Butte County
IDGenWeb
Anna Kyle Sermon started this work some
thirty years ago. She gathered photographs and information from many sources.
There have been many contributors. One of the very attractive techniques she
used was to interview many of the older residents of the Little Lost River
Valley and record the interview. Harleen Kyle Baird then transcribed the
recordings into the text herein contained. As much of the grammar and speech of
the recordings was preserved as possible. This has contributed greatly to the
flavor and ambiance of the valley and adds much to the antidotes and history.
This book is copyright protected, but permission was given to us to post a few
of the stories.
Many people have touched the Valley in the hundred and
thirty years since the Hawleys first settle there. Much of the history has been
lost and many people have been left out of the book. It is with deep regret that
all is not included but one has to stop accumulating and do the writing at some
point. It was decide that thirty years was that time. A concerted effort was
made to include as many of the early residents as was possible.
Organization of the material presented somewhat of a dilemma. There are several
geographical areas, Howe, Clyde, and the Flat (Bernice Area), as well as several
influxes of people. The first families that settled the valley up to 1900's are
presented first. Then those that settled the Clyde area are included. The
settlers for North back to the flat area are next included and finally, those
that were more recent inhabitants of Howe are included.
This book tells of the settling of the Little Lost River Valley, as recorded
in trappers' journals and as told by families who lived there and by those who
can still remember the earliest days.
The first whites in the Little Lost
River Valley were trappers. The Northwest Fur Company operated from the mouth of
the Columbia River by sailing vessels around South America. They operated from
Fort Astoria on the Columbia River. In 1816 one of their trappers, Donald
Mackenzie, organized annual Snake River expeditions. Mackenzie was a red headed
Scotch immigrant who weighed over three hundred pounds. He was an able
administrator and good Indian negotiator. Attempts to headquarter near Boise
failed due to Indian conflicts and thefts. He wintered in the Little Lost River
Valley in the winter of 1819-1820 with a party of 70 trappers consisting of
whites, Indians and Hawaiians. A grand council of the Shoshonis was held and he
was able to secure their cooperation with his trapping activities by convincing
them that the trading he could provide for their fur would benefit them. The
Shoshonis allowed trapping with little friction for years after.
One of
the Mackenzies men was names Thyery (Henry) Godin. He was actually an Iroquois
Indian. The Little Lost River was named after him and for a time was known as
Godin's River.
Another of Mackinzie's men, John Day, died in the winter
encampment and the valley was called John Day's Hole, after him. It rises in
Sawmill Canyon over 40 miles north of Howe and ends up sinking in what is now
Bob May's ranch (between his and James Mays' ranch.)
Captain Bonneville,
sometime during his exploration campaign of 1832-34, wrote of his trip through
Pass Creek and down Clyde side and into Howe that there were thousands of
antelope, deer and buffalo in the valleys.
Howe has been included in
Alturas and Blaine counties before Butte County was formed. It was while in
Blaine County that it was named.
Grandpa said the people wanted to name
the new settlement "Hawley" and when his Dad and some other presented it to the
territory government they refused because Hailey was the County seat and they
said it would be confusing because the two names were too similar. They
suggested Howe as it was close to Hawley and the men accepted that.
Early Day Newspaper August 12, 1921
Little Lost River valley
was one of the few communities in Idaho that boasted a weekly newspaper in the
early days. George Walker was reminiscent the other day and recounted the trial
and tribulations of the first newspaper adventure at Howe. The paper was called
as near as he can remember, "The Rag of Freedom", and was edited by Marsh Orr.
The publication had a short but hectic career during the fall and winter months
of 1887.
Mr. Orr, the editor, came to Little Lost River valley from
Missouri. His father was a district judge in the "Show me" state, and according
to the father's plans, young Marsh was to be a lawyer. Two years in college
convince the young man that studying law was not to his liking, so he "pulled
out" for the west.
He took a job as foreman on the Ed Hawley ranch. He
punched cattle and made himself generally useful. He like the west and its
environs and decided to stay. Being ambitious and having a literary mind, he
conceived the idea of publishing a weekly paper in this frontier settlement. It
made its appearance during the winter of '87. Circulation was limited to two
copies weekly and to overcome the expense of type and machinery, the issues were
written in longhand.
Every Friday night the natives gathered at Howe
store to hear the week's chronology of important events. Usually someone with a
stentorian voice was called upon to read the paper to the assembled cowboys and
ranchers and it contained items and editorial comment all the way from social
affairs to politics. Orr was a a Populist, -- one of the old timers referred to
him, as a "Howling Populist", and he never overlooked the opportunity to expound
the theories advocated by this party.
The editor was also a cartoonist of
no mean ability and brightened the pages of is publication by illustrating the
more important articles with pen sketches. Although the paper was limited to two
issues per week, its readers numbered a couple of hundred, as after it had been
read by the assembled cowpunchers and ranchmen at the store, it was sent from
house to house throughout the valley.
The paper was destined to play no
little part in the affairs of the valley. Soon after he quit his job at the
Hawley ranch the editor wrote an article about water troubles along Little Lost
river and later when the case was tried in court at Blackfoot, "The Ray of
Freedom", was used as evidence against Hawley. The paper may be in the musty
files of early day law suits of Bingham county, even at this date.
Ed
Sands, who lived on what is now Knollin ranch, shipped in a carload of pure bred
Shorthorn bulls in the fall of '87. Sands, so the story goes, did not fully
realize the value of the pure breeds and during the winter months economized on
their hay bill, by practically starving them to death. In the spring half of
them had died and Orr devoted much of one issue (one of the last) to depicting
in cartoon the large stacks of hay still standing while around the stack yards
were carcasses of cattle. Their Pedigrees caused considerable amusement, much to
the embarrassment of Sands.
Orr became embroiled in a love affair at
Blackfoot, and to emphasize his demand that a rival quit paying attention to a
certain girl, brought into play a six- shooter and a buggy whip. The "hated
rival" was kept at bay one night while Orr proceeded to give him a beating with
a buggy whip.
Later, Orr went to Muldoon where he engaged in partnership
with his father in the sheep business. He was a typical frontiersman and had
certain characteristics by which he was kept constantly in the public eye. One
time a stranger asked him what his business was. He replied, "A one- horse
horseman, a one- horse sheepman and a one- horse howling Populist." He met a
tragic and unexpected death. While opening a can of tomatoes he cut his hand.
Blood poison developed and he was taken to Blackfoot. Death claimed him in a few
days.
A large number of cattle were grazed on the hills and
in the valley clear to Goldverg. Most of the people living at Clyde had a few or
many. Some ranchers from down in the Howe area also summer ranged up there.
Kyles, Jones and Jim Walkers did for sure and there may have been others. Each
ranch had to have it's own cowboys. Good pasture, but lots of bog holes were all
the way down the Summit Creek area. Constant watch was kept and an average of 5
cows a day had to be pulled out.
Harley Kyle spent his first summer up
there at the age of 14, then two more summers after that.
Bringing the
herd home in the winter was a long and hard and often very cold drive. Harley's
Grandpa Pecks' place at Barney Hot Springs was one place to stay at night. He
also bunked, as did some of the other riders, at the stage station just above
where the Waymill Canyon road takes off. This was as located right on where the
road now runs., just in front of a spring that came out of the hill there. It
was boxed in and served as refrigerator and water source.
Harley tells
about sage hens coming there every morning to water. One morning he was in the
station alone and saw them and decided to treat the cook with some fresh
chicken. Je picked up an old 10 gage shot gun that was hanging on the wall and
took one careful shot that netted a couple of birds and knocked him half way
across the room and put him flat on his back.
Part of the supplies that
were brought up to the station were some big wooden barrels of jellybeans and
gumdrops. the lid was loose enough on the jellybeans that he could just work out
a few at a time for several days. When the cook opened them he made the remark
loud enough to be sure Harley could hear. "They sure did short me on this keg of
beans."
Horse thieves and other dodging the law would come, hole up for
awhile and go on their way staying at various places. No one asked them anything
and they volunteered little, was just a way of life.
Small stills of
whiskey making were tucked away in the canyons. Two fellows tasted some of their
new batch and died.
There's a little spring below Bear Canyon where an
older and quite young man were well established. One morning the younger fellow
came in, he had run his horse all the way form the still to the station to tell
Mel Jewel that his partner had drunk too much of their brew the night before and
was dead that morning. Me.. Jewel had come over the mountains from Montana. He
had killed a sheriff there. He was hiding out and living at L.V. Scott's. He
stayed in Clyde long enough to kind of out live the incident and went back to
Texas where he was from originally.
A few of the riders had a little
"moonshining" business going on, on the side. They would butcher a beef or two a
week and sell to the restaurants in May and Patterson. There is a cave just out
in the middle of the sagebrush to the south and west, kind of between where the
stage stop was and Barney Hot Springs. The cave was dark and cool and quite
often a butchered beef would be hung out there. Here again, most knew what was
going on, but just kept a watchful eye on their own and would "live and let
live". The men gained their rightful disrespect and disdain from the others but
that's about all. It was when someone made it a real business that he was
apprehended.
It was a long ride from Barney's to Howe for a dance, but
people took that in stride too. One time Norman Peck took a girl from up there
to a dance at Howe. He got to drinking and ran off and left her there. She asked
Harley to take her home, so they got a horse from the ranch and they rode back
up to her place. He stayed for an hour or so at Grandpas Peck's at Barney's and
then rode back home.
Harley's Mother, Anna, was in poor health one
spring, so she and Charles moved up to Sawmill Canyon for the summer. They lived
in a tent, I think. How that could have helped her health no one ever said, but
Grandpa did the riding that year. Someone brought them an orphan, baby deer and
Grandma fed him on the bottle using canned milk. She always wore big full length
aprons and whenever anyone would ride up to their camp, the deer would run to
Grandma and hide as much of himself, head first, as he could under her apron. By
fall he was weaned and the others up kind of watched him and then he just went
off on his own.
Note: From what I can find out, Little
Lost River Valley was hunting grounds, etc. for the Lemhi Indians, but not a
permanent encampment.
Lemhi Indians were mostly Shoshone. They were moved
to Fort Hall in 1908. The Army escorted them down through Pahsimeroi, Clyde and
Howe, out across the desert and on to Blackfoot and finely to Fort Hall. The
march could be described as "infamous". Indian women and children kicked,
prodded with sticks, raped. Men treated as predators might be. Grandma told me
about when they got to their place; they stopped for several days to rest.
Approximately 150 teepees were pitched on the 40 acres that Roy Sermon's home
now is on. She said one of their members must have died because they mourned and
chanted for 3 days after they had been there for a day or two. Kept it up day
and night. She said you could hear it and feel the vibrations even in her house.
Daddy said he was about 5 years old then and he was really fascinated. Said he
watched a young woman go out in some really tall, thick sage brush where the
corrals are now and she built herself a hut and shut herself in. He assumed she
had a baby there.
An Indian girl, Cora, was about 8 Benjamin Tyhone at
Howe, Indian friend of years old at that time. Around 70 years later, many. I
visited with her and asked if she remembered any of that and she filled in the
pieces. She told me that young Indian woman had twin boys that day. The boys
were fine and healthy, but probably due to the rigors of the trek the woman
died. That was the reason for the mourning, as well as, the whole plight they
were in.
Cora told some of her history. Charlie Bearhead married Gussie
Grouse. They had a little daughter, Lucy Waters. While Lucy was still an infant
a soldier shot her mother and took the baby to the officers quarters. A Colonel
George L. Shoup, that was in command there, took Lucy and raised her. When she
became a young teenager she choose to go back and live with her people, married
and had Cora. (I don't know if she had any brothers but at least a sister, not
sure.)
Cora married Joe Mink and had Inez, Gladys, Jonah and Oscar. I'm
not clear on what happened with Joe but she was related, I believe a niece, to
one of the chiefs, Benjamin Tyone. He took responsibility for her and Inez and
Gladys and Jonah and Oscar. Basically being the teacher and provider for them.
He was called, "Grandfather", as all elders in direct line were called
Grandfather and Grandmother.
Cora always accompanied Benjamin when he
made his trips to Salmon and back. She and Eloise George and Fannie Tyone did a
lot of glove making and beautiful beadwork. Jonah shared some memories with me
quite a few years ago.
He told me Benjamin was one of those the army
considered a renegade; in as much as he didn't come in when called, so Jonah
spent more time than was usual in the wilds with him. He told of one morning
very early the family was sitting quietly at breakfast and up in the mountains
there was a crash, a pause and another crash that made the ground vibrate.
Grandfather said, "Come and I'll show you what that is." They rode very
carefully and quietly up in the rocks, stopped finally and looking down saw two
mountain sheep in battle. They would back off, crash heads, take a moment to
recuperate and do it over again.
Jonah said, "We had a strict ritual in
our tribe. Every morning at sunrise every member was completely submerged in the
river. The men would go first then the women would bring the children, a man
would quickly dunk the child, the mother or whoever, wrap the child and then
dress them, etc. The women would then go in. In the summer, it was fun. In the
winter the men would chop a hole in the ice and pull us up and out by our heads.
We never were sick. I think that was why. Bacteria are afraid of the cold and
would leave our bodies. Jonah paused and shuddered and put his hands up to his
face and said, "Bumr..., I can't even stand to wash my face in cold water now!"
He continued, "When I was eight through about twelve years, my special job, in
the winter, in our teepee, was to wake up before anyone else in the morning
and I had a large stick that I would go all around the inside of the teepee and
knock the layer of ice off the walls and gather it up and throw it out before
the fire was built. The inside being warm at bedtime and the cold outside would
cause moisture and form on the walls about 4 feet up and then freeze by morning.
I felt pretty important doing that."
"In the summer we would dry meat,
berries, etc. and put them in skin bags and seal them tight. Then we would find
a cave or crevice in the rocks up high enough so animals couldn't reach it and
put some bags in. This was called a "cash". We would move from one place to
another and then by fall we would camp, use whatever food was there, then move
on when game was scarce or campgrounds soiled, to the next place where a "cash"
was. "The men would ride in front, then the women and pack horses. The children
were tied onto a pack on a horse so they wouldn't fall off or stray off the
path. One time we were moving and the snow was especially deep. My two little
sisters were tied on one horse and the horse had to keep lunging to get through
the snow. The pack became loose and he gave a lunge in a big drift and the pack
turned over under him, girls and all, and plunged them headfirst in the drift.
The men got really excited and worked hard and fast to undo the pack, lead the
horse forward and then dig pack and girls out of the snow. They were O.K.
though."
"I was about 8 or 10 when the authorities at Fort Hall checked
the census at school and found out I wasn't in school but was up in the
Pahsimeroi mountains with my Grandfather. They sent an army officer out after
me. When he found us, I had to go back. He put me on the back of his saddle and
rode all the way back with me just squalling and bawling at the top of my
lungs." firm, that I had to go to school. We spring one I asked if the officer
was mean or cranky and he said, "No, he just was quiet, but had to go to
school." talked about when all the families were settled in Fort Hall that then
every fall and family at a time or several would come back up through Howe,
Clyde and on to Lemhi valley to hunt and fish. Different families would stay at
different ranchers places for a week or so, coming and going and trading for
hides and take order for gloves mostly, but also moccasins.
A woman would
take a stem of alfalfa or small twig and measure the length of a person's hand
from tip of middle finger to wrist, break off the stem, then measure the width
of the palm the same way. It was always amazing to me that they could sew a
perfect fit just by that. A lot of the ranchers wore the buckskin gloves to work
in and some of the children too. Rusty and I did, so did David Rodgers. Daddy
and Grandpa claimed a real silk glove as a liner, then the buckskin over, was
the warmest and most comfortable gloves in winter that could be had.
I
asked Jonha if their feet and hands were wet and cold a lot of the time as my
memory of buckskin was it was slimy and stretched when wet. He said, '"Well, by
the time I came along we could buy canvas and every time a deer or elk was
butchered all the hair was saved so in the fall everyone was issued a square of
canvas and a bag of hair. We put the square down, put some hair on it, then over
our foot, then covered the foot with more hair and brought the canvas up and
tied it securely around our ankle. It was very warm and the canvas waterproof We
each had to take care of our bag of hair because it was our allotment for the
winter and believe me we were protective of it."
From the time they first
met, Grandpa and Benjamin Tyone became good friends so he, his wife, Fanny
Pandoah Silver, and until she passed away at 17, a daughter Fannie Jr. and the
rest of his family including Cora and children would stop at our place at Howe
and at Roy Peck's place at Clyde. Benjamin and Fannie had 6 other children, all
died as infants.
Jonha and I were the same age, Oscar a couple of years
younger than Rusty. Johna was shy and quiet and stayed mostly with the men, but
Oscar would come to our house and play all day, everyday that they were there.
We girls thought it was so fun to go "visit" in the teepees. It made me feel
kind of silly though because the family would all sit and talk to each other and
then really laugh and I couldn't understand a word but I knew they were
talking about us.
One time in the winter we girls went to feed cattle
with Daddy and as we drove by on the hay wagon a young woman was washing her
hair in a hole in the ice. That horrified us! That's how come I asked Jonah
about how could she stand to do that and then he told me about their "dunking"
ritual.
John and Flora Marshal and family stayed at Hollands quite
regularly. John Wetterbone and family also stayed at Kyles occasionally, also
Frank Papse. One time John Wetterbone stayed at our place and when he went on
home he left a round galvanized tub that he'd cut a hole in the bottom for a
length of stove pipe and a section in the side to reach in under and build a
fire. Neil Reed, Rusty and I were delighted. We played all summer with that. We
fried eggs, ham and potatoes on it to beat the band. Boy, it got hot too, and
the sagebrush ashes put a real robust flavor to everything.
When the army
took over in Salmon and an Indian census was taken, if an Indian gave his name
it was put down as such: Example: Fannies parents were, Fathers Name
'"Tissidimit"" and Mother's name, "Au giva hem". If a name wasn't given the ones
in charge made up white man's version of a name. Some had Indian and
"white-man-given" name.
Apparently, at an early date not long after white
settlements in the valleys, a Bannock raiding party invaded and if it hadn't
been for the Shoshones the white settlers would have been massacred. As a
result, when the Indians were free to travel from reservation back and forth to
Lemhi the army issued a written command that the men kept in pocket or wallets
at all times, to be shown to the ranchers if necessary. Jonah still has his
Grandfathers. It states:
To Whom it may Concern: Feed this man and his family
and animals! - If you do not, you will be dealt with harshly.
Signed the
Indian Commissioner at Salmon.
The women did come to the homes when they
camped and usually asked for some food. Grandma usually gave such as bacon or
fresh produce. One time she was tending Florence and Dorothy Hawley. They must
have been around 4 to 6 years old. One squaw really thought they were beautiful
girls. They were dark and dark eyes and beautiful. She insisted that Grandma
give them to her. Was kind of a touchy situation for a while, but Grandma
finally convinced her there was no way she could have those girls. Aunt Ruth
said, "I remember Mamma made us stay inside the house all the rest of that day
and until the Indians moved on the next morning."
This isn't about these
Indians but I thought you'd like to read about it. George Walker flanked by two
Lemhi Willie Lamere lives in Blackfoot and Indian chiefs. George Marshall is
one. helped me with some genealogy information for Benjamin and Fannie and told
me his great-great Uncle was Chief Sitting Bull. When he was a little boy his
name was "Little Beaver". When he was around 12 or 14 he and his friends had a
special past time that they really enjoyed and thought they were pretty big
stuff doing it. They would ride into or along side of a herd of buffalo, then
jump from horse to back of a buffalo. The animals would panic and run like
crazy; in time, the boy would jump off and the animals continue running. One
time Little Beaver jumped on a big bull and the bull just stopped stock-still
and just kept standing there. He couldn't jump off, as he knew if he did he'd be
attacked. The other boys stayed a safe distance away and waited. As the time
dragged on, the other boys went from surprised, to amused, to hilarious. It took
a long time to get the bull moving and a while to ride before it was safe to get
off. The boys named him, "Sitting Bull", and it stuck as his adult name.
The very first school house was built up by the hill,
straight west of the Kyle place. James D. Martin, who later settled over by
Craters of the Moon, has been credited to have been the first teacher in 1888.
About 10 to 12 families lived here then. Following is an article taken from an
old Arco Advertiser. The article is written by J. D. Martin, the first Howe
school teacher:
I have promised a continuation of the story about the
early day schools of this pan of the country back in the Territorial days. In a
former article I have dealt with experiences with the first school in this, the
Arco district. During the time I was engaged in teaching that school, the people
on Little Lost River who had very recently settled in the neighborhood of Howe,
had organized a school district with sixteen children of school age, numbered
from the entire population of the valley at that time. With highly commendable
enterprise and industry they had also erected a very creditable school house for
that time and furnished it with seats and desks of home-made pattern and design.
The school house was located near the present home of Charley Kyle upon land
then owned by his father, John Kyle.
I received from the trustees,
Fletcher Irelanai, John Kyle and John R. Rodgers a letter offering me the school
to teach with an intimation that there was there a very hard lot of untamed and
unruly kids which would be hard to manage. I had also heard from other sources
reports to the same effect. However, I did not allow myself be deterred by that.
Upon the conclusion of my term here, I loaded my personal effects upon a
cayuse and riding another one, I made my way over there and found quarters with
a well known farmer of those days, John Briggs, who lived near the place where
R.G. Mays now lives. A cattleman. named Dwight, together with two employees,
also were staying with Mr. Briggs and pan of the time ! was with them, I did the
greater pan of the cooking in payment for my own board.
A post office had
been established named Howe with Merton Hawley as postmaster, and was located
near where the Webb families now live. The present site of the village of Howe
was then occupied by a certain well known character of those days named
McGovern, generally known as "The Black Diamond", who ran a wayside "whiskey
joint" and did quite a business with the settlers as well as with prospectors
and miners from the mountains around. The Daisy Black, later known as the
Wilbert mine, was being worked to some extent at that time.
Well, on the
morning of the first Monday of February, 1888, with the school house key in my
pocket, I walked up to the school house, a little more than a mile from where I
lived, and found there gathered around the door, sixteen young, bright and
expectant faces awaiting me. None of them showed to any degree, any of the
embarrassment usually shown by children when meeting a stranger, and they, one
and all, greeted me with'a chery "good mornin' school teacher."
The
morning was quite cold and soon a good warm fire was started in the stove and I
commenced the work of organizing for the school work. Several cigarettes were
then going and "the makins" were being passed from one to another. In the
mildest manner possible, I explained to them that smoking could not be permitted
during school hours. But when recess time came I soon found that none of them,
even the very smallest, seemed to see any impropriety in the use of the most
profane language.
I soon found that I had something on my hands in the
way of school management and discipline. I had been reading a certain brochure,
popular in those days, entitled "A thousand ways of a thousand teachers." Well,
here was room for the application of many more ways. One day a certain
"cowpuncher" came along and presented me with a "cowboy" quirt recommending it
as an effective "kid corrector." As he expressed it. Though I was never a
believer in the effectiveness of corporal punishment of children, and the
greatest fault ever found with me in my teaching experience was lack of control
and proper discipline, I soon found that the use of the atbresaid "kid
corrector" was an absolute necessity. Its effectiveness seemed amply
demonstrated when one of the older boys of the school, years afterwards, when he
became himself, a school trustee, wrote to me urging me to come again and teach
that school. Doubtless he remembered something of the effectiveness of the "kid
corrector" from his own personal experience.
One more experience I must
mention. On a Friday afternoon a delegation of the ladies---there were only
about seven or eight of them of dancing age and inclination to the whole
valley-- came to me and requested me to adjourn the school so that they could
fix up the house for a leap year ball. I did so and assisted them all I could in
preparing for the ball.
That night there came a crowd, apparently the
Whole. population of the valley, kids and all, together with miners and
prospectors from the hills adjoining. It seemed that they were all provided with
a liberal supply of the Black Diamond's stock in trade. Bottles were deposited
in and about every, clump of sagebrush around the schoolhouse.
During the
night the kids found the bottles with the result that several of them were soon
in a state of helpless intoxication and had to be brought into the house and
placed under the table to save them from freezing. The ladies did all they could
to give all a chance to dance, but many of them were soon too tired to dance.
There was indeed "the sound of revelry by night": and it was kept up until
morning with the result that the stove was kicked over and demolished, books
were tom up and scattered, slates were broken, almost a wreck made of all the
school furniture. All this had been taken out of the house to make room for
the dancers.
School was adjourned tbr about a week for repairs to be made
and new supplies provided. After that no more dances were allowed in the school.
But the Briggs cabins soon became the favorite place for dancing and many quite
enjoyable dances were held there.
My school continued for four months
when the funds were exhausted. I have always regarded my teaching there to have
been quite a success in every way in spite of such things as I have related
here. There were also pleasant experiences connected with it. The people of that
locality were upon the whole not by any means exceptional. The most generous
hospitality and friendliness were always in order. They and their children had
simply become inured to life in the open spaces and had not become acquainted
with the restraints which a more advanced civilization imposes.
The half
century of time, which has elapsed since them, has indeed brought a changed
world. The old time phrase, "The wild and woolly west" was to them something of,
a reality and not the mere traditional legend it has now become.
Anna: In
the beginning, school age children either walked or rode horse back to school,
mostly. Clam Hocking tells of one teacher that picked up the kids on his way in
a horse drawn wagon.
Spelling bees, box socials and seasonal programs
were popular entertainment for all. Many of the very early students have
mentioned how fun it was to chase antelope horseback during recess and after
school. Grandpa would laugh and tell about one time he and the others were
mounting up to go and the teacher called them to stop and come back in and they
just ignored him, he called some more and rang the bell, they went right on, he
yelled really loud and continued to ring the bell and by that time the kids had
started after a little bunch so he just shut the door, got on his horse and
joined them and they all chased antelope all the rest of the day.
One
incident that the 'old timers' loved to relive was during that time when there
were lots of rabid coyotes. Some of the kids, including, Tom Cowgill, Harley and
Ruth Kyle were playing up behind the school house by the ditch and a coyote
jumped out of the sagebrush to get a drink at the ditch (I've always been told
that rabid animals are very thirsty all the time). The kids ran inside the
schoolhouse as fast s they could. The teacher watched as he wandered around
behind and to the side of the schoolhouse opposite where the horses were tied
and she boosted Harley out the window. He ran and got on his horse and ran it
down to the hotel and got the owner (Mr. McBeth) and he came up and shot it. The
boys piled sagebrush on it right on the spot where it died and burned it. That
practice seemed to be the way they dealt with any rabid carcass. I remember Aunt
Ruth saying, "Oh .... we were so scared..."
When the buildings got a
little bigger, each one had a big, pot-bellied stove for heat. You could put a
lot of wood in one of those and heat they did .... for about 6 or 8 feet out and
then the room got cooler and colder as you moved out. As a result, during
parties and dances that worked fine, but during school hours on cold days
everyone moved close into a circle around the stove, moving closer or farther
away as each pleased. "
A favorite trick was to put a bullet in the stove
or a can of beans. I remember when Jay Little put a 22 shell in the one at Howe
and livened up the humdrum of the moment.
There were, of course, many
teachers that came and went, most liked and respected, a few definitely not an
advantage to the students. As I did interviews a few names kept being mentioned
by many. They were, Clyde Budd(Catron) (Budd Jones), Muriel Silver. later Taylor
(Howe. Catron & Clyde). She did a lot of little extras like teaching some of the
boys and girls to tap dance and play harmonicas. A Mrs. Hartwell (at Catron).
Mrs. Ray Dietrich. Minnie Brown and many more. Often there were two teachers at
Bernice. Mrs. Snodgrass, Unity Kyle, Homer Mays, and Alta Stauffer were a few at
Bernice. Some others are mentioned throughout), one teaching 1 st through 4th
grades and the other 5th through 8th, where in the other schools one teacher
taught all 8 grades. Yes, reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, geography (I
still have to say. "George Edwards old Grandmother -rode a pig home yesterday ",
to spell that one) art. music and 1 think Mom (Unity Farr,. Kyle) was the first
one to introduce some P.E. in form of standing up occasionally and stretching
and doing fun coordinating games, etc., outside at recess times, oh, and
penmanship, we spent hours learning to write using the fleshy part of our arm on
the desk rather than our wrist. Some very sad times and unproductive penmanship
were the results of an old time belief that those who were left handed should be
made to write with their right hand. It seems like such an unintelligent notion
now, thank heavens! Grandpa Kyle was one of those that suffered through that. I
remember Anne Mays was the one at our age that was an exceptionally pretty left
handed writer and we were all fascinated the way she would curve her hand up
around the top of her paper and write with her hand and pen almost upside down
in comparison to the way the rest of us wrote. The teachers managed to get all
of that in during the week
In my day, the usual day went:
Come
in, get settled in desk, teacher would read from the bible. I don't think anyone
really realized just how much that helped set the tone for the day or gave
nourishment to the soul. Next, we'd sing some songs and have "health
inspection." Monitor's were appointed each week to walk around to each desk and
see if hands and finger nails were clean, If not, they were sometimes sent to
clean them, no small task, as water was packed in a bucket and a dipper was used
both to drink out of and pour water over hands to wash. Later on, we brought our
own cups, but several generations used the "dipper."
Hair was checked to
see if it was combed and we were asked if we had brushed our teeth and we gave a
toothy smile for proof or reproof.
Mildred Shannon Mays (Homer's wife)
made little paper airplanes with a door that opened and closed on the side of
it. She took pictures of each of us on the steps of the schoolhouse and put the
pictures behind the doors inside the plane. If we passed our morning inspection,
the door was open all day and our pictures for all to enjoy. If not, the door
was closed for the day. The planes were suspended from a string across a
clothesline on one side of the room.
After these opening exercises we
were down to academics for the day. The highlight of the year was when the "new
book order" came in. Usually we had just so much money to order from Caxton's
Printers in Nampa, Idaho, for new library books. We could go get and read a
library book off the shelf anytime as long as our assignments were done.
A Halloween program and party were held each season. At least one play and then
several poems and songs were the program. The party was always fun, traditional
bobbing for apples. eating apples off a string with our hands behind our backs,
fish ponds, etc. A couple of years some of us, seems like Ada Ruth, Metta and I,
spent all one week writing fortunes on white slips of paper with lemon juice for
ink. It dried almost clear, then we were fortune tellers and when someone would
come, they would pick a paper up out of a jack-o-lantern and we would hold it
over one that the candle was lit and the juice would turn brown and we'd tell
their fortune.
Thanksgiving was just left to home and families.
Christmas was a big deal with lots of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas
being spent on the program. It was at least one 3-act play, quite often a one
act play also and then the Nativity play. Everyone had at least one poem to solo
and then there were a few chorus readings. The whole school would sing several
songs and when some of the older girls took piano lessons. at least a couple
would play piano solos.
Most years this was presented at the Howe Pool
Hall on that really neat stage. One time in the middle of the program someone
looked out the back window behind the curtains and saw that an old barn was on
fire. One of the town drunks had been in there smoking and fallen asleep and the
manure caught On fire. The men all left and put it out while we went on with the
program.
There was always a dance afterwards and sometimes a Santa Claus.
It was so cute one time when Edra and Kenneth McKinley were about 2 and 3 or 4
years old. Tony Fallert was Santa Claus. Because he was from up the river, the
grownups thought the kids couldn't guess in 'a million years who he was. He
walked out on the floor and started passing out treats along to the ones seated
on the sidelines. Here came Edra and Kenneth trotting along behind him coaxing
loudly, "Give us some too, Unc'a Tony, give us some too." There was no doubt in
their minds who he was.
Mildred Shannon, later Mays, was my first grade
teacher. My first grade year there were only 5 students in the whole school.
Josephine O'Maley was in the 8th grade. Floyd Hansen, Louise O'Maley and Mary
Lee Amy were in the 4th and I was in 1st. At Christmas time we joined with
Catron, who had a few more, as I remember, the Hall family, Metta & Martin
Hocking, Ada Ruth Mays, Dick & Rodney Romney, Hartwell's (the teacher's
children) and I don't remember if any others were there or not.
We little
girls were dolls that Christmas time and Grandma made me a blue, velvet dress.
Talk about elegant! I stood by the little Hartwell girl. She Was 5 years and I
six and she kept reaching over and running her hand over my side to feel the
velvet. When it came time for Santa (Dick Romney) to go, he got a big, wool sack
(his pack) and put the dolls in it. I don't remember about getting out, only
about us all being put in that sack!
It was So much fun when Mildred
Mays' birthday came. For a couple of weeks we planned a peanut shower for her.
It worked like this:
That morning we all brought a bag of peanuts and
slipped them into our desks. After the afternoon recess, Floyd Hansen took his
and asked permission to go out to the outhouse. He waited a few minutes and then
knocked on the door. When she opened it we all yelled, "Happy Birthday!" and
threw the peanuts at her. She ducked her head buy the side of the door and we
all thought she looked so cute and pretty. Of course, we also got to party the
rest of the day.
Faye Hansen Pieper remembers she was only five when she
started school. They needed her to make 10 pupils at Howe. Some of the others
were Lela Hawley, Clarence (Scrub) Hawley, George Gilman, Jean Little and Doris
Casper.
Etta Wright was her first grade teacher and for discipline
problems she would make the kids stand with their noses on the chalk board and
she also, at times, used a yard stick and swatted them across their legs with
it.
Faye remembers that Jean Little had a pretty pile lined coat one
winter and it seemed to Faye that she flaunted it in front of the other girls,
at least it definitely was finer than the ones the others had, so Faye had had
enough one day and she threw the coat down the toilet. (Those holes were really
deep too, as I remember.) Faye got the full-blown discipline treatment over
that. She was left handed and Etta would tie her left hand behind her back with
a belt to make sure she wrote with her right hand.
During the war years
the 3 schools consolidated and Agnes Harrell and Mom taught at Howe. The men
made two moveable partitions and put down the middle of the room so 1 through 4
and then 5 through 8 could be taught at the same time. This lasted for a few
years and then we went back to one room and one teacher.
When the war was
at its peak two very popular songs were, "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving
Somewhere" and "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer". We had learned them during
regular singing time and when it came time to decide what Christmas songs we'd
sing at the Christmas program we kids insisted on singing those two songs also.
The teacher tried to point out that they were not appropriate for the Christmas
program and we didn't care one bit. I can feel it yet, it was our way of showing
our patriotism at the time. She let us, as I think she caught on to how
important that was to us.
Our sign that spring was truly here was when
after 2 weeks of coaxing the teacher finally let us climb the hill back of the
school. The first climb was usually at noon hour, which always took more than an
hour, but we were forgiven.
Mays' ditch was deep and wide and had big
sagebrush along its' banks and was fun to play in when it was dry. It ran up
behind the toilets and the water cistern. When it was full it ran deep and
swift, only a few spots where only the bigger kids could jump across. One time
some of the little boys were playing up there and one little guy bet another $50
that he couldn't jump that ditch flat-footed. The bet was on and he made a
valiant effort and jumped about square in the middle, clear up to his chin.
We loved eating our lunches up on the grassy banks of Cowgill's ditch.
Cowgill's ran in front of the outhouses and had some grass and big cottonwood
trees and seemed really a lovely spot to be. There used to be water skippers on
it and once we teased Robert Amy into eating one. That sure seemed brave to me.
Rusty: Those ditches got me in a whole heap of trouble once. I was going up
to the outhouse and Herbert Hansen was being a boy and stood in front of the
board plank and would fit let us go across, so 1 pushed him in the ditch. Mother
was our teacher and since she didn't see the event and it was Herbert's word
against mine. She made both of us stay in the next recess with our heads down on
our desks. I don't know whether I was the most angry at Mom or at Herbert.
Anna: One spring a muskrat had a nest of babies under the bridge going to
the boy's outhouse. We discovered it one day when Jay Little was absent from
school. As he was already an experienced trapper, we were sure if he found out,
he'd trap them. We made a plan for one of the boys to always be with him when he
went to the toilet and we'd play away from that site. It must have worked, they
were still there when school was out.
Those that rode horses to school
tied them at fence posts for years and then when th. ere got to be too many
after consolidation, Charlie O'Maley built us a neat hitching rack. Someone's
horse, I can't remember whose for sure. kept trying to crowd out the ones by
him, so he got banished back to the fence.
Ada Ruth and Peggy Mays and
Metta and Martin Hocking rode after the first year of coming down here. The
school paid Agnes Harrell a small amount for picking the kids up in her car that
first year of consolidation. When the kids rode the school paid their parents $5
a month ยท instead.
One day. Dennis Pope. Carl Mays' stepson (Veima's
oldest boy) was running down the hillside by the school house and fell and cut
his knee clear to the bone. The teachers didn't know what else to do. so they
put him on his horse and sent him home. He rode all that way (to Mays' ranch),
but never said a word about it until bedtime and then Velma saw it. He was off
of riding horses for quite sometime.
Just a bit more here about him.
Dennis was of a really sweet disposition and everyone loved him. We were all
really concerned and cared about this accident, but the worst was yet to come.
Sometime later, he and some others were playing up in the loft of the barn, it
was a long way down from the window where they rolled the hay in and as little
boys will, he dared to jump out of it. The impact broke both of his heels and
other foot bones. It was a long time before he could walk again. At between the
age of 12 & 13, he was driving a tractor and it turned over on him. He was
crushed so terribly, was in the hospital for a time, but just too much injury to
survive. When time came for 8th grade graduation all the school was still rather
in mourning. Mr. Keithley considered putting his chair ia the circle of
graduates in his honor, but decided it would be too emotional for all involved,
never-the-less he was there in their hearts.
The Howe schoolhouse was
used a little for community functions. We had a few really fun square dances in
there before there were so many people came (joined the square dance club) that
we had to move it down to the gym in the new building. Charlie O'Maley bought
the whole school site which was school yard, house, log teacherage, log wood and
coal shed that was perfect to play, Ante-I-Over on. We played a lot of games
around that building and even sat on top of the west side of the roof to eat
lunches in the springtime. Charlie sold it to Don Owens and wife, who lived in
the teacherage for awhile and converted the school to a garage. Steve Abby
recently purchased it and is in the process of renovating the teacherage.
There are many very nice pictures of the different Teachers, classes and
School houses.
Many different years of class mates standing out front of the
school house.
I must say this Book is a job well done.
Note: Information on post offices. Dates are as accurate as I
could find. They may or may not be entirely correct.
The first post
office was opened in 1883 at Howe with Menon Hawley as postmaster. He held this
position for approximately 10 years. A load of logs fell on him, crippling him.
Marion Kay Hawley took over for a time.
Apparently the post office was
closed for a few months in the early 1900's, then possibly in November of 1907,
Chester Thornton was appointed. Possibly James Chandler served in 1908. Sometime
later when Roy Hawley bought he Bartel store he was postmaster. It was later
moved to where Knights had a home and shop and Mrs. Knight ran it.
I'm
not sure, but it seems that Mrs. Clara J. Long became the next or at least soon
after. Clara J. was solicited to teach the Howe school so she hired Unity Kyle
to run the post office for a few years until she retired from teaching and went
back to the postoffice. She hired several assistants off and on through the
years until selling to Mildred Graham, who sold to Marvin and Josephine Rhodes.
Jo Rhodes was postmistress for a long time, during which time, Leona Cowgill was
assistant. Rhodes sold to Jackie and Dave Gooch. (A note of explanation here; up
until several years after 1969, to be a postmaster (or postmistress) one had to
supply, in other words own, the post office building.
Consequently, as
the postmasters changed, either the location of the office moved or the bought
the former's property). Jo and Marv moved to Oregon, Jackie and Dave and moved
in, Leona Cowgill was appointed "officer in charge". Jackie took her civil
service put in her application for postmistress. She also filled out an
application to be Leona's sick leave replacement. A retired navy man (an
outsider) also applied for the position but no one sell him any property,
building or land to supply the office building so when time came to the new
person Jackie was accepted. This was 1969 until 1989. In 1970 Jackie and Dave
and she bought out Dave's equity in the property. She later married Robert
Graefe, one new owners of the Howe Pool Hall. The pool hall was named Sinks Inn
under their A daughter, Mary, was born to them, bringing a new little sister to
Lorra, Jane, Joan and Kristi. Jackie got the privilege of moving to the new,
current, post office and still holds the postmistress position. Linda Ginn, Pat
Woodie and Barbara Hetmonich have been her assistants, Pat has chalked up 25
years as such.
Edwin R. Hawley established a post office at Badger Creek
in approximately 1890, also prior to that, a stage stop. Later the Clyde post
office was moved to a location on the Winian place, west and south of the Brabec
ranch.; Mrs. Winian being post mistress.
A stage stop and then post
office was established at Sweet Sage by Artes Gilmore- post office opened,
November 14, 1910.
The Bernice post office opened the 24th of January,
1911, with Robert Dietrich as post master in 1913. On November 13, a Jessie M.
Smith was appointed . The office was part of a general merchandise store, which
changed hands several times.
Someone once mentioned about going into the
Bernice Sweet Sage Post Office store and found that the ladies of the community
made their own butter and had their personalized butter wrappers so when someone
bought butter, they could request who's butter they wanted. They would trade
butter and eggs for other staples. Some did fancy handwork and placed in the
store to sell. Some fancy handkerchiefs sold for $1.00 each. A full days wage at
that time.
A few memories connected with the mall service: Everything anyone
could need that was of small enough size was carried by the "mail man". People
did a lot of mail order shopping. Baby chicks were a big item in the spring.
Several days before approximate arrival date the recipient would be sure to be
waiting at their mall box so as to not miss being there when they were
delivered.
A very few post office boxes were available and used. Almost
everyone had a homemade wooden mailbox, securely fastened to one or more cedar
posts positioned as close to their house as the main road passed. Ours was a
quarter of a mile from the house, some others were less, some more. Each family
had to provide at least 2 mall sacks with their name plainly printed on the
outside. These sacks were fairly large, maybe 24" X 15" or such. They were made
of heavy cloth or canvas with sturdy ties on one side to be wrapped around the
top of the bag and tied. The mail carrier picked up the empty one and put in the
full one. The empty ones were deposited at the end of the route, at the post
office, to be filled the next day.
One time an ambitious youngster caught
some horny toads and put one or so in a few of the empty sacks along the mail
route up by Hockings, Hansens, Irelands, etc. What a surprise when the sacks
were opened up!!
One could catch a ride with the mail carrier to Clyde
and back or send up fresh garden produce or what ever. Several times I rode up
to Reed's on a Tuesday and came back home on a Friday. I think it was with Bob
Urich.
In later years a high school student csould miss the bus to Arco
and get a ride in with the carrier. It worked really good became it proved you
were really trying to asstend school but you still missed ass but one morning
class.
When Clint Perry was mail man, he would stop at Spring Creek on
his way home from Clyde and put a net on the down stream side of the culvert and
the let a bucket float down from the other side, it would scare the fish through
and he'd have a nice net full of fish to take home for supper. Yes , it was
illegal, but no one cared, it really didn't hurt a thing. The game warden during
that time was reallu laid back and one of the biggest poachers in the area. It
was veryu seldon anyone ever wasted any game.
Clint and Helen Perry libed
where Wade Williams now lives. Theu had a daughter, Jeanie, son Bert and then
several years after Bert a set of twins (I tink a boy and girl, but I could be
wrong). One time HJelen had the kids in the cara and was driving to Howe. Just
before she came to thje river there at the John Terry place she reached down to
adjust something about the babies (twins) on the car seat and ran off the road
and into the borrow pit and nose dived into the fiver. Grandpa, (Charles Kyle)
was harrowing the field fight close by. He cut the fence fast, unhooked the team
and hitched them to the back end of the car and pulled it and occupants out and
onto the road again. He had to stay and talk to her and the children for quite
awhile before they could over come the shock and fright and go on to Howe.
Mom, (Unity Kyle) used to walk to the post office every morning and would go
through the field to do ........ so. In the winter she'd just cross the fiver on
the ice. One late winter the ice caved in with her and she went into the water
clear to her neck. She had to open the post office on time and decided Mrs. Long
would have built a fire and office wanned up a little, so she walked on. In no
time, all her clothes and hair were frozen solid, which wasn't too bad, but when
she got there Mrs. Long was sick and still in bed, no fn'e in her own house
even. Mom had to build the fires, strip down and borrow some clothes from Clara
J. She was one cold lady for awhile! I can remember how very cold that post
office could be. As was true in a lot of homes as well, the wash pans and
kettles of water left on the stove or counter at night would be frozen in the
mornings and that linoleum on the floor felt like it could freeze burn bare
feet.
Oh, I've got to tell you about that outhouse at the post office! It
was the scariest one I was ever in. It had a high seat, two of the biggest holes
I have ever seen. It also had a little seat for a child, but by the time I can
remember it, it was broken. I can remember going in there a time or two and each
time it was so scary just looking at the size of those holes, I knew I could
easily slip all the way through and down to my doom. Each times, I opted to go
out behind it instead of take a chance.
Jakie remembers going in and
opening up the office, lifting up the window of the counter and a goat stepping
up and putting her front feet on the counter and bleating loudly at her, After a
few minutes of converstion, Lora Pancheri come over searching for her goat.
Another time when Mary was about 2 years old a man came into the post office
and asked, "Do you have a ver tiny white goat"? Jackie said, "Yes" He asked,
"And do you have a ver little girl?" "Yes" "Well, they are up on the roof". The
little goat had found a way up and Mary had followed and they were having a
great time.
She also remembers having several rattlesnakes come in the
office over the years. (I remember Graham's having them com in, too).
And
then there was "Herbie", a pack rat that took up residence in the attic. He
would slide open the lid in the ceiling and peer down and athen slide it shut
again. Linds Ginn was warming herself in front of a little heater one day, heard
a sound, looked up into 2 little black eyes staring down at her. Unnerved her
..... Mounty Dick brought a trap and set it, to no availfor a long time, no bait
or place enticed him. Spring brought lilac blooms and each bouquet that was
brought into the house would disappear. And Idea surfaced and they completely
covered the trap with lilacs. Next morning "Herbie" waas in the trap. Everyone
had become interested in him and some felt kind a bad when he died. The "round
table group"came up to say their goodbys as he was deposited in the trash can
along with a fresh limb of lilacs. The parting words for him were that, "Herbier
m,e his demise due to his lust for lilacs"
Halrey Kyle drove uo to the
Sinks Inn and had a couple of little runt pigs in the back of his pickup. Kristi
spotted them and begged to sabe them. Wish granted, she took them across to home
and she and Jackie fed them tiny amounts of milk and brandy mix every 2 hours.
They grew! It wasn't uncommon when school started and Kristi had to be gone for
a few hours to go to the post office and find Jackie there to help, holding a
baby pig and a bottle in her arms. They grew and Kristi took them to the fair.
Their names were Petunia and Porky. Without telling her folks, she went to the
store and bought all the buttermilk there, came home and gave her pigs a good
scrubbing in a buttermilk bath. Bob hauled them to the fair for her in the
family 1972 station wagon and brought them back, plus two blue ribbons and one
grand champion ribbon!
Mail carrying experiences as told by Mounty Dick:
On December 1, 1989, I completed 39 years carrying mail from Arco to Howe. When
I started this mail route in 1950 Josephine Rhodes was the Postmistress at Howe,
followed by Jackie Graefe present Postmistress. In the 1950's and '60's, as well
as delivering the mail, we delivered milk, bread and groceries to the store, the
caf6 and school and on the return trip brought five and ten gallon cream cans
into Arco and consigned them out on the train to go to Blackfoot. This service
ended when the depot closed in Arco. During the busy summer months on the farm
for many years, my wife, Mary, was my substitute driver.
I acquired a
second route on July 1, 1958, from Darlington to Grouse. This was a box delivery
route and there was a Post Office at Grouse until November, 1976, when it was
discontinued. Driving these routes over 39 and 31 years respectfully recalls
many memories. The mall carder on occasion would find homemade cookies or candy
or some tasty morsel on his birthday or at Christmas, left for him as pay for
some special delivery during the year.
There has been a lot of change in
roads, weather and mode of transportation over the years. Until the early '50's
the road from the Howe Junction to Howe was still gravel and many times during
those years the mail carder broke the road for the school bus before the snow
plows went through. We now have four wheel drive trucks to take us through if
the weather requires more than a regular car. Also, hauling kids who missed the
school bus was the highlight of many a trip.
Thanks to Wayne
and Don Isham as they were able to gather information and remember first hand :
Bernie King and Roy Hawley are credited with founding the Great Western Mine
on Camp Creek.
A Mr Black and a Mr Daisy from New York founded and
operated the Daisy Black Mine, also on Camp Creek south of the Great Western.
These had their beginnings in the late 1800's Their had days being in the
early 1900's They were rich in lead and silver and a lot of ore was taken out
from them. A fire gutted the Daiosy Black in the late 1920's It was the
purcshased by the Wilbser Mining Company also of New York. The main hole was at
the top of the hill between Camp Creek and North Creek. Wilbert mining dug the
tunnel then on througn the mountainand came out on the North Creek side and
built the camp, etc. on the North Creek.
Ike Peck fdurnished some of the
teams to pull the ore cars in the mines. Don remembers some mules being used,
also. Eight horse teams were used on the freight waggons hauling ore to Arco to
the train. The ore went on to Salt Lake from there, to the smelter. Roy and Ruby
Gammett were one of the freight outfits for quite sometime.
Mrs Lemmon
set up a camp at the south side of Spring Creek., below Fallerts, and the
freighters stopped there for food, etc. for several years. When she left, they
stopped exclusively at Fallerts. Lorenzo and Rose Fallert also furnished the
miners with meat, eggs, milk, butter and cheese. Katie made mention once about
how rtired she got of churning butter everyday.
Hank Dean came in with
the Wilbert Company. He ran the mill and became a much respected and loved
member of the valley. Don Isham considered him as good as any Grandpa a boy
could have. They didn't have good pumps to keep old air out and fresh air in
those tunnels and other working areas, sop those who breathed the air breathed
in a lot of lead which eats up the lungs and liver. Hank stayed there all his
life while others and and left. He developed "miners lung" and became very ill
later in life. The Dr. gave him a few months to live at his last visit to him.
Hank could see no point in suffering long and slow, so terminated that by
shooting himself. Some others we could remember working there are: George and
Alice Woodie, Dan and Lois Romney, Lois cooking for men, John Taylor, Leonard
ajd Bessie Taylor, Bessie cooking, Ruth and Peck Catron, Abby and Max Settless,
Abby cooking. Don remembers Abby's cookie jar was always full and as a little
bou he had unspoken permission to simply come and help himself to a cookie or
two. When Settles left and Bessie started cooking, he walked, helped himself to
a cookie and Bessie slapped his hands, was quite a shock. She did give him a
cookie though. They have laughed over that in later years.
As the mines
had been abandoned for a time and scrap metal was precious during the World War
II, the heavy metal from tracks. machinery, etc. was salvaged for war purposes.
Some easterners started the Bunnington Mine in Bader Creek, then sold to Mose
Dalhe and Bill Barnes , Sr. This was worked for a few years. Nothing of any
amount to mention was taken out. Lots and lots of hard rock miners came and
went.
Mike Fallert started a mine at Squaw Creek. Ike Fallert had one,
Meadow Mine, in Mormon Gulch up by Ike Creek.
Perry Basinger, Milton
Young and Bill Dale dug in the Black Canyon north of the Birtch Creek point here
at HOwe, calle it the Glory Hole, nothing at all out of it.
The ore was
dumped ion this building, sorted , the low grade ore, rocks, dirt and other
debris removed before loading the high grade ore on the wagons, or later, trucks
to be freighted to Arco to the railroad cars.
Colton kimble from Mackey
mined in Williams Creek. Dan Romney mined and lived in Basinger canyon. Les
Sermon had claims in South Creek. He would grub stake the Garrett Brothers to
dig for him and his wife would fume about the money thrown away. When they had a
family to clothe and feed. In the 1950's, Bill Williams and a Mr. Foss from Twin
Falls, operated an open pit mine at Deep Creek and shipped out a mentionable
amount of manganese.
Ole Meadows owned property and a cabin in Badger
Creek. He worked for the different mines, did some prospecting on his own and
worked in the haying for ranchers at Clyde. He would walk down to Brabec's to
get his mail about one a week. He didn't show up on week and no one had seen him
elsewhere. Brabec's felt uneasy about it sdo they went up and couldn't find him.
They organized some of the other locals into a search party. They found him in a
mine shaft on a narrow ledge where he had been for way too many days for people
to have lived. He had made up his mind to give up and and fall on down to his
death if mo one had come by that very night.
He had been exploring and an
old ladder he'd climbed down on had broken and fell away. His even being alive
was miraculous, even so, he was never the same. Several people have mentioned
how particular he was abouata keeping his person and home and surroundings very
neat and clean, but after the accident he became notoriously unkempt and dirty
about his home.
Harley Kyle and Finch Robertson were deer hunting up in
Badger Creek canyon one time and it got too late to go home and too stormy sto
camp out so daddy told Finch, "Well, we can go up and stay with Ole, one things
for sure, I know it will be very clean." What a surprise! Dust hung from cobwebs
from the walls and ceilings. Pigeons roosted on the warmer oven of the cook
stove. He had hens that roosted on his bedstead. One pet hen laid and egg on his
pillow every morning. He had a platform in the kitchen by the door and his nanny
goats would come in, get milked in the house, go on out afterwards, things were
not cleaned up behind them. One old prospector tells about coming to spend the
night. He was sharing the double bed with Ole and kept being aware of being very
crowded and come morning there was a young sow pig that had crawled in between
then to sleep in the night.
In contrast, Leona Cowgill told about having
been visiting at his cabin before the accident and that his tabletop looked like
it had been white washed in was scrubbed so clean. Some of the run off from the
tailings of the mines caused some real losses to the ranchers below through the
years.
Following is taken from a B.L.M. report:
The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) proposes to remedy this abandoned mine lands (AML) site under
Vice President Gore's 1998 Clean Water Action Plan Initiative. The North Creek
Mill is located on public lands administered by the BLM in the ephemeral North
Creek channel about 12 miles north of Howe, Idaho in, T.7n.r.29e. section 6
SESW, in Butte County. The present -day mill site is 1.7 miles below the North
Creek mine and Canyon. See figure 1 and 2 for locating the mine site and the
proposed actions. This mill site has been listed on the CERCLIS with EPA,
IDD#980726087. Although most if North Creek is diverted 0.3 miles below the old
mine facility to irrigate hay pastures to the west, the lower North Creek
channel can still flow during extreme events and can maintain low flows during
high water years. Several episodes of high flows, eroding and transporting these
tailing have occurred between 1934 and 1982, killing at least 150 cows due to
lead, and high arsenic concentrations. The most recent episode occurred in the
winter of 1981-1982, which prompted BLM to remove 20, 000 cubic yards of mill
tailings in October of 1983.
These tailing were placed in a repository
upon a high bench above and away from the channel. Subsequent sampling in 1992
and 1995 determined that high soil lead, arsenic and cadmium concentrations
still exist above the mill, in the tailing removal area, and throughout the
North Creek channel from the mill to the highway, a distance of 5.2 miles.
This remedial action proposes to remove additional tailings in the channel
missed in 1983, and construct a relatively clean, high flow channels through the
old tailings pond that will lose its surface water to ground water. This action
is now needed to further prevent extreme precipitation events from gullying the
old tailings pond, and from transporting high metal concentrations to the
perennial trout streams in the valley below, eventually reaching the Little Lost
River. A flood channel needs to be needs to be constructed so that future stream
flows do not erode the old tailings pond and do not flow to Fallert and /or Big
Springs Creek.
The original mining activity in this area took place in
the late 1880's until 1931, mining for silver and lead, during this period,
silver and lead. During this period, two earlier mills were located upstream of
the present day mill, one near the mouth of the North Creek Canyon just below
the mine, and one on Upper Camp Creek. These mills resulted in the 4 tailings
ponds as seem opn the topographic map above the furthest downstream pond. Then
in about 1945 the present-day. mill was built in Lower North Creek and
reprocessed tailings from the existing thatings ponds above. This mill operated
as late as 1967, when operations apparently ceased. Although arsenic was used in
the earlier generation mills, it was supposedly not used in the recent (1960's)
reprocessing operations. Silver and lead ores were initially discovered on North
Creek in 1882. The Wilbert Mine produced about $2,000,000 of ore from 1906 to
1931. There were several mines at this time in the Camp Creek and North Creek
area. Most of the ore mined was from patented claims from 1889 to the Wilbert
Mining Company. The original mill was built on Camp Creek in 1908, but was
destroyed by fire in 1918. In 1924, another mill was built on North Creek
(future upstream from the present-day mill) and operated until 1931. These
earlier illslused gravity separation and from notes in the files, used arsenic
and other chemical compounds to separate the metals. A third mill of Camp and
North Creeks (this is the present-day mill) and ran intermittently until about
1967-1969. This mill had been re-built in this location in 1965 by James Reddy
of the Bell Mountain Mining Company. This mill reprocsessed the old mill
tailings ponds shown on the topo maps above this confluence. This mill, at least
according to the last operator in 1967, did not use arsenic or other chemical
compounds. However, this mill created extremely fine- textured, crushing
tailings and were in constant solution and saturated from a piped water line
from the irrigation diversion upstream on North Creek.
Sometime in the
1940's the first livestock enclosure fence was built around the tailing ponds,
likely in response to Katie Isham losing a reported 70 head of cattle, 30 head
in either 1934 or 1935 and 40 head ofin the 1940's. Later in 1961, Jay Little
(whose ranch is located where North Creek enters Fallert Creek-- at the present
day Rocky Ross ranch) lost 40 head of cattle, presumably afrom arsenic and lead
poisoning from North Creek flows.
Later, in 1967, James Reddy was
expanding the mill and employed 29 people reprocessing these earlier wastes. Mr.
Reddy had plans at the time to install a new crusher and work.] all of the waste
ores at the various mines in Camp and North Creeks. He also wanted to relocate
the mill further upstream in the North Creek channel. Apparently, none of these
plans were fulfilled. On July 25, 1967, mill water was flowing all the way to
Fallert Creek due to an intense rainstorm. all of the settling ponds Mr. Reddy
built were full and tailings were noted across almost the entire meadow area
just bere Fallert Creek, and entered the stream at multiple locations. At this
time Mr. Reddy, was instructed by Alan Strobel (BLM Area Manager) to construct
more settling ponds and berms to retain thes tailingss flow. During this time
MR. Reddy estimated that in about a couple of weeks he would be finished milling
the old tailings ponds. Later Mr. Reddy, now of the North Creek Mining Company,
planned to reopen the mine and mill, but this did not take place.
Between
December 8, 1981 and January 14, 1982, Bill Robison (who now owned the Little
Ranch) lost 50 head of cattle due to a rain-on-snow event. An unknown flow
entered Fallert Creek from the North Creek drainage. About 5-12 cfs was noted
flowing into Fallert Creek from a snowmelt event late on April 6, 1982,
impacting microinvertebrates and likely the fishery. Again, fenching was rebuilt
around the tailings ponds and tried to exclude livestock.
Due to this
last event, BLM initiated the tailings pond removal in October of 1983, removing
20,000 cubic yards and placing then in a repository out of the floodplain.
Later, in 1991 a Preliminary Assessment (PA) was completed by BLM and due to the
lack of human receptors and wells, and these mni-arid climate was not deemed to
be in need of emergency action, but said later remediation action through the
Clean Water Act should be pursued. Therefore, about 160 total head of cows were
killed from flow events between 1934 and 1982 (48 years).
Some of those
cows of Katie Isham's were milk cows and was a severe loss as they depended on
the cream checks for food and clothing. Many farmers and ranchers depended on
the sale of cream for those basic everyday needs.
Butte County IDGenWeb Copyright
Design by Templates in Time
This page was last updated 03/10/2022