The Project Gutenberg eBook of The history of Bannock County Idaho, by Arthur C. Saunders

Title: The history of Bannock County Idaho

Author: Arthur C. Saunders

Release Date: September 4, 2022 [eBook #68910]

Language: English

Produced by: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

The History
OF
Bannock County
Idaho

BY

ARTHUR C. SAUNDERS

Pocatello, Idaho, U. S. A.
THE TRIBUNE COMPANY, Limited
1915

[Pg 9]

Although Bannock county is not yet twenty-five years old, it has seemed desirable to collect her history, before the adventures and legends of early days have been lost in the more prosaic and pressing interests of today.

Probably no state in the union is less known than Idaho. Wyoming has her “Buffalo Bill,” Colorado her Pike’s Peak, Nevada her far, but ill-famed Reno; Utah her famous salt lake; all known throughout the English speaking world. But Idaho, rich in natural resources, fertile and prosperous, has furnished no wild-west tragedy like that of Custer in Wyoming, to attract the attention of writers. She possesses no natural wonder to rival the Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon; she has produced no Kit Carson or Daniel Boone to fire the adventurous blood of ten-year-olds.

Few people in the eastern states can accurately locate Idaho. They know dimly that it is in the great northwest, but whether it is hill or plain, mine or ranch, they have forgotten along with much of the other lore of early school days.

The history of Idaho, however, has already been published by men whose long residence in the state and experience[Pg 10] in its public affairs eminently fitted them for the task. It is our more humble and less pretentious pleasure to record the annals of our own county—Bannock—than which no other in Idaho is more beautiful in scenery, more romantic in history or more promising for the future.

It is a pleasure to make grateful acknowledgment here of the valuable and ready help so courteously given in the compilation of this history by the heads of the various United States departments at Washington, the officials of the Oregon Short Line, the city and county officers and the many private persons whose personal knowledge or study of the early days of Bannock county made their assistance indispensable. The list is too long to reproduce, but in most instances the authority has been cited in the text, although in several cases names have been omitted at personal request.

Of course, what we call Bannock county today has existed since the time of Adam. And so—not to begin in the middle of the story—the first chapter is devoted to a rapid sketch of the territory comprising Bannock county, before the county was created.

The territory now comprising Bannock county first entered the pages of history when, in 1662, the French Sieur de la Salle planted his country’s flag in what he called “Louisiana,” after his sovereign, Louis XIV, of France. In order to prevent England from gaining it, and hoping at the same time to win an ally, Louis XV ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1762. Napoleon traded it back from Carlos IV of Spain, but later sold it. This was the territory purchased for the United States by Thomas Jefferson in 1803 and for which the country paid $15,000,000. It included the greater part if not all, of the present state of Idaho, and certainly all of Bannock county.

The northwestern section of this purchase became known as the Northwest Territory and included all land west of the summit of the Rocky Mountain range, between the forty-ninth and forty-second parallels of latitude. This was later called the[Pg 12] Oregon territory, and contained not only the present state of Oregon, but also Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.

In 1789, Captains Robert Gray and John Kendricks skirted the coast of this territory and traded for furs with the Indians, and three years later Captain Gray discovered the Columbia river, up which he sailed several miles. The Lewis and Clark expedition, which left St. Louis in May, 1804, headed by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, gave such encouraging accounts of the resources of the Northwest Territory that many of the more adventurous people in the states were induced to undertake settling it.

For a time Spain, Russia and Great Britain, as well as the United States, claimed the northwest, there being some dispute between the latter two countries as to the boundary line between Canada and the northern limits of the Louisiana purchase.

Great Britain and the states, by treaty of October 20, 1818, agreed that the subjects of both countries should settle the territory jointly for a period of ten years. Before the ten years had passed, both Spain and Russia had ceded their claims to the United States—the former in 1819, the latter in 1824. At the expiration of the ten years, the treaty between[Pg 13] Great Britain and the United States was renewed indefinitely, to be annulled by either party after one year’s notice.

In his History of Idaho, Mr. Hiram T. French gives the following brief sketch of Jim Bridger, after whom Bridger street in Pocatello was named:

“Among the men who trapped on the headwaters of the Missouri and its tributaries for the fur companies, probably none was better known than Jim Bridger. He made his headquarters at a place now in southwestern Wyoming, which became known as Fort Bridger, and was later one of the landmarks along the old ‘Oregon Trail.’

“Jim Bridger is authoritatively credited with being the first white man to see Salt Lake. In 1824 he was trapping along Bear river in what is now Idaho territory. He followed the stream to the canyon leading out of Cache valley. Climbing the high hills, he saw off to the south a large body of water. His interest aroused, he went on until he reached the shore, tasted the water and found it salty. Later an exploring party went around the lake and determined that it had no outlet.

“After having spent many years among the Indians, Bridger lost his life at their hands.”

[Pg 14]

The fate of Jim Bridger was not an uncommon one in the early days. A number of white men deserted their own kind to become the adopted members of Indian tribes. They took to themselves Indian wives, and dressed, spoke and lived as Indians. But their fate was nearly always the same. Sooner or later they were usually killed by the people of their adoption.

Two American expeditions visited this country in 1832, one headed by Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., and the other by Captain Wyeth.

Already some of the names in this narrative must have struck the reader’s ears as locally familiar—Clark, Lewis, Bonneville and Wyeth. All the cross streets in Pocatello, except Center, which divides the city into north and south, are named after early explorers, Indian fighters, hunters or men who otherwise distinguished themselves in daring during the early days. Hence, Wyeth street, Bonneville street, etc. The streets parallel with the railway on the east side of the city are numbered, while those on the west are named for the various presidents, as Arthur, Garfield and Hayes.

In this way Pocatello has linked to herself the names and therefore the history and adventures of the daring and hardy pioneers of the great northwest. The history of her street names[Pg 15] would be one of romance and adventure, of daring and hardship, suffering and triumph, such as it would be hard to equal. For this heritage of nomenclature, the city is indebted to Daniel Church, former mayor of Pocatello, to the Tribune, and others who selected this system of names.

Captain Bonneville’s expedition was one of exploration only. Captain Wyeth came to trade with the Indians, but in this he met with small success. The Hudson Bay Company, a wealthy English corporation, had entered the territory and was most ably represented by Doctor—sometimes called Captain—McLoughlin. He was an honorable, kind and brave man, but far-seeing and shrewd. He covered the country with a network of English, Canadians, French and Indians, and met American competition everywhere by offering higher prices for furs than his rivals could afford. Consequently Captain Wyeth’s expedition was not a business success, but he deserves more than passing notice, not only because his name is now a household word in Pocatello, but more especially because he established Fort Hall, which he named after a member of the firm for whom he had come west.

Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, having heard of the profits to be made in fur-trading, led an expedition overland[Pg 16] from Boston, arriving at Fort Vancouver in the fall of 1832. Here he was to meet a vessel laden with supplies and sent by a Boston company with which he was associated. But the ship never came. After waiting all winter Wyeth decided that she had been lost, and returned to Boston.

In 1834, Captain Wyeth returned to the northwest and this time a ship containing supplies did come to meet him. In his party were three Methodist ministers—Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Cyrus Shepherd and Rev. T. L. Edwards, who were the first missionaries to land in Oregon. It was on this second trip that Captain Wyeth built Fort Hall, on the banks of the Snake river, as a trading post, and here, on July 27, 1834, Rev. Jason Lee conducted the first Christian service held in Idaho.

Competition with the Hudson Bay Company and the loss of many men by desertion and death, finally forced the captain to sell out and return to the east.

Two women deserve notice here as being the first white women to pass through what is now Bannock county. They are Mrs. Whitman, wife of the Rev. Dr. Marcus Whitman, afterward killed by the Indians, and after whom Whitman College in Oregon, and Whitman street in Pocatello, are[Pg 17] named, and Mrs. Spalding, wife of the Rev. Spalding. They came to the Northwest in 1836, and settled in Oregon.

Another expedition, under Captain John C. Fremont, after whom Fremont street, Pocatello, is named, was sent to survey parts of this territory in 1843.

At this time the condition of Americans in the Northwest Territory was far from satisfactory. They had undergone great hardships and risks in order to establish themselves in the new land, but their home government had done nothing to either protect or organize them. Petition after petition was sent to congress, but without effect. So, on May 20, 1843, the Americans met at a place called Shampoig, near where Salem, Oregon, now stands, and organized a provisional government, designating Oregon City the capital. The first legislature met in a carpenter shop, and adopted the laws of the state of Iowa, because an Iowa man, with a copy of the Iowa laws in his pocket, happened to be present.

This provisional government was entirely successful and continued until 1846, when a new government was formed and Hon. George Abernathy was elected governor.

In this same year, 1846, Great Britain ceded to the United States her[Pg 18] claim to the Northwest Territory, with the exception of the Hudson Bay Company’s holdings and those of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. In July, 1863, the United States purchased the interests of these companies for $450,000 and $200,000 respectively, the final payments being made in 1865.

On March 3, 1853, congress passed an act creating and organizing Washington territory, which included all the Northwest territory except the present state of Oregon. Ten years later to a day, the territory of Idaho was created and organized, containing all of Washington territory, except the present state of Washington. The following year, 1864, Montana was cut off from the territory of Idaho, and that of Wyoming in 1868, when Idaho took her present geographical limits, being three hundred miles long across her southern portion and only sixty across the northern panhandle.

In February, 1864, the territory of Idaho was divided into Shoshone, Nez Perce, Idaho, Boise, Owyhee, Alturas and Oneida counties, the last of which included the present county of Bannock. Soda Springs was the first county seat, which was afterward moved to Malad City.

Bingham county was created January 13, 1885, out of the northern and eastern parts of Oneida county, the[Pg 19] southern part of which was made into Bannock county, March 6, 1893. This county was named after the Bannock Indians, who were its original inhabitants, and who still own many acres within the county limits.

In speaking of conditions at the time when the first seven counties were created, Mr. John Hailey, in his “History of Idaho,” says: “Quite a percentage of the whole population was engaged in some kind of trade, merchandising, hotel and restaurant-keeping, butcher, feed and livery business, blacksmithing, sawmilling and carpentering. A large number were engaged in the transportation of merchandise and passengers. Some few had settled on ranches and were cultivating and improving them. A few were engaged in the stock business and many more than was necessary were engaged in the saloon and gambling business, with a few road agents, ready and willing to relieve any person of his ready money without compensation, whenever a favorable opportunity presented itself. The primary object of all seemed to be to gather gold. But I think I may truthfully say that ninety-five per cent of these people were good, industrious, honorable and enterprising, and to all appearances desired to make money in a legitimate way.”

In this same connection Mr. Hailey[Pg 20] also says: “Most of the first settlers of Idaho were poor in purse, but were rich in muscle and energy, and most all possessed a good moral character. The rule that was in common practice was for each person to attend to his own private business, and to have an affectionate regard for his neighbors and his neighbors’ rights, and to extend a helping hand to the unfortunate that needed help. I speak from experience, having an extensive business and social acquaintance with many of the early settlers of Idaho, when I say (with a few exceptions), the early settlers were as noble, patriotic, industrious, unselfish, intelligent, good, generous, kind and moral people as ever were assembled together in like number for the reclamation and development of an unsettled country, inhabited only by untutored, savage Indians, wild animals and varmints.” Surely, we people of Idaho have a proud heritage to live up to!

The following list of prices, quoted by Mr. Hailey from the Boise News of December 26, 1863, published at Bannock City (afterward Idaho City) may give pause to some people who complain of the present high cost of living:

Nature is the greatest of all historians. She is alike the most accurate and interesting. Her pen is the impress of time, and in characters more durable than the most lasting creations of man, she has written the story of the ages as they rolled slowly by. Impartial, unprejudiced, and in this respect omniscient, she has patiently and unerringly recorded a history more ancient than that of primeval man, more valuable than that of the proudest monarchy. And so, having in the previous chapter traced Bannock county from an unlocated spot in an unexplored desert to a settled and civilized community of fixed limits, let us now examine the scene of our story more closely, and try to read something of what Nature has written there.

The sheltered canyon mouth in which our city is built was once the bed of a huge lake, larger than many present day seas. Fish and prehistoric water animals, uncanny and awe-inspiring monsters, could we see them today, once sought their prey where now our houses raise their sheltering roofs. The benches that today are advertised as desirable building sites, were at one time the sloping[Pg 24] shores of an inland sea. Could we but read the romance of rock and soil in all its detail, surely the most lurid fiction of man would pale by comparison.

The westernmost point of Bannock county is bounded by the Snake river, far-famed for the beauty of its valley and the rich gold deposits therein. The character of these deposits has puzzled prospectors and miners for many years, because unlike all other placer fields, it maintains a uniform fineness and coloring from mouth to source.

In the Engineering and Mining Journal for January 25, 1902, Mr. Robert Bell, a well known mining expert of this state, published an article entitled: “The Origin of the Fine Gold of Snake River.” This article was reprinted in the Pocatello Tribune, February 15, 1902, from which we quote, in part:

“One of the most plausible theories that have been suggested touching the origin of this extensive distribution of the precious metal was advanced by Captain N. L. Turner, a West Point man, who spent considerable time investigating the problem in the early eighties. Captain Turner advanced the theory that the gold was originally held in solution by the waters of a great inland sea or lake that occupied the Snake river[Pg 25] valley subsequent to the Miocene period and that the gradual and repeated evaporation of this great body of water by subsequent lava flows resulted in the precipitation of its metallic contents, generally and evenly over its basin area. This theory would seem to account for the uniform size and quality of the golden colors so generally disseminated throughout the enormous acreage of fine gravel beds through which the Snake river now courses.

“The geological record of the rocks left along the borders of this stream offer conclusive evidence of a landlocked body of water. This great body of water, which might aptly be called Lake Idaho, was created by the closing of the lower valley by a great dam of brown Columbia lava, 6,500 feet high, now plainly exposed by erosion.”

The highest level of this lake was about 6,000 feet, and its extent 500 miles in length from Weiser to the foot of the Rocky Mountain range, and 150 miles in width. Its deepest point was over 4,000 feet.

Mr. Bell goes on to say: “This lake suffered numerous and extensive variations of level during the Tertiary period. Some of the more recent horizons are still exposed at Pocatello, where on either side of the Portneuf estuary, in plain sight from[Pg 26] the depot, well defined benches or terraces of shore-line gravel are left exposed one hundred feet above the town; and a succession of low step-terraces of lake-shore gravel, cut by the main track of the Oregon Short Line railroad between Pocatello and American Falls, plainly indicate the rapid recession of the lake levels of this period, and its final drainage and complete obliteration by the erosion of the Snake river channel to its present level.

“Prior to the inception of the great floods of black lava that have filled the upper valley (near Pocatello), the shore lines and basin area of Lake Idaho were almost all composed of granite and Palaeozic formation. These formations were rich in placer and quartz gold.”

It is thought that the Snake river deposits also contain some alloy of platinum or iridium.

But gold is not the only valuable mineral deposit in Bannock county. Situated at the mouth of Sulphur canyon, five miles east of the town of Soda Springs, is a group of soda springs with associated deposits of native sulphur. These mines were worked in the late nineties and in the years 1901 and 1902 a considerable amount of sulphur was taken from them, but the enterprise was finally abandoned. The United States Geological[Pg 27] Survey, in Bulletin 470, gives the following summary of these deposits:

“The failure of an apparently well backed attempt to develop these deposits will render improbable any further attempts in the immediate future. It is extremely doubtful if the deposits can be profitably worked * * in competition with the relatively high-grade deposits of Wyoming and Utah.”

The same bureau, in Part I of its publications for 1909, speaks more hopefully of the salt deposits in Bannock county. In an article on this subject, Carpel L. Breger says:

“Valuable areas of salt-bearing land lie along the Wyoming-Idaho border in Bannock county, Idaho. In the old days, before the advent of railroads in the west, relatively large amounts of salt were boiled from the brine springs in this region and were hauled by ox team to supply Idaho and Montana mining camps. The emigrants to the northwest along the Lander route also drew upon this region for their salt. Indeed, some forty years ago, in the reports of the Hayden survey, this area was briefly described as containing the finest salt works west of the Mississippi. In those days as much as 200,000 pounds of salt was boiled per month, selling[Pg 28] in the late sixties at $1.25 a hundred pounds at the springs.”

Col. Lander, mentioned above, after whom a street in Pocatello has been named, led a government expedition through these parts in 1863, and F. V. Hayden, whose name has been given to Hayden street, Pocatello, conducted a United States geological and geographic survey in this country in 1872.

“Since then, however, the area has decreased in importance. The railroads have passed it by; other salt works—those of the Great Salt Lake region—have taken its markets on account of easier railroad connection.

“Interest in these salt deposits has recently been revived, owing to the discovery of rock salt beneath some brine springs. James Splawn and H. Hokanson, in deepening these springs in 1902, encountered a formation of rock salt six feet below the surface and this has been penetrated for a thickness of twenty-six feet without reaching the bottom. The exceptional purity of the salt, its cheapness of production, and the probability of railroad connections in the near future, lend interest to the deposits of the entire district.

“As to quality, salt can be easily obtained here which is above the average in chemical purity. This salt could be produced most cheaply and[Pg 29] with the maximum of cleanliness by a process of solar evaporation.

“At present the market for the salt of the area described is limited to the immediate vicinity. It could, however, command the markets of eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and much of Montana.

The vicinity adjacent to Pocatello is rich in mineral deposits, but most of them lie on the Indian reservation upon which white men are not allowed to trespass. In his “History of Idaho,” Mr. Hiram T. French speaks as follows of the mining resources of Bannock county:

“Many outcroppings in the mountains near Pocatello give promise of most fabulous richness. Many assays from the rock have been made, and they run up into the thousands. The agent in charge of the reservation, however, has been strict in enforcing the treaty laws. In the summer of 1893 a company of Pocatello men discovered a copper ledge of marvelous promise, on Belle Marsh creek, on the reservation, and made a determined effort to work it. They put a force of men to work there and uncovered a ledge for a distance of a hundred feet, finding a well-defined ledge of wonderfully rich copper ore. They worked it until twice warned off by the Indian agent, and quit only when they were finally threatened with arrest.[Pg 30] During the same summer a strong company of capitalists of Pocatello, Butte and Salt Lake City organized and made an effort to secure a lease of the mineral lands on the reservation; but other men in Pocatello, who had been watching prospects and opportunity for years, entered a protest and the interior department at Washington refused to grant the lease. The same year a Pocatello organization made an attempt to obtain permission to develop mines on this reservation, but failure likewise attended this only when they were finally threatened with arrest. In 1891 some very rich galena was discovered about two miles east of Pocatello, and this created a veritable stampede of miners who began digging vigorously. The signs were most encouraging, but the Indian agent again came to the front and drove the men from the reservation. According to the testimony of all the old timers in this region there are many rich deposits of the respective valuable minerals in nearly all the mountains of Bannock county. Apparently there is enough of coal and asbestos deposit here to make a whole community rich.”

Pocatello’s railroad and ranching interests alone insure the development of a prosperous and fair-sized city, and in the immediate attention[Pg 31] demanded by these activities, the mining possibilities of the neighborhood seem for the time to have fallen into the background. The day will come, however, when the Indian reservation will be thrown open, and when that day does come, a new source of wealth will be released which might easily place Pocatello well in the front rank of western cities.

In the southeastern counties of Idaho there lies an extensive shore-line of middle carboniferous limestones and shales, which has been outlined by the United States Geological Survey, and a very large portion of which is contained in Bannock county. This in its entirety composes the largest phosphate field in the world, the rock phosphate of the deposit being seventy per cent pure, in beds of from three to eight feet thick. In December, 1908, the secretary of the interior withdrew from all kinds of entry 4,541,300 acres of land, part of which extends over the Utah line, pending an examination of their phosphate resources. During the summer of 1909, the United States Geological Survey conducted field work on this area, which resulted in the restoration of some of these lands and the withdrawal of others. The total area now withheld is 2,551,399 acres.

The rock phosphate deposits of[Pg 32] Bannock county are original sedimentary formations made when this part of the earth was still under water. Since then other rock-forming sediments have accumulated, so that thousands of feet of subsequent strata have overlain them. Deformation of the earth’s surface has broken these strata, which originally lay flat. Hence these rock-phosphate deposits resemble coal and limestone, rather than ore deposits, such as veins or lodes. No entirely satisfactory explanation of their source or manner of accumulation has yet been given.

The value of these deposits will be more readily understood when it is known that prior to their discovery the total known supply in the United States was barely sufficient to last forty years. In addition to this, most of the deposits were in the control of European investors, which threatened to put the American farmer at the mercy of foreign speculators.

In his book entitled, “The Conservation of Natural Resources of the United States,” Professor Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, says: “The most fundamental of the resources of this nation is the soil, which produces our food and clothing, and one of the most precious of the natural resources of America, having a value inestimably greater than might be supposed from the[Pg 33] present market value, is our phosphate-rock resources.”

Phosphoric acid is essentially a soil fertilizer. It is really nothing else than a rich manure, as the odoriferous smell given off when two pieces are rubbed together amply testifies. The enormous deposits of this powerful fertilizer practically insure the agricultural future of Idaho. The secretary of the interior, in a recent report, said: “The present crop yields of the virgin fields of the west under irrigation cannot be expected to be maintained by irrigation water alone, and the intensive methods of that region will within a few years have to figure on artificial fertilizers to maintain their great yield.”

And Nature, foreseeing our future need, has provided for it in advance.

The limestone deposits near Inkom are said to be valuable for the manufacture of cement.

The agricultural soil of the county is composed largely of disintegrated lava and volcanic ash, which, when irrigated, is very fertile. The principal waterways are the Portneuf, the Snake, and the Belle Marsh, which are fed by many mountain tributaries.

The county contains 3,179 square miles.

Having now determined in our first chapter the geographical location and early history of Bannock county, and[Pg 34] in our second examined the nature of the country and what resources it contains, we will in the third chapter turn our attention to its first inhabitants, and consider the case of our brother, “the noble Indian.”

Some years ago, when life was young and all the world one luring and beckoning field of adventure, the writer of this modest history spent five dollars to hear Dan Beard, Ernest Seton Thompson and others, lecture on “Woodcraft and Indians.” They spoke of the “noble red man,” and pictured a romantic and heroic being of high ideals and chivalrous life, whose adventures were clean and admirable, whose domestic life was happy and blameless. At least one member of the audience went home from those lectures and shed bitter tears of remorse and shame because it was his sad lot to be a cowardly pale-face. We mention the incident because it serves to illustrate the nonsense that is published broadcast for mercenary reasons, by people who really know the truth.

This chapter does not pretend to be a scholarly dissertation on the American Indian, but is rather intended to preserve the first impressions made by the Indians on an interested and uninitiated observer. For the salient and noticeable traits of these people are more likely to[Pg 36] excite the comment of a newcomer than they are to live in the hard soil of familiarity.

The Arabs of the Sahara desert, like our own Bannock Indians, wrap themselves closely in camels-hair blankets during the hottest weather, which as everyone knows, is extreme in North Africa. They also wrap their heads in turbans, and explain the custom by saying that it protects them from the scorching rays of the sun. Otherwise their skin would blister and dry up with the reflected heat of the desert. This is probably true, and it is no doubt for some similar reason that the Indians wear blankets all through the summer. It has been said that the Indians use a powder of vegetable or mineral character with which they rub the inside of their blankets, thereby rendering them impervious to heat rays. Certain it is that an Indian, clad in a blanket, is seldom seen to perspire, even in the hottest weather, while his civilized brother drips just as profusely as a white man.

In like manner all strange and seemingly fantastic and heathen customs have their birth in reason, if we can only detect it. The Indian, for instance, paints his face as a protection from the dry and arid western winds, which make some artificial application of grease necessary. Let[Pg 37] those who doubt this take a glance at the parched visage of some Arizona rancher.

Some people maintain that the Indian is equal in intelligence to the white man. Common sense tells us that this is not true. No race mentally equal to the Caucasian would remain for centuries in barbarism and turn from civilization even when it is thrust upon them. It is sometimes said that an Indian is a white man’s equal because he can pass the intelligence test of a twelve year old white boy, this modicum of intelligence being scientifically sufficient to rescue a white man from the ranks of the mentally deficient. A man might almost as well be insane as to escape insanity by a hair’s breadth. And so, also, of his intellect.

An Episcopalian missionary to the Indians on the Fort Hall reservation, said in this connection: “I noticed when I first began to work among these Indians that I could establish no footing of equality between myself and the bucks, although the latter seemed to be on the most familiar terms with my twelve-year-old boy. This puzzled me for some time, and I began to watch the intercourse between my boy and the Indians. Then I discovered the secret. The mentality of my boy and of the Indians was on a par. The red men, although[Pg 38] adults in years, were twelve-year-olds in mind. From that time on I talked with them on such terms and my former trouble was ended.”

For this reason and because of the results so far attained, it seems very questionable whether it is wise to attempt to civilize these people, in the ordinary meaning of the term. Christianize them by all means. But two men practicing the principles of Christianity can live as happily in a wig-wam as in a palace—perhaps more so, and there is no reason why we should want the squaws to wear split-skirts because our own women wear them. There is but little choice, and perhaps the squaw has the best of it at that. The South Sea islander does not want us to wear rings in our noses because he does, and it seems hardly fair that we should wish to throttle the poor Indian with the shackle that civilization calls a collar, just because we are foolish enough to wear collars. Christianity alone will bring these people as much civilization as they need for both their happiness and salvation, and that is more than many of our own boastful race possess. For the rest, the Indian, to his honor, be it said, is a child of nature, who loves his sagebrush and desert freedom, and it is no kindness to tear him from the life he loves so well. No wonder he[Pg 39] hates the white man. Most of us would hate people who insisted upon making canary-birds, guaranteed to sing in the parlor, out of us, when we wanted to be eagles. Perhaps it is some such reason as this that leads the Indians on the reservation to despise those who live among the whites. The average Indian who hangs around Pocatello is certainly inferior to his brother in the sage brush.

Although the Indian is a lazy man, who makes his squaw do most of the work, he is not without some strain of generosity. The squaw usually follows along some ten paces behind her husband, and it is no uncommon thing to see the buck eating a bag of apples or other delicacies and throwing the cores to his faithful squaw, who devours them with relish.

The Bannocks, in common with all other Indians, have a decided sense of beauty,—a trait that is seldom noticed, although one of the best possessed by the red-men. This artistic instinct finds play in the basket and bead work done by these people. Many of their designs combine great beauty with great simplicity, and display a taste that is far from uncultured. In their names, too, the Indians show a love of the beautiful. Where in the whole wide world can more beautiful names be found than[Pg 40] Wyoming and Arizona, Idaho and Oregon, Nevada and Oklahoma? Resonant and poetical names they are, suggestive of a bigness quite commensurate with the vastness of the states they name. It has been said that the west, inspired by the beauty of her Indian names, will some day produce a new school of poetry, made possible only by the poetry of the wild, free red-men.

As in all frontier communities, many amusing incidents have transpired between the Indians and whites. Probably everyone in Pocatello knows “Stonewall” Johnson and probably no one in Pocatello knows horseflesh better than he. One day Mr. Johnson bought a horse from an Indian. The animal had seven diseases—all fatal—but Mr. Johnson, with infinite skill and patience, gradually cured him of them all. He nursed the dying beast back to health and made a valuable horse of him. From time to time the Indian dropped around to inspect the animal. One fine day, when the cure was fully effected, the Indian deliberately entered the field where the horse was grazing in care of Mr. Johnson’s little boy, mounted and rode away, leaving the youngster to carry the news home. Mr. Johnson has never seen either horse or Indian since. It is said that the only way to bind a bargain with[Pg 41] the Indians is by a deed of sale. On the other hand, the missionary previously mentioned, says that he would rather lend money to an Indian than to a white man, as the former never fails to repay the loan.

We have spoken of the Indian’s sense of beauty. He is also cruel, and his cruelty is written on his face. Imagine, then, the dismay and terror of a missionary’s wife, who, with her husband, alighted one dark night at a little way station just north of Pocatello. The depot was locked, and while the missionary went to look for a night’s lodging, his wife disposed herself comfortably on a soft and well-filled gunnysack lying on the station platform. Presently the gunnysack moved, stretched a pair of moccasined legs, and said “Woof!” The lady eventually recovered, but whether the Indian did, the story does not tell.

While possessing much innate nobility, the Indian sometimes appears in a ridiculous light. It is said that when a part of the reservation was thrown open a few years ago, and the red-men reimbursed in cash, many of them invested their money in vehicles. They bought every old wagon for miles around, and when the supply ran low, took what they could get. So it happened that one buck bought an old hearse. In the body of this[Pg 42] he was wont to carry his numerous papooses, who gazed at the passing throng with their squat faces pressed flat against the windows, while the proud parents occupied the driver’s box.

These people have a strange aversion to the camera, probably as to something uncanny and not understood. They believe that to be photographed saps the strength. At the last sun dance held in the Bottoms near Pocatello, it was necessary to pay one old centenarian five dollars to induce him to pose for one snapshot.

Among the common-places of former days that are fast passing away are the wild horses. These animals still roam the plains of Bannock county, but they are becoming more scarce every year. They travel in bands of fifteen or twenty and are very bold. They will approach within close range of a human being and feed unconcernedly under his gaze, but at the sound of the human voice they become terror-stricken and stampede away in great confusion. Some daring men rope these animals during the summer months and break them in for saddle use, but their wild blood is never really tamed. It is necessary to break their spirit with cruelty before they are of any use, and then they are apt to relapse at[Pg 43] any time. When one escapes from captivity it is said that he will travel hundreds of miles with unerring instinct back to the plains whence he was taken.

The fact that a large portion of the land included in Bannock county was set apart for and inhabited by Indians retarded its settlement for many years. The Indians were hostile to the white men, few of whom settled in the vicinity, except employes of the stage lines running from Salt Lake to Butte, government agents, etc.

The Shoshone—in the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1913, this name is spelt Shoshoni—and Bannock Indians now living on the Fort Hall reservation are types of the great Lemhi family. The Shoshone, or Snake Indians, are fairly honest, intelligent and peaceable, although all the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains are inferior to those living to the east. The Bannocks are more cunning, sly, and restless than the Shoshones. The Shoshone family, of which the Bannock is a branch, are thought to have come originally from California. While the name Shoshone is commonly supposed to mean “snake,” some authorities hold that it means “inland.” These Indians are more pretentious in dress and ornamentation than those living[Pg 44] farther south, and possess no mean skill in the art of pottery. Ross, an authority on Indian affairs, says: “The Snakes have been considered as a rather dull and degraded people, weak in intellect and wanting in courage. And this opinion is very probable to casual observer, at first sight or when they are seen in small numbers, for their apparent timidity, grave and reserved habits, give them an air of stupidity. An intimate knowledge of the Snake character will, however, place them on an equal footing with that of other kindred nations, both in respect to their mental faculties and moral attributes.”

The different tribes or families of these Indians speak different dialects, but have a sign language that is understood by all. Although stolid and silent in their intercourse with white men, they are vivacious and even garrulous among themselves. The play of their hands when they talk with signs resembles the conversation of deaf mutes.

Another writer says: “The Bannocks of Idaho are highly intelligent and lively, the most virtuous and unsophisticated of all the Indians in the United States.”

These Indians were at least intelligent enough to devise a system of hieroglyphics, examples of which are still to be seen on the lava rocks to[Pg 45] the west and south of Pocatello, although the Indians of today seem to have lost the art of reading them, and their contents remain a mystery. They are recent enough in execution to have survived the wear of wind and weather, but how interesting it would be if we could read the crude romance they tell—some memorable page of barbarous history or some forgotten tragedy of desert life!

There are in the neighborhood of Pocatello also some old Indian forts—crude constructions of dug-outs and mountain boulders, interesting only on account of their origin. The curious may find one about two miles out of Pocatello, to the left of the road that winds back from West Sublette street. It probably differs in no way from those built by the Indians of this vicinity two thousand years ago, and were they to construct another today it would be impossible except by age, to tell the new from the old. Civilization rolls on apace, and today’s triumph of mechanism is the scrap heap of tomorrow, but the stolid Indian, imperturbable and uninterested, remains much the same, yesterday, today and apparently forever.

Closely associated with the Indians in the minds of many people, especially in the east, are the cowboys. The prevalent idea in the eastern states about the far west is much the same today as it was fifty years ago—an illusion that the moving pictures help to keep alive. And yet, prosaic as it may be compared with the stirring times of yore, there is still a charm and freedom in western life unequalled in any other part of the United States. That western people are fully alive to the romance and adventure connected with the settlement of the west, is shown by the fact that moving picture representations of western life are popular to an equal extent in no other portion of the Union.

The mouth of the Portneuf canyon was a favorite wintering place for cattle men and freighters because of the feeding ground to be found on the bottoms, the shelter afforded by the surrounding hills, and the water supplied by the Portneuf river. For similar reasons the Indians used the present site of Pocatello for their winter quarters. Just west of Pocatello,[Pg 47] along the banks of the Snake river, lay a rich and fertile grazing ground, where was situated the headquarters of the old War Bonnet Cattle company, a big outfit that operated in this country for several years.

Until the old ranges were broken up into ranches, which practically ended the old cowboy life, the Portneuf canyon remained a winter haven for cattle men, and many wild and thrilling exploits were enacted here. The cutting up and fencing of the ranges has been inevitable in the course of progress and development, but from the cowboy standpoint it has not been altogether desirable. Cattle driven by a storm will run before the wind, and when they meet an obstacle will halt rather than turn in the face of the gale. As a result, many cattle, stopped in their course, have perished from cold and exposure in recent years.

Cowboys and sheepherders are still seen daily on the streets of Pocatello. Many of the latter are Mexicans and they are looked down upon by the cowboys as being less hardy and daring.

The two classes have never lived peaceably together because the sheep clip the grass so close to the ground that cattle can find no nourishment, after the sheep have gone. For this reason fights were so common between[Pg 48] the sheep and cattle men that the government finally alloted to each grazing grounds of their own.

The sheep men go out with their charges in the early spring and are on the range for several months at a stretch. So many of them went insane from monotony and loneliness that a law has been passed, requiring owners to send two men with every outfit.

Like most men living an open and free life, these men are for the most part generous and careless of money, taking little thought for the future and oftimes going to excess for the present.

Some years ago, says a resident of Pocatello, an Italian, with infinite patience and trouble, succeeded in catching a mountain lion in the hills and brought him safely to town in a large cage. A band of cowboys, bent on merry-making, surrounded the cage and danced about it, letting out their blood-curdling yells and shooting their guns. The lion, unaccustomed to such antics, at first snarled savagely. Later he became quiet. The cowboys began to thrust at him through the cage, and then to dare one another to enter it. At length one of the men took up the dare. Armed with a knife and a gun, he cautiously entered the cage. The lion crouching in a corner, watched the[Pg 49] intruder but made no movement. The cowboy grew bolder and began to probe and kick the beast. His companions encouraged him with more hoots and yells, but still the lion lay quiet. Finally the adventurer withdrew in despair of stirring up a fight. The savage animal had been so completely cowed and terrified by the noise that it was literally paralyzed and unable to move.

Mr. Herman Goldsmith, now in the employ of the Oregon Short Line, but formerly a cattle man, tells of a town that boasted but one bathtub, owned by the barber. To this shop repaired the soiled and weary of the community for ablution and refreshment. One fine night a band of cowboys shot up the town and the next day the bath-tub was gone. Search was made high and low, but no tub could be found. The loss was serious, as there was no railway in those days and another tub could not be purchased in a radius of many miles. The town had little godliness, and now even its cleanliness was gone! One fine day the disconsolate barber was given a tip that his bath-tub was secreted in a cowboy’s shack some miles distant. A warrant was sworn out, the tub recovered, and the culprit hied into court. Came also the barber.

[Pg 50]

“How many baths do you sell a week?” asked the judge.

“About seventy,” said the barber.

“At how much per bath?” continued the judge.

“Fifty cents,” answered the barber.

“How many weeks has your tub been gone?” the court asked.

“Three,” the barber said.

Then the court summarized: “Seventy baths at fifty cents each equals thirty-five dollars per week. Three weeks at thirty-five dollars is $105.”

So he fined the cowboy $105 and costs, and reimbursed the barber for his lost business.

The same frontier conditions that produced the cowboy have served also to make the westerner a more rugged and ever-ready man than the easterner. The westerner may lack some of the culture and finish of his New England cousin, but he is better equipped to fight the battle of life both in his training and in his inherent qualities. The west is developing a fine and unique type of manhood. Its vast distances, its noble hills and far-stretching plains make an atmosphere of bigness that alone must influence, even inspire the race that is native to them. It is said that a little girl, fresh from the western plains, was asked how she liked the east. “I don’t like it,” she said.[Pg 51] “I can not see anything because of the trees.” And the same cramped conditions that oppressed the child have perhaps done their part in narrowing the easterner. However that may be, the easterner is usually a man of more narrow ideas and of stronger prejudices than the westerner.

We have one other inhabitant in Bannock county who deserves notice before he vanishes in the face of civilization—the coyote. No one who has not heard the yell of a coyote on a still night knows what the phrase, “blood-curdling” means. These animals are often crossed with dogs and make cowardly curs, until they are taught to fight. Having once learned the noble art, it is hard to make them keep the peace. Their pelts have a market value today, and in time to come will probably be highly prized.

Another class of men who made a winter rendezvous of the present site of Pocatello were the freighters—men who drove the old freight stages from Salt Lake to Butte. These men were true pioneers, camping along the old trails until they knew them blindfold for hundreds of miles, and encountering great risk from exposure and from the Indians. Sometimes an impoverished traveler worked his way with these freighters. He was called a swamper, and to his lot fell all the[Pg 52] chores of the camp—chopping wood, carrying water and building fires. He usually paid well for his passage.

There was always bad blood between the Indians and freighters, the former resenting the intrusion of the teamsters as they passed through the reservation along the old trail. The freighters prepared for trouble as they neared the reservation limits, and frequently met it.

In August, 1878, two men, Orson James, and another named James, but not related to the former, were taking a load of merchandise from Salt Lake to Butte, and were attacked by a hostile Indian on the road between Pocatello and Fort Hall. The red man opened fire unexpectedly and shot James in the back. The freighters returned the fire from behind their wagons, but in time the Indian succeeded in hitting Orson James in the neck. Then he rode off into the sagebrush, but was later captured and taken to Malad City, at that time the county seat, for trial. He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Boise, where he died before his term expired. Both men recovered but Orson James was lame during the rest of his life.

When the Indian just mentioned was taken to Malad City, he was accompanied by a brother. This man heard Alec Roden, a cow-puncher, remark[Pg 53] that the Indian on trial should be hung. He attached undue importance to these words, thinking, in his ignorance of the white man’s methods of justice, that they would affect the verdict unfavorably for his brother. Roden was later sent to the Fort Hall reservation to attend to a hay contract. In talking over the trial, Joe Rainey said to Roden, “You should not have let that Indian’s brother hear you advise hanging. He is likely to seek revenge.”

Roden laughed the fear away, but that same evening, while he was working at the barn, the imprisoned Indian’s brother shot him dead.

Such attacks served to keep the white men on the alert. They were usually unprovoked, so far as the people who were attacked knew, but an investigation generally showed that the red man, after his fashion, was visiting a real or supposed wrong on the first member of the offending race he encountered.

Few features of the far west are more widely known, or more characteristic than the prairie schooner. In parts of South Africa the same pioneer conditions exist that prevailed in our western states until a few years ago. The climate and nature of the country are much the same. It is interesting to notice that the same conditions, ten thousand miles[Pg 54] away, and untouched by American western influence, have produced the same prairie schooner that we see winding the dusty trails of Bannock county today. It is probably safe to say that were two bodies of men sent from Paris—one five thousand miles east and the other five thousand miles west—to new countries of like conditions, the two parties would be found after several generations to have evolved the same habits of dress, custom and life. Yet not the men, but Nature, the great mother of us all, would have decided these things for them.

There are many historical spots in the United States unmarked by a monument, but there are probably few cases on record of a monument searching for a vanished site. Such is the case of the stone pillar purchased by subscription to mark the original site of Fort Hall.

In 1906 Ezra Meeker traveled along the old Oregon trail and raised money with which to mark the historical points along the route. One monument stands in the High School grounds at Pocatello. Another was purchased for erection on the Fort Hall site. A teamster was directed to carry it to its destination on the banks of the Snake river, twelve miles to the west of Pocatello, and this man deposited the monument at the dobies, that were once a stage station. Those in charge of placing the monument, being unable to certainly determine the original site of the fort decided to leave the pillar where it lay, until the old fort had been indisputably located. And there it still rests, and probably will remain for some time to come.

It is unfortunate that the most historical[Pg 56] point in Bannock county and one of the most historical in the state of Idaho, should have been lost sight of.

No effort will be made in this chapter to decide the question, because such an attempt would be little more than a guess. It seems not unlikely, indeed, that the original site has completely vanished.

Fort Hall was established in 1834 as a fur trading station by Captain Nathaniel Wyeth. The captain found himself unable to compete successfully with the Hudson Bay company, which at that time operated in these parts, and in 1835 sold his interests to his rivals and returned to the east.

Here comes the first problem in locating the original site. The Hudson Bay company is thought to have moved the fort. Who can tell whether the sites now pointed out were those of the first or second post? Some pioneers maintain that Fort Hall was moved three times before the sixties, while others maintain that some old ruins on the bank of the Snake, about one and a half miles above the Tilden bridge, are the first site. This spot is now overgrown with grass, but it is possible to detect the outlines of an old foundation, something over two hundred feet in length, and what appears to have been at one time rifle pits. Evidently it was the location[Pg 57] of a large building, but whether or not of the first fort, who can tell? Joe Rainey, native interpreter at the present Fort Hall Indian reservation, maintains that this was the first site.

Other old-timers say that some dobies near the Snake river were a fort site, but Mr. J. N. Ireland of Pocatello, says that he built these himself and that they were a station on the old Overland stage road.

The old Oregon trail, which extended for over two thousand miles, from St. Louis, Mo., to Portland, Oregon, divided at Soda Springs, in Bannock county, into two almost parallel courses, which met again at old Fort Boise. One of these followed the Portneuf river through the present sites of McCammon and Pocatello. The other followed a northwesterly direction from Soda Springs to old Fort Hall.

Many pioneers, in their description of the fort as they first knew it, speak of a river that can be no longer found. Either its course has changed since the early days, or its name changed; perhaps both, which last condition would make it very difficult to identify the present stream with that of seventy-five years ago.

During pioneer days, Fort Hall was one of the most important posts along the Oregon trail. It was the first point west of Fort Laramie, where[Pg 58] travelers could rest securely under the protection of the flag, and where there was a garrison of soldiers to relieve them of all fear of sudden attack from the Indians. Here the weary and travel-stained pioneers, pushing on for the far-famed Oregon territory, found respite from their toils and dangers, and enjoyed once more the companionship of their own kind. Here, too, preparatory for the last, long march of their transcontinental journey, they repaired their wagons, and discarded such baggage as it had seemed wise to bring when starting, but which later experience proved to be only an encumbrance. An area of several acres around Fort Hall is said to have been covered with this debris, which was ransacked by the Indians and shorn of such parts as the red men wanted. Prof. W. R. Siders, superintendent of the Pocatello public schools, who has been interested for several years in the effort to locate the site of the original fort, and to whom the writer is indebted for very generous and valuable information, maintains that it ought to be possible to identify the Hudson Bay company’s fort by the rummage in its vicinity. He has examined the banks of the Snake river for several miles and been unable to unearth any such remains. This failure adds probability to the statement[Pg 59] of old “Doc” Yandell, a trapper in early days, who still resides in these parts. Mr. Yandell says that some years ago he and Pete Weaver lived on the site of old Fort Hall, which was then on the banks of the Snake river, and three quarters of a mile distant from a spring. In later years Mr. Yandell maintained that he could walk directly to the site of his former camp, but when he attempted to do so, he found that the Snake was flowing within three hundred yards of the spring that used to be three-quarters of a mile from its bank. It is probable that since his departure some spring flood had washed out a new channel for the river, thereby changing its course, and placing the old fort site under water. This might account for Prof. Siders’ failure to find the debris of which he was in search.

The name “Fort Hall” has experienced numerous vicissitudes, since it was first coined eighty years ago. The Hudson Bay company received it from Captain Wyeth. When the Hudson Bay company sold its American rights to the United States government in 1863, the latter used the name to designate the military post which stood about sixteen miles northeast of the present agency. Here the government maintained a garrison of three companies of soldiers until about 1884,[Pg 60] when the troops were withdrawn and the fort buildings used for Indian school purposes. When the school was moved to its present quarters, which were first occupied in 1904, the name went with it. Some of the old fort buildings were moved to the new site, and the remainder given to the Indians. Traces of the fort may still be seen.

The Oregon Short Line station at the reservation, originally called Ross Fork, has recently been changed to Fort Hall and the name is also used to designate the whole reservation.

The name Ross Fork, according to Interpreter Joe Rainey, was derived from an old man named Ross, who operated a ferry across the Snake river forty years ago. One or two old posts still mark the ferry site.

The Fort Hall Indian reservation for the Bannock Indians was established in July, 1868. In July of the previous year the government appointed a commission consisting of N. G. Taylor, Lieutenant General Sherman, U. S. A., William S. Harney, John B. Sanborn, S. F. Tappen, A. H. Terry, and Brevet Major General C. C. Augur, U. S. A., to negotiate treaties with all hostile and non-treaty Indians, and if possible to settle them on reservations. The treaty made with the Bannock Indians states that they were to have “reasonable[Pg 61] portions of the Portneuf and Kansas prairies.” There is no doubt that not “Kansas” but “Camas” was meant, the latter being a favorite resort of the Indians, where they gathered the tuberous Camas root, which they prized highly as a food. The mistake in the name must have been made by an interpreter, clerk or typesetter, and Mr. John Hailey says that the government officials understood the mistake, but threw open the Camas prairie for settlement by the whites. The Indians who signed this treaty on behalf of the Bannocks were Taggee, Tay-Toba, We-Rat-Ze-Won-A-Gen, Coo-Sha-Gan, Pan-Sook-A-Motse, and A-Mite-Etse. To them, no doubt, “Kansas” and “Camas” meant the same, but the mistake caused much trouble in later years.

The treaty was made July 3, 1868, ratified by the United States senate, February 16, 1869, and proclaimed by President Andrew Johnson, February 24, 1869.

The governor of Idaho was instructed by the authorities at Washington to have the proposed reservation surveyed, probably in accordance with the clause which provided “reasonable portions of the Portneuf and Kansas prairies.” The governor is said to have visited the Portneuf valley, and with a wave of the hand to have instructed the surveyor to “survey[Pg 62] out a good-sized reservation around here for these Indians.” He then returned to Boise. As the surveyor was paid by the mile for his work, he ran the survey out to as many miles as possible. Consequently the reservation included twice as much land as was needed, but its limits were later curtailed. No notice was taken of the provision for a portion of the “Kansas” prairie, but the Indian agent allowed his charges to fish, hunt and dig camas on the Camas prairie whenever they wished.

The country now included in the Fort Hall reservation was at one time the scene of many Indian battles. A hundred years ago, when buffalo still roamed these parts, the Blackfoot Indians ranged along the river that now bears their name. This tribe was the arch-enemy of the Bannocks and Shoshones, who used to make raids into the enemy’s territory for the purpose of stealing their horses and cattle, and in turn to patrol their own demesnes when the enemy invaded them. An old squaw, said to have been more than a hundred years old, died on the reservation last year, who used to tell of a battle fought in her childhood between the Bannocks and Blackfeet that lasted four days.

On some of the higher buttes toward the north of the reservation there still stand stone pillars, built[Pg 63] by the Indians. These were look-out posts, and most of them stand where a view of the country may be had for miles around. Here the spies watched the movements of their enemies and made signals to their friends. Usually the look-out lay behind the pillar and peered around its base, but sometimes he stood flat against its front. As the enemy gradually circled in one direction or another, the spy moved slowly around the pillar, always keeping his face toward those he was watching lest in the distance they should detect his form standing out from the pillar and take alarm.

The following statistics were very kindly furnished by Mr. Cato Sells, U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs:

The Fort Hall Indian reservation contains 454,239 acres, of which 38,000 acres were irrigated by 140.37 miles of ditch in June, 1913.

The value of the property and funds on the reservation of the Indians is $4,551,711, or $1,103.97 per capita.

The crop raised by the Indians in 1913 were valued at $73,591, and during the same year they sold $51,520 worth of stock. These items, added to the receipts from other industries, made their total income for the year amount to $169,262.42.

The Indian population of the reservation, June 30, 1913, was 1,819. Of[Pg 64] these, 273 were operating farms for themselves, 222 children were enrolled at the reservation school, and thirty were enrolled at the Episcopal Mission School of the Good Shepherd.

The largest ranch operated by an Indian contains 160 acres.

Only three crimes were committed by Indians during the year. Two arrests were made for drunkenness.

The most prevalent diseases among the Bannock Indians are tuberculosis and trachoma.

There are no longer any soldiers on the reservation, but a patrol of Indian police guards the public safety. These men are splendid types of their race. The delight of their lives is to arrest a white man.

There is an atmosphere of contentment on the reservation and a goodwill between the Indians and government agents employed there that is a credit alike to red men and white. While most of the full-blooded bucks on the reservation wear thick braids of hair, most of them appear to be clean shaven. Yet they seldom, if ever, use a razor. When their beards begin to come in, they pluck out the hairs, thereby solving the barber problem for all time.

In the government school, too, the air is one of wholesome contentment. No more cheering sight could be[Pg 65] wished for than that of the Indian boys and girls chatting cheerily as they eat their bountiful dinner in the large, well-lighted, dining room of the government school. It is a pleasure to acknowledge here the unfailing and uniform courtesy the writer has always experienced on his visits to Fort Hall.

In the days when Bannock was a part of Oneida county, the Nez Perce Indians went on the war path. The trouble started in Oregon and ended a thousand miles away at Bear Paw, Montana. Several accounts of this outbreak have been published, some of them going into much detail, but no one, to our knowledge, has told the story of the rapid flight of a band of Chief Joseph’s followers across Oneida county. To fill the gap and because the history of Bannock county up to 1889 is identical with that of the county of which she formed a part, this chapter is written.

The Nez Perce war, like so many of the early troubles between red men and white, was due to a dispute caused by a treaty.

The first Indian treaty in Idaho was executed between Governor Stevens, of Washington Territory, who was also ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs, and the Nez Perce Indians, June 1, 1855. Up to this time there had been no serious trouble with the Indians in this part of the northwest, with the exception of the Whitman massacre in 1847, when the Cayuse Indians killed Dr. Whitman and[Pg 67] several other settlers. The Nez Perce, however, showing signs of uneasiness at the increasing number of whites and the large tracts of land they were appropriating, Governor Stevens thought it wise to have an understanding with them. In brief, the treaty set apart the Nez Perce reservation, allowing to the Indians certain annual payments and providing for the establishment of an agency and Indian schools, in return for which the Indians ceded to the United States their claim to other lands. One independent, sagacious and brave Nez Perce chief, named Joseph, refused to sign this treaty, and with his adherents, continued to roam the country as before, untramelled by reservation limits or the provisions of treaties.

In May, 1877, Chief Joseph and his followers were ordered from the Wallowa Valley, Oregon, to the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, and given until June 14th to make the move. The Indians felt the injustice of being called upon to observe a treaty to which they had never agreed, and instead of obeying the order, made a rapid journey to the east of the Salmon river country in Idaho, and suddenly attacked the thinly settled whites there, killing seventeen, and wounding many others. They then fired the settlers’ homes and farms[Pg 68] and drove away their horses and cattle. Volunteer companies were quickly formed to protect the whites in the outlying districts, but during the mobilizing of the men, several more were killed. Three other small bands of non-treaty Indians linked their fortunes with those of Chief Joseph; one band, under Chief Looking Glass, another under Chief White Bird, and the third under Chief Tchulhulsote, known as the Dreamer Chief.

General Howard, at Fort Lapwai, who had been relying on a promise given by Chief Joseph to obey the order to move on to the Nez Perce reservation, immediately sent two companies of cavalry, under Colonel Perry, to deal with the Indians, while other soldiers were summoned from Walla Walla, Portland and San Francisco.

The Indians continued on the rampage for the next two days until June 16, 1877. On that day, Colonel Perry arrived on the scene and gave battle to the red men in Whitebird canyon. In an hour thirty-four of his ninety men were killed and two wounded. He beat a hasty retreat to Grangeville.

On June 22nd, General Howard himself took the field with a force of two hundred and twenty-five men and an equipment of artillery. From that time until his final surrender to Col.[Pg 69] Nelson A. Miles, October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph led his followers from one point to another, extricating them from apparently hopeless predicaments, and showing a military shrewdness that ranks him among the first warriors of his race.

In their flight eastward one body of Nez Perces pursued a southerly course, crossing Oneida county a little above Eagle Rock, now called Idaho Falls. It is thought that they expected the Bannock Indians on the Fort Hall reservation to rise and join them, but if this was the case they were disappointed. Perhaps the Bannocks saw the folly of casting in their lot with an ally who was already in flight, but as will appear presently, the Nez Perces received no help from the Bannocks.

The Nez Perces followed a trail down Birch creek. At the same time, August, 1877, two freighters, named Hayden and Green, were traveling northward to Salmon City, with eight or ten wagons, loaded with merchandise. In their party were two hired men, two Chinamen and a swamper, who was working his passage. A party of the Indians met the Hayden and Green outfit and approaching them in a friendly manner, said they wanted to buy flour. Hayden asked them the price then current in Salmon City—$1.75 per hundredweight. The[Pg 70] Indians beat him down fifty cents per hundredweight in his price, bought and paid for their flour, and moved on. Soon Hayden met a second detachment of the Nez Perces, who also wanted to buy flour. He quoted these men the same price he had sold to the first party for, but the second also beat him down. After paying for their purchase, the Indians passed on and joined their comrades. When the two bands compared notes, they found a discrepancy in price, and turned in their tracks to overtake Hayden. When they came up with the freighters, they forced them to go into camp near the sink of Birch creek, and began riding threateningly around the wagons, which the freighters had corraled in regular form. The swamper became uneasy and, when opportunity offered, took to the hills. After a time the Indians took a barrel of whiskey from one of the wagons and having opened it, used it as a free bar. Now Hayden and his companions felt alarmed. One by one they made cautiously for a willow grove on the creek bank, but one of them was killed within thirty yards of the camp, another ten yards further, while a third was shot down when nearly a quarter of a mile distant. All three bodies were mutilated. The Indians, now maddened with drink, turned their attention to the two Chinamen,[Pg 71] whom they abused cruelly. Forcing them down on all fours, they rode the yellow men with spurs, using their whips and rowels freely. Tiring of this sport, the Nez Perces after taking what they wanted, made a bonfire of the freight wagons, which were afterward found burned to the hubs. The Chinamen availed themselves of this opportunity to escape. Both they and the swamper were rescued after wandering for several days in the mountains, but all three men were insane from exposure, hunger, fear and abuse.

Colonel George L. Shoup, of Salmon City, who was expecting the arrival of the Hayden party, went up into the hills where he could get a view of the road, just at the time the Indians forced the freighters into camp, to see whether the wagons had come into sight yet. Taking in the situation, the colonel hurried back to Salmon City for aid, but the rescuers arrived too late. All they could do was to give decent burial to Hayden, Green, and their two companions.

After this massacre, the Indians followed down Birch creek, crossed the Lemhi river and made a long day’s journey, without water, to Hole-in-the-Rock, in Beaver canyon, close to the present town of Highbridge.

At this time, Mr. E. N. Rowland[Pg 72] who now lives on a ranch five miles west of Pocatello, was traveling northward with a freight outfit. He had gone a little beyond Eagle Rock when word came that the Indians were on the warpath. Hurrying ahead, he overtook other freighters, who in turn held back for others to overtake them. In this way forty or fifty men banded together for mutual protection. Presently, looking southward, these men saw a great cloud of dust approaching, and prepared for trouble, but the newcomers proved to be friendly Bannocks, a hundred and fifty or two hundred strong, who had heard that the Nez Perces were in the country. They were making a raid to steal the invaders’ horses. Mr. Rowland says the same band passed them again a few days later, leading with them about two hundred captured ponies.

Further on, just as they were going into camp for their noonday meal, the freighters saw an Indian some distance ahead turn out of the road and disappear among the rocks. A couple of hours later, before resuming their march, a few of the freighters made a cautious search and found the Indian dead from thirst. This was the first of several dead Indians found by the freighters, all of whom had died in the same manner. The hot August weather had dried up the[Pg 73] few streams between the scene of the Hayden tragedy and the Indians’ next halting place, Hole-in-the-Rock. Their whiskey orgy of the previous night had left them in bad shape for a long, dry march and some of the weaker of them perished by the way.

It is but a few miles from Highbridge to the Montana line, and the fleeing Nez Perces circled on toward Bozeman, in that state, without perpetrating any more outrages in Idaho.

In June of this same year, 1877, a band of Bannock Indians from Fort Hall, influenced probably by the action of the Nez Perces in refusing to be restricted by the terms of treaties, left their reservation and proceeded toward Boise. The band was well armed and well mounted. When word reached Boise that these Indians were in camp, less than thirty miles away, the town was greatly alarmed and a body of volunteers, under Captain R. Robbins, was quickly equipped for action.

A small detachment of men was sent to interview the Bannocks, with instructions to bring the band, or at least the chiefs, into Boise to have a talk with the governor. The embassy returned the following morning, June 20th, bringing with them thirty or forty stalwart Bannock warriors. They created a sensation as they rode double file through the main street[Pg 74] of the city to the governor’s office. Here they were introduced to the governor and several of the leading men of Boise, with whom they held a long peace conference. In the end it was agreed that the people of Boise should provide the Indians with provisions and accommodations for their horses until the following day, and give them a few hundred pounds of flour and meat, beside certain amounts of sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, etc., the Bannocks for their part undertaking to return peaceably to their reservation.

Mr. John Hailey, who was detailed by the governor to see that the compact was carried out, has given us the following account of their departure:

“Early the next morning, with the assistance of a few of our good boys, we gathered up all these contributions and checked up to see if they filled the agreement. Everything was satisfactory, we helped them to pack up, and then tried to impress on them, first, that we had kept and fulfilled our part of the agreement, and second, that they must not fail to fulfill their part of the agreement. They seemed to realize the importance of fulfilling their part, so we bade them a good-bye, wishing them a speedy and safe journey to their home on the Fort Hall reservation. They went[Pg 75] and kept their part of the agreement for this year, 1877, but in 1878 they gave us trouble.”

The trouble to which Mr. Hailey refers was the Bannock Indian war, which we will take up in the next chapter.

For seven years previous to the treaty of 1869, the Bannock Indians had given no trouble. In the late fifties and early sixties they committed a number of depredations, and in 1862, General Conner, with a body of troops from California, administered a defeat to them at Battle Creek, near the present town of Oxford, that effectually ended their misbehavior for several years. The bones of Indians killed in this fight are still found in the vicinity.

It was told in a previous chapter how a confusion of the terms Camas and Kansas occurred in the Bannock Indian treaty of 1869. The document stated that the Indians should have a portion of the Kansas prairie, instead of Camas. The two words were synonymous to the Indians, but wise men among the whites foresaw that the mistake would cause future trouble. Accordingly, in the spring of 1873, Mr. John Hailey called on the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs in Washington and urged that the mistake be corrected. As a result a commission of three was appointed to settle[Pg 77] all disputed points with the Nez Perce and Bannock Indians, but nothing was accomplished by the embassy. The treaty still read “Kansas” and the Bannocks still believed that they were entitled to a portion of the Camas prairie, where there were no white settlers at that time, and where the Indians roamed at will.

The trouble came in 1878. In May of that year some hogs were herded on Camas prairie and William Silvey, George Nesbet and Lou Kensler drove a band of cattle and horses there to graze. The men camped about ten miles south of Corral Creek crossing. On the twenty-seventh of May, two English-speaking Indians, called Charley and Jim, visited the campers and appeared in every way friendly. They came again early the next morning, ate breakfast with the white men and continued their show of friendliness until Silvey, Nesbet and Kensler had scattered to their several camp duties. Then Indian Charlie, without warning, shot Nesbet through the jaws with a pistol as he was gathering up some dishes from the ground, while Indian Jim fired a shot at Kensler, who was saddling a horse, and grazed the side of his head. Nesbet and Kensler made a dash for their tent, where they seized guns and opened fire on the Indians, who were now shooting at Silvey. They fled[Pg 78] before the bullets and Silvey escaped unharmed.

Nesbet was badly wounded. His companions tended his injuries as well as they could, saddled a couple of horses, and started with him for Boise. When they had gone a few miles they looked back and saw a large body of Indians devastating their camp. They gave the alarm as they traveled along toward Boise, which Nesbet was a week in reaching. Upon examination, his mouth was found to be alive with vermin, caused by fly-blows, but Dr. Treadwell cleansed it and sewed his tongue together, and after much suffering Nesbet recovered.

The Indians spent a day in the raided camp on Camas prairie, killing cattle and drying beef, gathering horses and preparing generally for war. Two white men, Mabes and Dempsey, were with them. The latter had lived with the Bannocks for several years and had an Indian wife. The Indians made Dempsey write a letter to Governor Braymen at Boise, threatening to kill settlers and destroy property all over the state, if troops were sent to fight them. They then sent Mabes to deliver the letter, and killed Dempsey.

It was learned later that there was a division among the Indians at this time, some favoring war, and others counselling against it. Buffalo Horn,[Pg 79] who was bent on mischief, finally secured a following of some two hundred warriors and a few young Indian women, while the remainder of the Indians returned to the Fort Hall reservation.

Buffalo Horn and his followers next appeared at King Hill station on the Overland stage road. They robbed this place and then raided Glenn’s Ferry, five miles below, on the Snake river, where they destroyed several wagon-loads of merchandise consigned to Boise merchants, and held a big spree on some whiskey they found there. The next day they went on down the river to Bruneau, killing John Bascom and two other men on the way, and two others, Jack Sweeney and a Mr. Hays, whom they found at, or near, Bruneau. The murders would have reached a much higher number had it not been for the alarm spread by Kensler, Nesbet and Silvey, which gave the settlers an opportunity to escape.

In the meantime, W. C. Tatro, who had met the fleeing campers and learned of the outbreak from them, carried the news to Rocky Bar, where a company of volunteers was at once raised by Hon. G. M. Parsons. At the same time, Colonel Bernard, accompanied by Colonel R. Robbins, who had rendered valuable services in the Nez Perce war of the previous year, led a body[Pg 80] of troops from Boise. Both parties took up the trail of the Indians at Camas Prairie and followed in their tracks.

The people of Silver City in Owyhee county, hearing that a band of hostile Indians was encamped in the mountains to the north, sent a company of twenty-six men, under Captain Harper, to give them battle. The white men were greatly outnumbered and the Indians had the advantage of position. A long and fierce fight ensued, during which Captain Harper lost two men. The result was indecisive, the white men returning to Silver City, and the Indians withdrawing the following day.

When he heard of the Silver City engagement, Col. Bernard hurried thither, and sent Col. Robbins out with a detachment of men to see why the mail stage, due the day before, had not arrived. They found the stage destroyed by the Indians, and the driver killed. The only passenger had escaped on one of the lead horses of the stage.

The Bannock Indians soon persuaded others to join them. They gained recruits from the Duck Valley Indians, the Lemhis, Winnemuccas, Malheurs and Snakes, and with their allies numbered about two thousand warriors, women and boys. As they traveled they killed or stole all the[Pg 81] cattle and horses they met and destroyed a large amount of property.

From Silver City, Col. Bernard moved on to Fort Harney. Col. Robbins, who was scouting ahead, succeeded in locating the camp of the Indians by night. He followed their trail for some distance and then climbed a steep hillside to a level plateau, along which he crawled until opposite the red men’s camp. In the clear starlight, he could see all the Indian camps and calculated that they contained at least a thousand warriors. The white men had less than three hundred soldiers.

After a conference, Colonels Robbins and Bernard decided to attack the hostile camp. Col. Robbins, with thirty-five men, charged and surprised the enemy in the early morning, while Col. Bernard, with the main force, proceeded up Silver Creek to the canyon where the Indians were encamped.

Although completely surprised, the red men betook themselves to some fortifications they had made among the rocks, while the soldiers shielded themselves as best they could. The two parties kept up a fusilade throughout the day, and during the following night, June 23rd, the Indians decamped, leaving a hundred dead behind. Five soldiers were killed and a few slightly wounded.

[Pg 82]

Before beginning the battle, Col. Bernard had sent word to General Howard, who was at Malheur, saying that he was about to enter an engagement with a large force of Indians and might need reinforcements. The general arrived the following morning and took command in person.

Colonel Robbins and his scouts followed the Indians, who headed in a northwesterly direction, while the troops came on behind.

Within a few miles of John Day river, Robbins came to a sheep corral in which a large fire had been built by the Indians. The brutes had then bound together the hind legs of the lambs found on the place and thrown them into the corral to burn to death. They had killed the old sheep and left them to rot. In another place the scouts found a herd of Merino bucks, whose forelegs the Indians had cut off at the knee, leaving the poor animals in agony. Such exploits were typical of the Indian on the warpath.

On another occasion the scouts saw a white man on foot running for his life from a party of pursuing Indians, who overtook and killed their victim before the rescuers could arrive. The man was found, scalped and mutilated, and although still breathing, too far gone to give even his name.

Scalping was quite an art among[Pg 83] the Indians, and one in which, sad to say, some white men became very proficient. The Indians did not remove the whole head of their victim’s hair, but only a circular portion, about the size of a silver dollar, from the crown of the head. Sometimes in an attempt to win false glory, a man would cut two or three scalps from one head, taking the extra ones from the sides, but a judge of scalps could always detect the fraud, and unerringly select that which had been taken from the crown. Some white scouts scalped the Indians they killed, and sold the trophies, properly cured, for good sums, the price among eastern curio seekers ranging from fifty to seventy-five dollars. The wound inflicted by scalping was by no means fatal, although most people who went through the ordeal died, because they had been badly wounded first. But instances are on record of men who afterward recovered and were none the worse for their experience.

On July 8th, Colonel Robbins located and surprised the Indians in a canyon leading up to the Blue mountains in Oregon. He was supported by Colonel Bernard with his troops, and succeeded in driving the red men from their position. But the Indians took to the hills and got away, leaving several dead behind them.

The Bannocks had crossed into Oregon[Pg 84] in the hope of persuading the Umatilla and Yakima Indians to join them. In this they were disappointed, which, added to the close pursuit of the soldiers and the, now, well-picketed condition of the country, disheartened the marauders, and they began to sneak back in small bands to the reservations from which they had come. On their way they committed many depredations.

In Umatilla county, Oregon, Mr. Charles Jewell, hearing of the Indian outbreak, secured an equipment of guns and carried them to his herders, who were tending his sheep about thirty-five miles from Pendleton. He stopped at a rancher’s door for a friendly chat, and had barely alighted from his horse when a volley of shots from some ambushed Indians laid him on the ground. The other man was killed and Mr. Jewell was left for dead. When the Indians had gone, he crawled into the house and secured a pair of blankets and a shingle. On the shingle he wrote: “Charles Jewell—shot by Indians—is in the brush near by—call me if you see this.” The wounded man then dragged himself to the road, posted his sign there, and crawled into the brush, where he wrapped himself in the blankets. For three days and nights he lay without food or water, and when finally some passing men found his sign and were led[Pg 85] to him by his feeble answer to their call it was too late. He died a few days afterward in Pendleton.

The three leading war chiefs of the fighting Indians were Buffalo Horn, Bear Skin and Egan. The two former had been killed since hostilities began in May. About the middle of July, Chief Homily of the Umatillas, with ninety followers, went up into the hills to recover some horses that Chief Egan’s men had stolen. He arranged for a conference with Chief Egan and thirty of his men, and in the midst of it, at a given signal, fell upon Chief Egan, killing him and his thirty companions. He then affixed the dead chief’s scalp to a long pole, with the hair flying in the breeze and carried it triumphantly back to the reservation. General Howard had doubted the loyalty of the Umatillas up to this time and Chief Homily killed Chief Egan as an evidence of his good faith toward the whites. Colonel Robbins was sent to the scene of the massacre to determine whether Chief Egan were really dead. Everything was found just as Chief Homily had described it.

Chief Egan’s death completely demoralized the Indians. They had now lost their three greatest fighting chiefs, and wherever they went they found the white men ready for them. Volunteer companies had been formed[Pg 86] all through that section of the country, even as far south as Nevada, and the triumphant advance of the red men had turned into a search for safety. They broke into small parties, traveling along out-of-the-way trails and largely by night, killing and plundering when the opportunity came, but always heading for the reservation and safety. It is now more than thirty-five years since this war ended, during which time the Bannock Indians have given no further trouble. The large increase in population makes another outbreak practically impossible.

Idaho has seen one other Indian war, known as the Sheep-Eater Indian war. This was fought with the Tookarikkas, in 1879. These people were a mixture of the Shoshones and Bannocks, apparently inheriting the bad qualities of both without their good qualities. They were outcasts, even among the Indians, and won their soubriquet of “Sheep-Eaters” by stealing sheep from the ranges. They were cowardly and treacherous, and subsisted largely by theft. In May, 1879, they killed some settlers and burned some property on Hugh Johnson’s ranch on the south fork of the Salmon river, near Warrens, and as a result were rounded up by government and state troops and sent to Vancouver, Wash.

[Pg 87]

We give this war only passing notice because it belongs to the history of Bannock county, only through the relationship of the Tookarikka and Bannock Indians.

Previous to 1863 there was no regular line of transportation through Bannock county, the mails being carried by pony express, which made the postage on letters cost from fifty cents to one dollar each, and the few people whose business called them across southern Idaho traveled singly or in groups, in the saddle, or by wagon, as suited their convenience and opportunity. But, however they traveled, they all followed the line of the old Oregon trail.

In 1863, Oliver and Conover stocked a road from Virginia City, Montana, to Salt Lake City, the impetus given to transportation in these parts by the development of the mines in Montana promising to make such a venture successful. The trail through Bannock county followed closely the present tracks of the Oregon Short Line running north from Fort Hall along the Montana division. The stations were from twelve to fifteen miles apart, there having been one at Fort Hall, another near the Lavatta ranch, another at Pocatello creek and a fourth just west of McCammon, formerly called Harkness.

The freighting season opened in[Pg 89] April and lasted until November. The bottom lands to the west of Pocatello were a favorite wintering resort for the freighters because of the facilities they offered in the way of protection, water and food.

The freight wagons were drawn by either mules or oxen, and so slow was their progress that they made only from three to five trips a season. The more costly and perishable merchandise, such as drugs and chemicals, was usually carried on the passenger stages.

A mule train was made up of from eight to twelve animals attached to two or three wagons; an ox train of about fourteen animals. These cumbrous outfits traveled about twelve miles a day.

The passenger stages, however, traveled about one hundred miles in twenty-four hours. They were drawn by from four to six horses, who were changed every twelve or fifteen miles, while the drivers changed every fifty miles. They were usually accompanied by a messenger, who was a kind of guard and rode beside the driver. Most of the stages were of the thorough-braced type, the bodies resting upon leather straps instead of springs, which gave them an easy, swinging motion. They were usually fitted with three seats and carried nine passengers, and were very comfortable to travel in. A few post stages, which[Pg 90] would accommodate twenty-six passengers, were run over this road, but the traffic was not heavy enough to bring them into general use.

In 1864, Ben Halliday, whose name has been given to a street in Pocatello, secured a contract to carry the United States mails, and bought out Oliver and Conover. This line was later called the Halliday Overland Mail and Express, a name retained in the Overland Limited of today, on the Oregon Short Line and Union Pacific railroads.

Ben Halliday was well known throughout the far west fifty years ago, and his name is linked inseparably with her early history. Mr. Hiram T. French, in his History of Idaho, says: “Ben Halliday was a prominent figure in the development of the country west of the Mississippi, and filled a place that no man lacking in courage, judgment or character could have held. To one who knows the west, ‘Overland’ is even yet a word to conjure by. In fancy one sees the dashing horses and lurching coach, and hears the crack of the driver’s whip.”

Hon. John Hailey writes from personal knowledge of the famous stage man as follows: “Ben Halliday was a little over the average in size, strong in stature, fine looking, sociable, generous, energetic and far-seeing. In conversation his intellectual[Pg 91] face and eyes would fairly shine. He was open and frank in all his dealings. He was brave, quick and daring in engaging in any legitimate business that tended to open the resources of this great western country.

“At the time Mr. Halliday established his Overland Stage Line from the Missouri river to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Helena, Montana, and to Boise, the country through which his stages must run was wild, inhabited by none save Indians, usually hostile, and a few white men who were equally dangerous. Few men would even have entertained the idea of engaging in such a dangerous and hazardous business, which involved the investment of several hundred thousand dollars to build substantial stations, and fit up the road with the necessary live and rolling stock, forage, provisions, men, arms, and ammunition for the protection of life, property and the United States mail, but Mr. Halliday did it successfully. He opened the great Overland Route and transported mail and passengers from the east to west and return with reasonable celerity and security, besides making the route much safer for others to travel and blazing the way for the Union Pacific railroad, which was commenced soon after.”

The stage line through Bannock[Pg 92] county passed from the hands of Ben Halliday to the Wells Fargo Express company, and later to the firm of Gilmore and Salisbury, who continued the service until the opening of the Utah and Northern railway made stages a thing of the past.

The mountain fastnesses along the Portneuf canyon, made this the most dangerous stretch of road between Salt Lake City and Butte. It was very difficult to trail men over the lava rocks that abound along this route, and the wild nature of the country beyond them offered road agents a fair chance of safety. The gold bullion brought down from the Montana mines made a tempting prize, and encouraged highway robbery to such an extent that the outrages in time gave birth to the vigilantes, who gave the robbers short shrift and in time succeeded in practically ending their operations.

The first hold-up in Bannock county occurred in 1863, about a mile and a half west of Pocatello creek, when Jack Hughes, a Denver man, was robbed of $6,000 by Brocky Jack, at that time a well-known character along the stage road. The trick was easily turned and Brocky Jack escaped with his booty without firing a gun.

In 1865, a far more serious affair was perpetrated near Robbers’ Roost[Pg 93] Creek, a few miles west of the present town of McCammon. A stage of the Concord type, carrying several passengers and $60,000 of private money, was betrayed by its driver, Frank Williams, to a gang led by Jim Locket. As he rounded a steep hill, Williams turned his horses suddenly, breaking the reach of the coach, and the road agents, concealed in the brush, which was so thick at this point that it scratched the sides of the stage, gave the word to halt. Among the passengers were two wealthy St. Louis merchants, David Dinan and a man named McCausland. These men were apprehensive of being held up and carried their guns in their hands, ready for instant use. This precaution probably caused their death. At the cry, “Hands up,” the passengers discharged their guns into the brush, shooting too high to wound their opponents, but thereby bringing upon themselves a volley that killed both Dinan and McCausland and two other men, one of them being Lawrence Merz, a passenger who was sitting by the driver. Charles Parks, a messenger, riding within the coach, was shot in the foot, while one man, whose name is variously given as Brown and Carpenter, escaped unhurt. The murdered men were buried in a gulch near the scene of their death and the coach, riddled with bullets, was taken to Malad.

[Pg 94]

None of the members of this gang were apprehended, but Williams, the driver, was arrested and hung. He retained his position for some ten days after the hold-up, and then, actuated perhaps by a guilty conscience and the fear of detection, resigned and went to Salt Lake. Here it was noticed that he spent money very freely, and he was seized later in Denver. Jim Locket was a man of such notorious character that no attempt was made to trail him, the few settlers in the neighborhood at that time preferring to give him as wide a berth as possible.

Three men, named McCay, Jones and Spangler, followed a stage out of Malad City in 1870, and held it up some six or seven miles from that city. Spangler and Jones were afterward captured, but Jones escaped from jail, and Spangler cleared himself by giving information that led to the recovery of $6,000 of the $9,000 taken from the coach.

Two weeks later, in 1870, a very daring hold-up was made by two men near the top of the Malad divide. One of the men was variously known as Ed. Flag, Frank Long and Frank Carpenter. The other, whose name was Stone, was said to belong to a good family in Louisville, Ky.

These two men placed three dummies in a half-exposed position near[Pg 95] the road and succeeded in making off with $36,000 in gold bullion without firing a shot. The stage carried no passengers.

The driver returned to Malad and said that he had been held up by a gang of five men. After some deliberation, J. N. Ireland, now a resident of Pocatello, Tom Oakley, Daniel Robbins and four others, set out to trail the bandits. This was not a difficult matter in the early days, provided the fugitives took to the brush, which they were obliged to do in most cases in order to find concealment. Their horses, in pushing a way through the growth, left a well-defined track that a child could follow, and as travelers were few, there was little danger of hitting the wrong trail. But while it was sometimes an easy matter to follow up a gang of robbers, few men cared to undertake the task. A road agent knew that capture probably meant death and his very occupation was a sufficient guarantee that he would kill without scruple. He had the advantage, too of being able to ambush his pursuers, and shoot them before they could seek cover.

The posse of seven men took up the trail of the bandits at the spot where the hold-up occurred and traced them to Birch Creek. As evening came on and darkness closed in, and[Pg 96] when they had ridden some twenty miles, the pursuers came within a half mile of the robbers, whom they found to be on the opposite side of the creek. In the early morning they crossed the creek, and were close upon Flag and Stone, before those men were aware of their proximity. Not expecting pursuit, the highwaymen were not on their guard. They concealed themselves in a steep hollow, where slender willows, about the thickness of a man’s finger, and seven feet high, grew in such profusion that they formed an impenetrable hiding place.

Mr. Ireland and his party rode past this hollow to the robbers’ horses, where a council of war was held. At last Mr. Ireland and Dan Robbins volunteered to trail Flag and Stone while three of the party remained with the horses, and Tom Oakley, armed with a very fine rifle belonging to Mr. Ireland, took a position on the hillside behind a rock, where he could pick off the road agents if they emerged from the brush.

Cautiously, with every sense alert, the two daring men worked their way into the hollow. They knew they were within a few feet of their quarry, but could see nothing of them. Presently Mr. Ireland said: “Dan, here’s where we’re close upon them, because they have trampled these willows[Pg 97] down and they have sprung up again.”

At the same moment Oakley’s voice called a warning from the hill, “Look out! You’re close on them!”

Simultaneously a shot rang out and Daniel Robbins fell, riddled with shot. Flag and Stone made a dash from cover, but Oakley brought them both down with two well-directed shots from his rifle. The two men lay side by side, Flag dead, and Stone with a wound in his leg that necessitated its amputation.

Mr. Ireland and his companions tried to get Stone to tell where the $36,000 taken from the coach was hidden. Stone at first insisted that the stage had been held up by five men, three of whom had in turn robbed himself and Flag, who were left empty-handed. These three men, Stone said, had the money. Tom Oakley, after whom the town of Oakley in Bannock county was named, was a man of forbidding appearance and a bad man to trifle with. He took a hand in the matter and Stone finally confessed that the money was hidden near Elkhorn, where it was afterward found.

After the fight, which occurred in the early morning, Mr. Ireland rode back to Malad and returned the same day with a doctor, having traveled[Pg 98] over forty miles after his harrowing experience.

Mr. Robbins recovered from his wounds and died a few years ago in Salt Lake. At the time they entered the willow thicket, Mr. Ireland was wearing a grey and Mr. Robbins a white shirt. Stone said afterward that he and Flag saw the gleam of the white shirt through the foliage, and were thus enabled to shoot Robbins, although they could see no other portion of the two men.

Stone was sent to the penitentiary at Boise, but after a short imprisonment secured a pardon and became a preacher.

Not until after their return from this expedition did Mr. Ireland’s party learn that a large reward had been offered for the capture of the two road agents. A quarter of the $36,000 stolen was divided among the seven men, who received $1280 each.

Another successful use of dummies was made by a lone bandit, who placed several at a turn in the road not far from Malad, and succeeded in relieving a coach, driven by James Boyle, of several bars of gold. There were no passengers in the stage.

One night during the summer of 1873, a stage manned by Charley Phelps and Joe Pinkham was ordered to stop by a road agent, while passing through Portneuf canyon. Instead of obeying the order, the stage-men[Pg 99] fired in the direction of the voice. The fire was returned and Phelps, who was driving, fell back, mortally wounded. Pinkham caught up the reins and the stage dashed on without stopping. Phelps was buried in the cemetery at Malad, where the following inscription stands over his grave:

The days of the stage coach have passed, and with them the incidents that we class under adventure and romance in the reading, but that meant hardship, danger and exposure in the making. The advent of the railroad was the beginning of a new era in Bannock county—an era of prosperity and growth, but also, let us not forget, an era for which the way was paved by the hardy pioneers[Pg 100] who faced the wilderness unafraid, and tamed it for the uses of civilization. These men, following their humble lot in life and performing their toilsome duties from day to day, were in truth empire builders, to whom is due the respect and honor of all right-feeling men.

It occurs to few men, as they glide smoothly across the Snake river in a vestibuled train, and watch the seething waters toss and tumble below the substantial iron bridge, to think of the problem the passage of this same stream afforded the traveler of fifty years ago. In his “Ventures and Adventures,” Ezra Meeker tells of how he crossed the Snake in 1852. Mr. Meeker and his party had crossed the plains from Iowa, on their way to Oregon, and by the time they reached Idaho their funds were almost exhausted. Ferries were scarce and where one was found, the price asked for a passage was prohibitive to most of the immigrants.

“Some immigrants,” writes Mr. Meeker, “had caulked three wagon beds and lashed them together, and were crossing, but would not help others across for less than from three to five dollars a wagon, the party swimming their own stock. If others could cross in wagon-beds, why could not I do likewise? Without much ado, all the old clothing that could possibly be spared was marshalled, tar buckets ransacked, old chisels and broken knives hunted up, and a veritable[Pg 102] boat repairing and caulking campaign inaugurated, and shortly the wagon-box rode placidly, even if not gracefully on the turbid waters of the formidable river.

“My first venture across the Snake river was with the wagon gear run over the wagon box, the whole being gradually worked out into deep water. The load was so heavy that a very small margin was left to prevent the water from breaking over the sides, and some actually did, as light ripples on the surface struck the “Mary Jane,” as we had christened (without wine) the ‘craft,’ as she was launched. However, I got over safely, but after that took lighter loads and really enjoyed the novelty of the work and the change from the intolerable dust, and the atmosphere of the water.”

The Utah & Northern was the first railroad to enter the territory of Idaho. It was promoted by John W. Young, a son of Brigham Young, whose name has been given to Young street in Pocatello, but although a large sum of local capital was invested, the enterprise received its chief support from Joseph and Benjamin Richardson, two contractors of New York City, whom Young interested in the project.

In March, 1873, congress granted a right of way to Young’s company[Pg 103] running along the Bear river valley, through Soda Springs, up the Snake river valley and across Montana to a junction point with the Northern Pacific. The act allowed ten years in which to complete the work of construction. A second act, passed in June, 1878, empowered “the Utah & Northern Railroad company and its assigns to build their road by way of Marsh valley, Portneuf and Snake river instead of by way of Soda Springs and Snake river valley.”

By the spring of 1877 the road had been constructed as far as the Snake river. In the following year a bond issue of $4,991,000 was floated and during 1880 the rails were extended to Silver Bow, Montana, a distance of 328 miles from the Utah line.

In July, 1882, congress officially ratified an agreement made at Fort Hall between the Shoshone and Bannock Indians and Joseph K. McCammon, whose name has been given to the town of McCammon in this county, and several railroad officers, by which the promoters secured a right of way through the reservation.

The opening of the Utah & Northern railway gave the first great impetus to settlement and development in southeastern Idaho, making it possible to market produce profitably and at the same time bringing the settler into touch with the outside world.[Pg 104] The Portneuf canyon, through which this line was constructed, is one thousand feet lower than any other mountain pass within three hundred miles either north or south, and constitutes a natural gateway through which a very large portion of the produce of the great northwest must pass on its way to an eastern market.

The Utah & Northern Railway company was consolidated with the Oregon Short Line Railway company in August, 1889, being known as the Oregon Short Line & Northern Railway company, and in 1897 the two were merged into the present Oregon Short Line Railroad company.

The Utah & Northern had constructed a narrow gauge line. When the old Short Line Railway company built its line between Granger and Huntington it used the transportation facilities afforded by the Utah & Northern both to the east and west of Pocatello. During the early part of 1882 the Short Line laid a narrow gauge track between Pocatello and the Snake river crossing, now American Falls, and from McCammon, at that time called Harkness, to a point near the present station of Pebble.

During the year 1882, the Utah & Northern track between McCammon and Pocatello was rebuilt to standard gauge, the narrow gauge equipment of that company being provided[Pg 105] for by laying a third rail. By the summer of 1887 the entire line between Pocatello and Silver Bow, Montana, was operating on a standard gauge, while the lines to the east and south had been similarly reconstructed before 1890.

At the time the first railroad bridge across the Snake river was built, American Falls was located on the western side of the river. The population was made up of the usual assortment of men, who make up the population of frontier towns. The good, the bad and the indifferent were there—graders, stockmen, Chinamen, gamblers and business men, with a few women—all rough and ready: hardy people of the plains and the mountains. Law and order were administered in a ready manner and summary justice was meted out to the evil-doer by self-constituted judges and juries.

Two of the worst characters in the neighborhood at that time were cowboys, gamblers and probably murderers; “Tex” and “Johnson,” as they were known to the people of American Falls.

One night some Chinamen were murdered and the more law-abiding citizens decided that if the culprits were found they should suffer for the crime. The two cowboys, “Tex” and Johnson, were suspected of the[Pg 106] murder, but as no certain proof was obtainable, they were not punished, but ordered to leave town. This they did, going to the east side of the river and spending the night in a house occupied by Buck Houston. The next day they returned to the west side. The law and order element immediately organized a necktie party, with “Tex” and Johnson as the chief guests. With a grim brevity the two were taken to the river, ropes thrown over an iron span, and with a short wait for the usual last words they were hurried into eternity. Their bodies swung back and forth, suspended from the bridge, the falls roaring and splashing beneath them, and the spray shooting up into the air, wetting their high boots and leather chaps.

Afterwards the two bodies were cut down and taken to the top of the bluff, overlooking the river, and there they were buried. Two rough slabs, with “Tex” carved on one, and “Johnson” on the other, were placed at their heads. The mounds where these men were buried are still discernable.

In most newly-settled communities, justice is administered quickly and without the formality of legal proceedings. This was especially true of the early days in the west. Time was when the regular method of collecting[Pg 107] overdue bills in Bannock county was at the mouth of a gun, and this within the memory of living men. Horse theft was punishable with death throughout the far west, the penalty being no more than proportionate to the crime. For the west in those days was a desert country, and the loss of a man’s horse often meant a horrible death by thirst because the next watering place was further away than a man could walk. So it happened that while a cowboy sometimes paid a hundred dollars for his saddle and only twenty-five dollars for his pony, he would forgive the man who stole the former, but without scruple hang the man who stole the horse.

The terminal facilities of the Oregon Short Line at Pocatello have been steadily increased and the roadbed improved because of the immense traffic caused by the development of the tributary territory. In 1904 the “Michaud Cut-off” was made in order to straighten the track a few miles west of Pocatello. Since 1910 the road has been double-tracked between Lava Hot Springs and Michaud, and in that year the system of mechanical block signals was completed from the eastern to the western boundary of the county. A branch line, connecting Alexander and Grace, a distance of about six miles, was[Pg 108] opened in 1913. Among other noteworthy recent improvements are the Batise Springs water plant, the Center street viaduct and Halliday street subway in Pocatello, the new shop buildings and depot, now being built in the same city, and the new depot and water plant at McCammon.

The Oregon Short Line is the artery through which pulses the very life blood of Bannock county. In the Pocatello shops over eleven hundred men are employed, and those who find work on the Montana and Idaho divisions bring the number to about 4000. It is, therefore, a very fortunate thing for the community at large that the Oregon Short Line Railroad company is one of the apparently few large corporations in this country today that realizes a moral responsibility toward the general public. A comparison of the Safety First movement as conducted by this company with the conditions that are not only tolerated but apparently encouraged by the owners of the Colorado mines shows what a great blessing or curse the attitude of big corporations toward the public welfare may be.

Some years ago, Mr. Harriman, while talking with the claims attorney of one of the roads in which he was interested, about the policy to be adopted in dealing with injured employes in the matter of settlements,[Pg 109] and particularly of providing them with some kind of work when they had been so seriously injured that they could not fill their former positions, said that he wanted “all injured men to be dealt with along the lines of practical Christianity.” That this idea is still followed by the company is shown by the fact that in June, 1914, only one injured employe had a suit pending against the company for injuries received in its service; the rest being satisfied with the terms of settlement accorded them by the company.

The Safety First movement, by which the Oregon Short Line seeks to guard the safety of its employes and of the public alike, is an educational measure inaugurated about two years ago and intended to interest all people.

The work is carried on by means of committees. At each division point is what is known as a “sub-committee,” composed of men from all branches of the service, who suggest changes in the road’s equipment or in existing conditions, that will make the work of railroading safer. If the suggestions made cannot be acted upon locally, they are referred to the “division committee,” which in turn accepts or rejects them, and if unable to enforce them by its own vote, recommends them to the “central committee.” This body is composed[Pg 110] of officials of the road and their decision is final. In this way the entire Short Line force, from the newest and lowest paid employe to the highest officer, is interested in the common safety, and is in a position to suggest measures for the general good. That the system is successful is shown by the fact that during the year ending June, 1913, there were 2829 people injured on the Oregon Short Line. During that ending June, 1914, the total was reduced to 1711, or 39.5 per cent. During the first six months of this year there were only 606 accidents, as against 955 for the same months of 1913—a reduction of over 61 per cent.

The company is also conducting a campaign to eliminate the accidents caused by trespassing. In 1913, 5434 trespassers were killed on the railroads in the United States. Of these, 10 per cent were tramps, 70 per cent young men or heads of families, and 20 per cent were children under 14 years of age. By trying to educate school children, their teachers and the general public in precautionary measures, and by attempting to secure proper legislation on the subject, the Oregon Short Line Railroad company is trying to still further enhance its value to the people at large and to reduce to a minimum the accidents connected with all great railroad corporations.

In his book “Astoria,” written about 1840, in which he gives the history of an attempt made by the first John Jacob Astor to establish a fur trade to the west of the Rocky Mountains, Washington Irving repeatedly regrets the fact that the great stretch of the western plains must forever form a desert stretch between the civilization of the west and that of the east. In one place he says: “Some portions of it (the prairie) along the rivers may partially be subdued by agriculture, others may form vast pastoral tracts, like those of the east; but it is to be feared that a great part of it will form a lawless interval between the abodes of civilized man, like the wastes of the ocean or the deserts of Arabia; and, like them, be subject to the depredations of the marauder.”

In this the great writer proved to be a false prophet. Irrigation and the principles of dry farming are fast converting the desert into productive farm land, and land that a few years ago could be had for a song is today[Pg 112] held at high prices. The United States Census report for 1910 gave the average value of land in Bannock county as $7.76 per acre. In 1910, the same bureau gave the average value as being $21.57.

This increase in value, however, is not due to development alone, but also to the increased rainfall during recent years, which has made it possible to profitably till soil that was before considered arid. The total precipitation in Pocatello in 1901 was 7.56 inches. In 1906, it was 18.17 inches, and in 1907, 17.43 inches, while in 1914 it was over 18.60 inches. Some scientists explain this by saying that the increased areas of irrigation give off a sufficient evaporation to form clouds, which precipitate the evaporated water in the form of rain and snow, while others maintain that the surface of irrigation waters is not large enough to effect the annual precipitation. But whatever the explanation, the fact remains that many hitherto unproductive tracts have now sufficient natural moisture to make them productive.

The only weather bureau in Bannock county is situated at Pocatello, at an altitude of 4,483 feet, and the following statistics were registered at that place: The average number of days per year with more than .01 inch of precipitation is 92. The mean[Pg 113] temperature is about 47.5; nearly the same as that of eastern Massachusetts, but more equably distributed. The earliest killing frost of the winter usually comes about the middle of October, and the last in the spring toward the end of April.

The population of the county in 1910 was 19,242; in 1900 it was 11,702. Some idea of the cosmopolitan character of the population may be gathered from the fact that there were in this county in 1910, 52 Chinese, 360 Japanese, 129 negroes, 641 Greeks, 483 English, 288 Danes, 280 Italians, and 232 Swedes, beside smaller numbers from fifteen other nationalities. Only 51 per cent of the population were native born children of native parents. The county contained 11,405 males, and 7,837 females. These were divided into 3,668 families, housed in 3,560 dwellings.

In 1910 the county had 1,503 farms, as against 769 in 1900. The value of all farm property was $10,957,609, an increase of 188.6 per cent over the total valuation in 1900. The value of all crops in 1910 was $1,339,642, the most valuable being cereals, which totaled $653,768. Hay and forage came next at $610,585. The remaining crops were made up of grains and seeds, vegetables, fruits and nuts, and a few other products. The total irrigated area is about 110,000 acres.[Pg 114] The altitude in the valleys varies from 4,250 feet to 5,780, while among the mountains it is, of course, much higher. There is a large acreage of fine, well-watered pasture land in the county, on which grows an abundance of nutritious bunch grass. McCammon, Downey, Oxford, and Soda Springs are all surrounded with rich agricultural lands, and at the latter place are a number of hot mineral springs, whose waters are bottled and widely sold. Lava Hot Springs will in time be a health resort of more than state-wide fame, the beauty of its surroundings as well as its health-giving springs making it an ideal spot for rest and recreation.

There was a time when deer, bear and other game were plentiful in this county, and it is only about ten years since a settler was sitting quietly in his cabin one summer evening, reading a magazine, when he was disturbed by a slight noise. He paid no attention to this, but was suddenly startled a second time by an ear-splitting scream from his cat, who made a dash for the door, and in her exit, jumped over a bear, who was calmly walking in. The settler was not in the habit of entertaining stray bears in his cabin, and was at a loss to know how to greet the visitor. In his perplexity he emitted a yell that startled all the bears for many miles[Pg 115] around and caused the one lone bear in the cabin to make a hasty dive for cover under the bed. The rancher’s gun hung over the bed, but he did not turn that way. He headed toward the door. As he neared it, the bear, for reasons known only to himself, made a dash in the same direction and man and beast were jammed in the narrow entry. The man pushed in and the bear pushed out, but in his excitement the animal turned clean about in the open and presently rushed back into the cabin to his own surprise no less than that of the inmate. The latter, however, was now safe on his bed, and reaching for the gun, he probably added considerably to Mr. Bruin’s perplexity by sending him unexpectedly into kingdom come.

Parts of three national forests are situated in Bannock county; the Caribou in the east, the Cache in the southeast, and the Pocatello in the western part. The Pocatello division of the Pocatello forest was created September 15, 1903, from an examination by Edward T. Allen.

Following an examination by Robert B. Wilson, the Portneuf division was created March 2, 1907. The Malad division, created May 28, 1906, as a part of the Bear River forest, became a part of the Pocatello in the reorganization of July 1, 1908. These[Pg 116] national forest lands, covering, in general, the Portneuf and Marsh Creek watersheds, were merged into the Pocatello forest July 1, 1908.

The Bear River forest, almost encircled by the Bear river or its tributaries, was formed May 28, 1906, and with the Logan became the Cache July 1, 1908.

The Caribou forest was established January 15, 1907, the part in Bannock county lying mainly on the watersheds of the Blackfoot, Salt, and Bear rivers.

Peter T. Wrensted, Clinton G. Smith, and J. F. Bruins, in turn, supervised the Pocatello, the headquarters during this time being at Pocatello. The Pocatello and Cache were joined March 1, 1914, for administrative purposes, under Mr. Smith, whose headquarters are now at Logan, Utah. Logan is the headquarters of the Cache, which has had four supervisors, John F. Squires, Mark G. Woodruff, W. W. Clark, and C. G. Smith. The Caribou has been administered by Supervisors J. T. Wedemeyer, N. E. Snell, and George G. Bentz. The headquarters is at Montpelier.

The need of planting to restock the great areas of burned and insufficiently forested land in the national forests was recognized almost as soon as they were proclaimed. Particularly[Pg 117] was this need felt as to the forests withdrawn for watershed protection, and on watersheds furnishing a domestic supply the need was most urgent. At that time a pleasing theory existed that every forest ranger should have a nursery in which to raise trees for setting out in the hills during his spare time. With this idea, the nursery on Mink Creek among others, was started.

It was then realized that nursery and planting work presented specialized technical problems calling for a high degree of skill to meet successfully the adverse conditions of an arid region. Soon after the nursery was started, it was realized that success could be hoped for only by centralizing this work at favorable locations. The shipping facilities at Pocatello, together with the need of extensive planting there with a favorable site for the nursery determined the location at that place.

The early work was experimental and principally valuable as indicating the future methods to be followed. However, actual production of stock was begun on an extensive scale in 1911, and since that time half a million or more young trees have been shipped each year to the forests of southern Idaho and Utah. The present capacity of the nursery is about 2,000,000 plants a year and the nursery[Pg 118] is firmly on its feet with a record of successful production of stock for several years at a cost not exceeding five dollars per thousand for the stock supplied. At present there are probably three or four million young trees in the nursery, the principal species being Douglas fir and yellow pine.

Stream flow protection is the first object of the service on the area of the Pocatello city watershed. During the time that this area was part of the Indian reservation there was not much difficulty with stream flow protection, but when it was opened, the citizens received an object lesson in the effects of free grazing that led to the inclusion of the watershed in a forest and the prohibition of grazing. The protection of this area has been devoted to prevention of fire, prohibition of grazing and replanting to forest. During the last five years, not five acres of this area has been burned. Control of grazing is more difficult because the boundaries are not fenced, but it may be stated that with the exclusion of stock, the forage has been completely replaced, forming a sight such as gladdened the eye of the first explorer and incidentally a cover that prevents erosion and rapid run-off of water. The streams are almost always clear and the city of Pocatello has an exceptionally[Pg 119] pure and palatable supply of water.

The planting operations will probably have no effect on the water supply of the present generation, as it is being undertaken for the future timber supply and present experimental value. About 200,000 trees are being planted a year and recently with good success. The conifers planted are slow growing, but the early plantations are a foot or two high and even the present generation should see fine groves as a result.

Lately the question of stocking this area with game has been considered. It is pointed out that the area is an ideal natural range for elk, deer and other game, also that such a use would not interfere with the stream protection, but would furnish meat, sport and attractiveness to the region and would tend to reduce the fire danger. To provide complete use with complete protection will be the next logical step.

In spite of the wild and sometimes forbidding scenery that meets the traveler’s eye from the train window, there are probably few more peaceful communities than Bannock county in the farming sections of the east. Women frequently live alone and unprotected on isolated ranches and are seldom molested. The case of Hugh Whitney, the bandit and outlaw who[Pg 120] robbed Pocatello of a true citizen, and upon whose head there rests a large reward, is today an exception. His story is too well known to be repeated in detail here. In brief, Hugh Whitney, who was a Wyoming sheepman, and a companion, held up a saloon at Monida, just over the Montana line, in 1911, and were apprehended on a train running south toward Pocatello. The sheriff who had boarded the train to make the arrest, placed his guns on a seat in order to handcuff the prisoners. Whitney grabbed these and shot both the sheriff and Conductor James Kidd, who was helping the officer. Conductor Kidd died in Pocatello within a few days. The sheriff recovered.

Whitney and his companion jumped from the moving train and separated in making their escape. Whitney was trailed by posses for weeks, and in the course of the chase killed several of his pursuers. Although blood-hounds were used in the attempt to capture him, he eluded all pursuit with an ingenuity worthy of a better cause. When the excitement had died down somewhat, he and his brother held up a bank in Cody, Wyoming, driving the employes into the safe and locking them up there while they made their escape.

Evidently the days of “bad men,” in the criminal sense of the term, are[Pg 121] not yet ended in the far west, but the facility of communication afforded by the railway, telephone and telegraph makes their trade very hazardous, and the ordinary citizen lives in less danger of being held up or shot than does the wayfarer on the streets of New York or Chicago.

The city of Pocatello, so named in memory of an Indian chief, stands at the western entrance to the Portneuf canyon, and for that reason is appropriately known as the “Gate City.” Its site marks the junction of the Montana and Idaho divisions of the Oregon Short Line railroad, and the tremendous volume of traffic that passes through its yards, together with the many departments maintained here, is rapidly developing a large and prosperous city. Twenty-five years ago the town was a mere hamlet; in 1910 the United States Census returns gave a population of 9,100, and in 1914 Polk’s Directory credits Pocatello with over 12,000 inhabitants, to which must be added some 500 transients. The city is the metropolis and county seat of Bannock county, and the second largest place in the state of Idaho.

Pocatello is pre-eminently a railroad town, and to the railroad she owes her birth as well as her growth. When the westward course of the Oregon Short Line crossed the tracks of the Utah & Northern railroad, some fifty miles south of Idaho Falls,[Pg 123] then called Eagle Rock, a hamlet naturally sprang up at the junction. This was in the heart of the Fort Hall Indian reservation, but the railroad had a grant of some two hundred acres for its right of way, upon which it allowed settlement, and upon which, in 1882, it erected the Pacific hotel and station. Shoshone had been selected by the railroad officials as a division terminal, but there being some dispute relative to the town-site, they determined upon Pocatello instead. In 1887 the town received a further impetus in the removal thither of the shops from Idaho Falls, which brought several hundred men, many of them with families, into the hamlet. For the accommodation of this addition, the railroad company built what is today known as Company Row.

One of the most historic buildings in the city is the two-story frame house to the left of the west end of the Center street viaduct. In the days when buildings were scarce and the little available space overcrowded, this building, now used for office purposes, served as a public meeting hall. Portneuf Lodge, No. 18, A. F. & A. M. was organized here in 1886, and met in the building for some time. In the late eighties the building was used for public school purposes, and in 1891 as the fire hall. At various[Pg 124] times it has been used as a church, a theatre, a pool hall, and within its walls were held many a church fair that helped to build the present city churches, and many a dance that lives yet in the memories of the older members of Pocatello society. The city council also used it for a meeting place.

Although there was no land open for settlement, there quickly grew up a typical frontier town, “wide-open,” as the saying is, where excitement ran high, where vice went unashamed, and where saloons and gambling knew no closing hours nor Sunday laws. At last the demand for more room became so insistent, that the United States government purchased two thousand acres of reservation land from the Indians, to be used as a town-site. This was surveyed in 1889, and the following year lots were sold at auction at prices ranging from ten to fifty dollars. At that sale the foundation of many comfortable fortunes of today were made. Already some buildings had been erected, and it was feared that the purchase of their sites by other parties might cause trouble. But the squatter’s right was honored, and the man who had built a store or home was allowed to secure a title to his holdings.

The community was organized into a village during this year, with H. L.[Pg 125] Becraft as chairman of the board of trustees, and D. K. Williams, A. F. Caldwell, L. A. West and Doctor Davis members. Another tract of reservation land was opened for settlement in 1905.

Before 1892, Pocatello had a population of over three thousand, and by an act of legislature it was in that year created a city of the first class. At the first city election, held in 1893, Edward Stein was elected mayor; Ed. Sadler, clerk, and J. J. Curl, treasurer. Eight councilmen were also elected.

Edward Stein, Pocatello’s first mayor, and now a citizen of Boise, has had an eventful career. He is a grandson of Baron von Stein, commander-in-chief of the Prussian army during the Napoleonic wars. His father, William von Stein, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian war, became a follower of the brilliant reformer Carl Schurz, and upon the failure of the latter’s attempt to establish a democracy in Germany, was cast into prison. He was afterwards released, but lost his title to nobility. Edward von Stein was born in Schubina, Poland, January 17, 1854, and was educated at the Prussian University of Bromberg. His republican tendencies naturally turned his attention toward America, where Carl Schurz and many another European revolutionist[Pg 126] had already found a haven, and with his father’s approval, embarked in 1871 on the steamer Weiland from Hamburg to New York.

Because he had reached an age at which the German military service would have claimed him, young Stein had entered upon his journey without a passport, an application for which would have led to his compulsory enlistment in the army. Presently an officer of the ship accosted him and demanded his passport, and proceeded to make a search for it when none was forthcoming. But the search was vain, which the officer announced in a loud voice, adding that officials had warned the ship’s officers that young von Stein had no passport. The future mayor of Pocatello thereupon produced a packet from his pocket, which he handed to the officer, who examined its contents, and promptly shouted to his superior officer, “I find the papers of Mr. Stein to be quite correct.” The packet contained the four hundred marks his father had given him at starting.

It was, therefore, with a light pocketbook that Mr. von Stein landed in the United States. He was anxious, however, to see something of the country before settling down, and got as far as Chicago before his funds failed. He accordingly pawned some of his belongings, and was dejectedly[Pg 127] walking the streets, wondering where to turn in his perplexity, when a gun was thrust suddenly in his face, and the order given, “Hands up.” The highwayman found nothing of value on his victim, and when he learned that the boy was penniless, took him to a restaurant and bought him a meal, and told him where he could find employment as a Polish-German interpreter in a brick yard. From then on von Stein’s fortunes began to advance. He spent some time in Wisconsin, was recalled to Europe in 1876 by his father’s death, when he made an extended tour of the continent, returned to this country and made a fortune in the Black Hills, which he later lost in mining ventures, and moved on to Colorado, where he married. In 1884 he came to Idaho, and in time became superintendent of car service on the Oregon Short Line, with headquarters in Pocatello.

Before his tenure expired, Mr. von Stein resigned his office as mayor of Pocatello, and moved to Nampa, where he had purchased a section of land, and helped to organize that town. He still has property interests in Pocatello.

A. B. Bean succeeded Edward Stein as mayor of the city, and was followed by W. F. Kasiska, the present proprietor of the Bannock hotel and[Pg 128] owner of large real estate and business interests in and about Pocatello. Mr. Kasiska held the office until 1898, when W. T. Reeves was elected, who in turn was succeeded by A. B. Bean, the former mayor of 1894.

During 1895, J. B. Bistline filled the office. Mr. Bistline is a member of the Bistline Lumber company and has been a resident of the city since 1891.

M. D. Rice was the next mayor and in 1901 Theodore Turner was elected to the office. He was re-elected in 1912. Theodore Turner is one of the most prominent men in the political life of the county. He was a state senator in 1900, and in 1902 was elected state auditor. Besides holding many public offices, Mayor Turner has taken great interest in the Academy of Idaho and in the good roads movement.

Dr. O. B. Steeley succeeded Mr. Turner in the mayor’s chair, and has since served the county as coroner and the city as school trustee. In 1904, D. Swinehart filled the office, and in 1905, W. H. Cleare. Mr. Cleare was one of the organizers of the Farmers & Traders Bank in Pocatello and also of the Railroad Y. M. C. A. He served in the city council during the years 1901-2, and has been a member of the board of trustees of the Academy of Idaho.

Dr. C. E. M. Loux, of the lumber[Pg 129] firm of Loux, McConnell & Co., a member of the city council, was elected to the mayoralty in 1907, and D. W. Church, cashier of the Bannock National Bank, in 1909. Mr. Church is one of the most prominent members of the Republican party in Bannock county, and was a state senator in 1898. He has been identified since the organization of the city with nearly every movement for civic betterment and advancement. Mr. Church was succeeded by J. M. Bistline, a brother and business partner of the mayor of 1899, who in turn was followed by Theodore Turner, who is now filling the office for the second time.

Many other residents of Pocatello whose names make a list too long to repeat here, have rendered valuable public service to both the city and county. Among them may be mentioned Judge T. A. Johnston, who for a period of twelve years, beginning in 1900, served the county as probate judge; Oscar B. Sonnenkalb, who has been county surveyor since 1896; the late D. Worth Clark, Lorenzo Brown, Andrew B. Stevenson, and John Hull, who have served in the state senate; W. A. Staley, W. J. Ingling, Col. H. V. A. Ferguson, and W. A. Hyde, former members of the state house of representatives; Alfred Budge, who, after long and faithful service[Pg 130] as district judge, has just been elevated to the supreme bench of the state; Daniel C. McDougal, attorney general of the state of Idaho in 1908, and Hon. Drew W. Standrod.

Judge Standrod was elected district attorney in 1886, while he was still a resident of Malad, where his father practiced medicine for many years, and in 1890 he ran successfully for election as judge of the Fifth Judicial District of the state of Idaho. He moved to Pocatello in 1895, since which time he has been actively identified with the legal and financial activities of the city. In addition to his interest in the First National Bank of Pocatello, of which he is president, Judge Standrod is interested in ten other banks in the inter-mountain country. He is a leading figure in the Republican party, and has recently resigned a six year appointment on Idaho’s first Public Utilities Commission, after serving nearly two years.

Of Senator Brady, who is not only one of the most distinguished citizens of Pocatello, nor yet of Idaho, having been governor of the state, but also of the United States, he being a member of the nation’s highest legislative body, we will speak in the next chapter.

Men who left Pocatello ten or fifteen years ago would hardly recognize the city today. Recently a man returned[Pg 131] from Ohio, who had owned a large number of lots near Center and Main streets in the late nineties, and who sold them for a modest sum after having held them for some years on speculation. He learned to his surprise and chagrin that the property he had sold for fifteen hundred dollars is worth more than twenty thousand today. Another old-timer who grew tired of the west and returned to his eastern home, in acknowledging the receipt of a picture of Pocatello, wrote that the picture was very nice but that he knew it was not a picture of Pocatello because Pocatello had no trees!

Not only is the city well supplied with trees, but it is equipped with the full complement of an up-to-date city. Commercially it is one of the most active and prosperous in the west. It has an ample supply of water, of electric power, a street car service, and is gradually installing new improvements in its street and sewerage system. It is a common thing in the west for growing cities to outstrip themselves in their zeal for improvements, and an unwise enthusiasm and optimism has plunged many municipalities into embarrassment and debt. Pocatello has been wisely governed in this respect, and if she is rather behindhand in some lines of improvement, this is far[Pg 132] preferable to being several years ahead, and attempting by a forced growth to meet an unneeded equipment. Several local organizations, notably the Civic Club, have done much for the betterment of civic life in the city, and it is probable that the next five years will see a decided improvement in the appearance of both streets and homes.

The religious needs of the city are well supplied. The Congregational church was organized in 1888, and Trinity parish, of the Episcopal church, was established the following year. Since then the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations have built up strong institutions. The Latter Day Saints and the Roman Catholic church are so strong that they have each two churches, one on the east and one on the west side of the town. No reference to the religious growth of Pocatello would be complete without a sketch of the Rev. Father Cyril Van der Donckt, who came to Idaho as a missionary in 1887 and has resided in Pocatello since 1888.

Father Van der Donckt was born in Belgium in 1865 and was educated in Renaix College, in the Seminary of St. Nicholas, and in the American college in Louvain. By a special dispensation from Pope Leo XIII, he was ordained when twenty months[Pg 133] under age, and came directly to Idaho, where he has since labored. During six years he was general missionary for the whole of southern Idaho, his ministrations covering eleven counties, and for some time he was the only secular priest in the whole state. In addition to St. Joseph’s parish, a large and strong institution, Father Van der Donckt has built a parish school, and will soon see a hospital added to his establishment. The prolonged and faithful services of such a man as Father Van der Donckt are invaluable to any community, but especially to a country in its formative stage. The hardships, discouragements and indifference that the latter condition always throws in the way of a missionary call for no ordinary amount of pluck and perseverance, and great credit is due to the man who faces them unflinchingly and who out of nothing builds up a flourishing and useful work.

Among the religious activities of Pocatello, the Railroad Young Men’s Christian Association takes a leading place. This is the second largest institution of its kind in the United States, having a membership of over fifteen hundred members. Its success is due to the ability of its general secretary, A. B. Richardson, and his associate, Eric A. Krussman.

During recent years Christian Science[Pg 134] has become firmly established in Pocatello.

Other among the city’s public institutions are the Carnegie Public Library and the Pocatello General Hospital.

In addition to her public school system, of which Supt. W. R. Siders is the head, Pocatello is the seat of the Academy of Idaho, a state institution created by the legislature of 1901, and opened for instruction in 1902. The city gave ten acres as a site for the Academy, and in 1905 the state gave the institution forty thousand acres of land, the sale of which will provide an endowment. The work of the Academy is largely along technical lines, and for the use of the agricultural department a hundred-acre farm has been purchased just south of the city. Miles F. Reed is president of the Academy, which has about three hundred students.

Standing sentinel over the city, towering above it to the south, and doubtless protecting it from many a wind and storm, is Kinport’s peak. Harry Kinport, for whom this mountain was named, is now dead, but he was well known in Pocatello a few years ago, and is supposed to have been the first white man to climb the mountain. He signalized his feat by planting a flag there. Kinport was a business man in Pocatello for several[Pg 135] years, coming to the town in 1885. He was always a great hunter and fisherman, and when President Roosevelt visited the city, caught a mess of trout and presented them to the visitor.

There is every reason to hope that Pocatello will have a population of over 20,000 before the next census. Its facilities as a distributing point are attracting many manufacturing and merchandise companies, who are building warehouses, and the fact that the Oregon Short Line railroad has built a freight depot to handle the traffic of a town of 50,000 population, shows that the management of that line expects a big growth.

There are twenty-three counties in the state of Idaho, of which sixteen have a smaller and six a larger population than Bannock, while twelve counties have a smaller area and ten a larger. Therefore, Bannock is one of the larger counties of the state. This position she has creditably maintained in both the number and the quality of her public men, of whom several were mentioned in the last chapter.

Others who deserve mention here are former State Senators Ruel Rounds, George C. Parkinson, Louis S. Keller, John B. Thatcher, George H. Fisher and W. H. Mendenhall, our present senator, and former State Representatives William A. Walker, Robert V. Cozier, L. R. Thomas, William McGee Harris, Denmark Jensen, W. H. Lovesy, Edward L. Holzheimer, Thomas M. Edwards, John Schutt, C. W. Dempster, W. H. Mendenhall and C. W. Gray, D. J. Lau and D. J. Elrod, the county’s present representatives.

Many of these men have been returned to office several times, J. Frank Hunt, of Downey, having represented[Pg 137] the county either as senator or representative continuously since 1900, with the exception of one term of office. In 1900, Thomas Terrell was elected lieutenant governor of the state, and in 1908, James H. Brady, of Pocatello, present United States senator for Idaho, was returned as governor.

Senator Brady was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, June 12, 1862, but was taken to Kansas by his parents in early boyhood, where he was educated in the State Normal College. He taught school for three years, fitted himself for the profession of law, edited a semi-weekly newspaper for two years, and then became interested in the real estate business. In time he was operating successful offices in St. Louis, Chicago and Houston, Texas. The irrigation and power possibilities of Idaho attracted him to this state in 1895, when he became identified with the development of the Snake river valley, the Idaho, Marysville and Fort Hall canals being among the projects in which he was active. He has been a leading factor in the electrical development of southeastern Idaho, the Idaho Consolidated Power company, at American Falls, being one of his useful and successful enterprises.

Although a man with large private interests that demanded much time[Pg 138] and attention, Senator Brady has been an active and ruling figure in the Republican party in Idaho for several years. In 1900 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention and in 1908 he was a member of the committee sent by the convention to notify William H. Taft of his nomination for the presidency of the United States. He was vice-president of the National Irrigation Congress in 1896 and 1898, and a member of its executive committee from 1900 until 1904. The senator has always represented his constituents efficiently and well and in return enjoys their personal goodwill and loyalty.

It was Senator Brady who made possible the “Western Governors’ Special,” a railway train which toured the east in 1911 in what proved to be a very successful attempt to forge closer the links that bind the east and west, and to demonstrate by exhibits carried on the train that the sums expended by the United States government for the reclamation of arid western lands were wisely invested. The governors of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota and Minnesota accompanied the train, each in his own car. The expedition, which has been justly termed “one of the most[Pg 139] unique incidents in the annals of publicity,” was entertained at dinner in the White House at Washington by President Taft.

Among the men who played important parts in developing Bannock county, is the late Henry O. Harkness, who founded the town of McCammon, which formerly bore his name.

Mr. Harkness was born in Norwalk, Ohio, in 1838, and as a young man learned the trade of machinist. When the Civil war broke out, he enlisted in the Washburn Lead-Mine regiment and attained the rank of captain before he was honorably discharged from the service in 1865. The following year he left Atchison, Kansas, with an outfit of four wagons and ten oxen, and crossed the plains to the Madison valley in Montana. Here he engaged in stock-raising but a severe winter killed most of his cattle, and in the spring of 1867 he moved south into Idaho. He spent three years in the northern part of the state and in 1870 settled in the Portneuf valley, where he once more raised stock. He was a man of unusual business sagacity, combining shrewd foresight with an ingenuity that defied defeat, and he soon acquired both wealth and influence in the community. He was county commissioner of Oneida from 1874 until 1880. At[Pg 140] the time of his death in 1911, his estate consisted in part of seventeen hundred acres of land near McCammon, sixteen hundred acres in the vicinity of Oxford, the large H. O. Harkness hotel at McCammon, which was a landmark in the county for several years but was destroyed by fire in 1913, the flour mill in McCammon, and several mammoth feed barns in the same town. Mr. Harkness was the first postmaster of McCammon and the first man in southern Idaho to own an electric light plant.

Another citizen of McCammon who is a factor in both the political and business life of the county is the Hon. Thomas M. Edwards, who, with his brothers Walter and Charles own the McCammon Investment company. Mr. Edwards was a member of the State House of Representatives from 1908 until 1910, and a member of the Republican state central committee for Bannock county in 1910 and 1911.

Thomas Edwards was born in Yankton, S. D., in 1864. His father, Colonel Thomas H. Edwards, was a veteran of the civil war and his grandfather, Col. Jonathan Edwards, was a veteran of the Mexican war. Thomas Edwards settled in McCammon in 1900, being attracted to the town by the opportunities it offered. Since that time he has helped to organize[Pg 141] the McCammon State Bank, of which he was formerly president, the McCammon Telephone company, the Portneuf-Marsh Valley Irrigation company, the Downey Townsite & Development company, the Ferguson-Jenkins Drug company, of which Thomas Jenkins and Samuel Ferguson are the present proprietors, and several other smaller enterprises.

The first permanent settlement in Bannock county was made in 1866, when a party of Latter Day Saints established themselves at what is now Malad City. Since that time most of the larger Christian denominations have carried their missionary work into the county, whose religious development unfortunately has been carried on principally by a succession of short ministries. In addition to the Rev. C. Van der Donckt, of whom some account has already been given, two men, however, have worked long and faithfully in building up the religious life of the county. One of these is the Venerable Howard Stoy, an archdeacon of the Episcopal church, who, with headquarters in Pocatello, gives pastoral care to over twenty-five mission points, although not all of these are in Bannock county. His jurisdiction, indeed, covers a distance of more than two hundred miles westward from the Wyoming line, and in the course of his work[Pg 142] he sometimes travels three thousand miles in a month. He has opened up many a town and hamlet to churchly influence and has conducted services at points that had never known a Christian service until his coming. Such men, above all others, are contributing to both the present and future upbuilding of the community, and to them is all honor due. Mr. George Peacock, a missionary of the American Sunday School association of Philadelphia, is another man who is sacrificing all worldly interests in order to carry Christian instruction to children who must be without it, except for him. Mr. Peacock organizes undenominational Sunday schools in places that have no church, these schools in time being taken over by the first church to establish itself in the town.

The principal occupations in the county at the present time are ranching, stockraising and railroading. It is quite possible that mining will be added to these in years to come, and that manufacturing will soon be added to the list is a very safe prediction. The exceptional railroad facilities, the abundant water power afforded by the rapid current of the Portneuf, and the conveniences of a city like Pocatello will offer strong inducements to manufacturers, as soon as the population of the surrounding[Pg 143] country is sufficiently great to offer a lucrative market.

The history of Bannock county is one of which her citizens may well be proud. It has been consistently progressive and healthy. The suffrage was granted to women in 1896, when the state of Idaho adopted woman’s suffrage, and in 1911 the county exercised its local option rights and voted for prohibition.

With the exception of the strike in the Oregon Short Line Railroad shops in Pocatello in 1911, when the shop-men walked out, there has been no really serious labor trouble in the annals of the county, and in the case of the strike in 1911, which is still unsettled, there was no violence nor rioting.

The history of Bannock county is a history of honest men and clean citizens. Its pages are unstained by any public scandal, or official dishonesty, but, on the contrary, bear the records of an industrious and true-hearted race of men. The future of the county is promising and bright. The foundation of her development has been truly laid, and her commanding commercial position, her abundant and fertile resources, her splendid climate and her excellent railroad facilities insure a prosperity that few other communities can expect.