

Published Poet, Formidable Attorney, and Public Servant Herbert Ferguson [otd 02/19]

Herbert Ferguson.
H. T. French photo.Colonel Herbert Van Allen Ferguson was born February 19, 1852, in Three Mile Bay, New York state, about 65 miles north of Syracuse. After attending a preparatory institute in Rochester, he taught school in New York and in Michigan.

Clearly a talented and impressive young man, at the age of eighteen he served as a high school principal in New York. Ferguson then enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School, graduating with an LL.B degree in 1878.

After f...