ALTURAS COUNTY.

547

With this in view, a brief mention of the others will convey all the information requisite to an understanding of the early condition of the territory.

Alturas county, named by some admirer of the Spanish word, signifying heights, or mountains, had little valley land, and that was upon the margins of its numerous mountain streams.9

verting it into the Idaho World, for the support of democracy. He was offered the nomination for delegate to congress in 1864, but declined. He was several times elected to the legislature from Boisé and Owyhee and Ada counties, and served as chairman of the special code committee of the lower house in 1874, his popularity being attributable to his opposition to every kind of jobbery in politics, of which there has been much in Idaho in his own party. He was a prosperous farmer in Boisé Valley; was twice married, 2 of his sons having families of their own.

Though the miners prefer the more figurative interpretation of 'heavenly' heights.

Big Camas prairie was the chief body of agricultural land in this county, with an area of 14,000 square miles. It occupied a region 80 miles in length by from eighteen to twenty-five in breadth, and has an elevation of 4,000 feet. The Snake River lava-field appeared destined forever to be a waste; but the sage-plains west of Wood River proved capable of redemption, while the foot-hills and benches of the mountains in which the mines were situated afforded extensive cattle-ranges. For many years Camas prairie was thought only fit for a hay-field, and used as such. The summers were warm and pleasant, but there was a heavy snowfall in winter. Later settlers raised wheat, barley, corn, oats, vegetables, and melons successfully, the oat crop requiring no irrigation. The valley of Wood River, for a distance of fifty miles in length and from one to two in breadth, was a favorite location for farmers. The population of Alturas in 1883 was 9,000, and its assessed valuation, real and personal, $2,871,365. The number of children attending school 1,000. Esmeralda was the county seat when the county was organized, but Rocky Bar succeeded to the honor in 1864. Idaho Laws, 1864, 429. In consequence of the discovery of the Wood River mines in the summer of 1879, Hailey was chosen for county seat by popular vote, in 1881. Bellevue was the first town built in the Wood River mining region, being located and settled in 1880, and chartered in 1882-3. Its newspaper, the Chronicle, was owned by C. & J. Foster. Ketchum was next located, 16 miles above Bellevue, also in 1880, and Galena City, 26 miles farther north, in what was afterward Custer county, in the same year. Jacobsville and Marshall competed with other places for the dignity of being considered urban, but have remained only camps. Hailey, located in the spring of 1881, four miles north of Bellevue, then a thriving town of 400 inhabitants, having 83 school children and 2 churches, drew to itself most of the trade and population on account of being nearer to the principal mines. H. Z. Burkhart, with a machine, made a kiln of 80,000 brick in 1882. The court-house, hotel, school-house, railroad depot, and other buildings were constructed of brick. Lime was plentiful and cheap. A newspaper, the Wood River News, was started at Bellvue in the spring of 1881 by Clay, Allen, and George, and sold to Frank O. Harding, who removed it to Hailey, changing the title to Wood River Miner. Two other newspapers, the Chronicle and Times, are published in this county. Methodist, presbyterian, episcopal, congregational, independent, and catholic churches have been organized, but church edifices were as numerous as the societies in 1883. A good theatre was erected, Some warm springs in Croy Gulch were fitted up as a place of resort. The growth of Hailey resem

Bear Lake county, the small south-east corner of the territory, previous to 1872 was supposed to belong to Utah. It was first settled by a colony of Mormons under C. C. Rich, and was called Řich county. The establishment of the boundary of Idaho

by survey threw the greater and better portion of Rich county into Idaho, together with its industrious and thrifty population, and it was considered as a part of Oneida county until its separate organization in January 1875. The first settlers were, like most of the Mormons, agriculturists. But their earlier efforts at farming were failures, owing to frost and grasshoppers, which together took the greater part of their crops for several years. The altitude of Bear Lake Valley is 6,666 feet, from which elevation came the frosts. The grasshoppers were a periodical

bles that of Idaho City in 1863-5. The rapid settlement of Wood River and Camas prairie was after 1880. Many of the incomers were from Norway, and do not fear the snows of winter. There were fifty families in 1881 where there were not a dozen the year before. Fifty homesteads were taken up in 1881 by an agent of the German colony of Aurora, Marion co., Oregon. They were all agriculturists, and will make a garden of the cultivable parts of Alturas county.

plague. But by making hay and raising stock the settlers prospered, and little by little overcame the worst of their difficulties.10

The early history of Boisé been given in a previous chapter. long continued to be mines."

county has already Its principal wealth The upper Payette

10 The valley of Bear Lake, called Mormon Valley, a fertile plain 15 miles wide and 25 miles long, had a population, in 1885, of 4,000. By irrigating, large crops of wheat, oats, and barley, the finest potatoes in abundance, and the largest hay crop in the territory were raised, while herds of cattle and sheep covered the hillsides. The lumbering interest in this county was of importance, pine and spruce being the prevailing timber on the mountains. The manufacture of cheese was introduced, the product in 1883 being 200,000 pounds. By cooperation the Mormon population carried on their enterprises with good results. It was by cooperation that they made the cheese factory profitable, its capacity being 900 pounds daily. There was the Paris Cooperative Institution, composed of 200 shareholders, with a capital of $25,000. It conducted a general merchandise store, boot and shoe factory, harness factory, tin-shop, and tailoring establishment, besides a planing-lathe and shingle-mill. Members were not permitted to hold more than $100 worth of stock, lest the few should be benefited to the exclusion of the many. Since its establishment in 1874, in 10 years it paid $27,000 in dividends, besides expending 20,000 annually for labor. In 1882, 2,870 pairs of boots and shoes were manufactured, 900 pieces of leather tanned, $6,000 worth of planed lumber and shingles sold, and 35,000 pounds of cheese made, besides the business of the other establishments. While the results thus obtained furnished no wonder-provoking figures like mining, they secured contentment and steady prosperity, which mining too often does not. There were several villages in Bear Lake county, namely, Paris, the county seat, Fish Haven, Ovid, Liberty, Montpelier (formerly Brigham), Preston, St Charles, Bennington, and Georgetown. The Oregon Short Line railroad was laid out on the east side of the lake, through Montpelier, Bennington, and Georgetown. The assessed valuation of Bear Lake county in 1882 was $239,940.

"The mining ditch constructed by J. Marion Moore and J. C. Smith in 1863 was the beginning of Ben Willson's enterprises before mentioned. He bought out Smith, and subsequently purchased Moore's half. Moore was shot in a mining war over the possession of the Golden Chariot mine, near Silver City, Owyhee, in 1868. Samuel Lockhart, another owner, was also shot. Moore was greatly regretted by the pioneers of Idaho, who regarded him as the most indefatigable of them all in everything pertaining to the development of the territory, and as a true man. Capitol Chronicle, Oct. 20, 1869. He was buried with honors in the masonic cemetery at Idaho City, near the creek which bears his name. Idaho World, April 8, 1868. Willson, an Englishman by birth, came to Cal. at the age of 15, and was thoroughly Americanized. He went to Idaho and Boisé basin in the spring of 1863, and did more real work than almost any other man in the county. In 1863 he built a toll-road, and ran a stage line between Pioneer City and Centreville. He built a saw-mill, in company with Parkinson and Warriner, at Idaho City, and also engaged in merchandising with James Powelson. At the same time he bought mining ground and constructed ditches, being the first to introduce hydraulic mining, using at first duck hose with a common nozzle, but finally iron pipe, 15 inches diameter at the lower end, and the giant nozzle. Thus Willson became owner of 100 miles of ditches, a mill for sawing lumber, several shops for repairing tools, and a 200-acre farm on Clear Creek, adjoining the town of Pioneer, besides being a partner in the Mammoth quartz mine. He was a member of the bar, and served in the legislative council,

Valley proved the choicest farming region in Boisé county.'

12

In Cassia county were found a good soil and climate, but the valleys were small and elevated. Upper Goose Creek had the choicest body of farming land in the county. Raft River Valley, thirty miles long by ten wide, contains fine meadow-lands. A settlement was made at the head of the valley, called the Cove. With irrigation the sage-lands produce well. Like Bear Lake county, Cassia raised wheat, oats, barley, and potatoes for market, in abundance, and grazed large herds. It had mines, though not much prospected; also one grist-mill and three saw-mills.13 as well as in county offices. Moore Creek was surveyed, and also Granite and others, with a view to constructing bed-rock flumes in the same manner. S. A. Merritt, delegate to congress, was intrusted with the business of getting a bill passed granting right of way, and other privileges, on Moore Creek, for a distance of 7 miles, but failed. A job was attempted, while Ainslie was in congress, to get all the waters of Snake River, and other streams, granted to a company, which would compel the farmers to pay for it at their price. Another congressional job proposed was to grant all the waters in Boisé River to a company, which would have paralyzed placer mining in Boisé basin, by placing them at the mercy of the company. The people of Idaho have ever been alive to the withering effect of iniquitous monopolies.

12There were in 1885 about thirty good farms in this section, with a wagonroad from the valley to Placerville and Idaho City. Back of the bottom-land was a sage plain partially redeemed by irrigation, and rising higher, a series of rolling hills gradually attained an altitude of 5,000 feet, covered with bunchgrass, making the best of cattle-ranges. On the crest of the hills to the cast was a heavy growth of timber. Long and Round valleys were used only for grazing purposes. Garden Valley was soon under high cultivation, lying only ten miles north of the mining centre of the Boisé basin, which furnished a profitable market for the grain, vegetables, and fruits raised in this 'paradise,' as it is fondly named. From the dividing line between Ada and Boisé counties to Horse Shoe Bend is about twenty-five miles of farming land occupied by one hundred settlers, who have under cultivation 15,000 acres. the lower Payette Valley resided D. M. Bivens, a native of Missouri, who immigrated from Kansas to Idaho in 1862. He was among the first to take a farm on the Payette, where he made himself a beautiful home. He died Nov. 17, 1879, aged 51 years. Boisé Tri-weekly Statesman, Nov. 25, 1879.

In

Boisé county had 3,212 inhabitants in 1880, with a total valuation in 1882 of $669,719. In 1883 the population had increased to 12,000, with a proportionate increase of property. Idaho City, the county seat, had diminished from 7,000 in 1864 to 700 in 1880, but expanded again. Placerville, Centreville, Quartzburg, Pomona, Banner, Deadwood, Clarkville-named after Henry C. Clark, a pioneer, who has a store in this place. Silver City, Idaho, Avalanche, Aug. 12, 1876-Horse Shoe Bend-C. H. Angle, pioneer at this place, and justice of the peace, died March 16, 1876. He left a wife and 4 children-Bairdsville-settled first by C. Baird on upper Squaw Creek, Starr's Idaho, MS., 8-and Jerusalem were the early mining and farming centres of Boisé county.

13 The old road to Salt Lake by the City of Rocks passed through some

Custer county, named after General Custer, cut off from Alturas and Lemhi in 1881, proved inconsiderable as an agricultural region. There was a fine valley, forty miles long by from five to fifteen miles wide on the upper Salmon River, furnished with wood, water, and grass in abundance, and numerous small tracts of agricultural land along the streams, but the county was preeminently a mining country. In 1866 or 1867 a party of prospectors from Montana, headed by one Richardson, penetrated to that branch of the Salmon which they named Yankee Fork, because the party consisted of New Englanders. They did not remain long in the country, which was at the best inhospitably strange and remote. In 1873 D. V. Varney and Sylvester Jordan found their way to Yankee Fork and located some placer mining claims, naming Jordan Creek branch of that stream. Four years later the great discoveries were made in quartz, of the Charles Dickens, Charles Wayne, Custer, and of the settlements, and it was in the direction of Ogden and Salt Lake City that the farmers looked for a market. The population in 1885 was 2,500; and the assessed valuation in 1882, 417.332. ́Albion, the county seat, situated in Marsh basin, an agricultural district, was settled about 1875. Its population ten years later was some 400. In Riblett's Snake River Region, MS.. 2-3, is a brief account of Cassia county, by Frank Riblett, surveyor. In the south-eastern portion of the county was the Black Pine mining camp. Simon Schwabacher was the principal owner in this region, and erected the first quartz-mill. A New York company paid $65,000 for a placer mine at Bonanza Bar, and other companies took claims near this one. There was another farming settlement started on Sublette Creek, thirty miles east of Raft River, and some of villages; namely, Beecherville, Alamo, Cassier Creek, Bridge, Oakley, Goose Creek, Rock Creek, and several stations on the road to Salt Lake. Samuel R. Given, a prominent citizen of this co., born in Nashville, Tenn., in 1822, was a son of John Given, whose father fought in the revolutionary war, under Gen. Marion. Samuel received a common-school education in La. In 1849 he came to Cal., via Fort Smith, Ark., Santa Fé, Socorro, Gila, and San Diego, arriving at San Francisco in October, and engaging in teaming during the winter. The following spring he went to Mariposa co., and mined for a time, afterward farming and raising hogs on the Merced River. In the flood of 1862 he lost $20,000 worth of hogs, and all his improvements, but remained in the co. until he recovered a part of his losses, when in 1873 he put $3,000 into horses and mules and started for Cheyenne, Wy., being 2 years on the road. In 1875 he sold off his stock, and went to freighting to the Black Hills, making $6,000 in 18 months. He then commenced buying mining claims, opening and selling them, including the Homestake No. 2, and the Pierce mines, making $70,000 in another year and a half. Next he purchased a range on Raft River, and stocked it with cattle and horses, and here he made his home, in the finest section for a winter range between the Sierra Nevada and the Missouri River.