Our appetite for scandal seems not to diminish with history’s passing years. If you are above it, give yourself a gold star and quit reading now.   Okay, anyone still with me?   William Borah was a Boise attorney who went up against Clarence Darrow as one of the prosecutors of “Big” Bill Haywood. Haywood was acquitted but the trial brought national fame to Borah.   At the time of the trial in 1907, Borah had already been selected as a U.S. Senator from Idaho. That was when legislatures named senators. He had time for the trial because Congress didn’t start their sessions until D ..read more

If you’ve lived in Idaho for a while, you’ve probably been confused at least a couple of times when someone made a reference to Fort Hall. Did they mean the reservation, the town, or the fort? If they meant the fort, one could certainly ask, which fort?   Fort Hall began as a fur trading post in 1834. It was located on the Snake River in what is now Bannock County, about 11 miles west of the town of Fort Hall. It served trappers, then Oregon Trail emigrants, and finally stagecoaches and freighters until it was largely destroyed by a flood in 1863, the year Idaho became a territory.   ..read more

​When you think of a miner, you probably picture some old Gabby Hayes character with a pinned-back hat brim crouched over a stream with a pan, dreams of gold glittering in his eye. That’s not a bad picture of a prospector because most miners (some of whom were also minors) started out that way. Panning for gold is slow and tedious. Shake, shake, shake, rinse, shake, shake, shake, rinse, and repeat until your beard grows down to your waist. Gold flecks are heavier than most of the surrounding material so they sink to the bottom of the pan. A good panner could sift through about a yard of sand a ..read more

Things can get noisy when a fire is raging. That’s why the foreman of the Ada Hook and Ladder Company would use a “speaking trumpet” when they were called out on a fire. Speaking Trumpets were essentially brass megaphones. They sometimes served a second purpose, according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. They could be inscribed and awarded to honor firefighters for their service.   The fire foreman holding the speaking trumpet in this photo is James H. Hart. It was probably taken around 1900.   Hart was born in in New York City in 1834. He came west to earn h ..read more

Fame and infamy today, all wrapped up in one name.   The first steamboat to reach Lewiston was the sternwheeler Colonel Wright in 1859, captained by Leonard White. As the first of what would be countless vessels to ply the Columbia and Snake Rivers to that inland port, the Colonel Wright deserves its fame.   The infamy comes in when one explores the provenance of the boat’s name. It was named after Colonel George Wright who was known as an Indian fighter in Washington and Oregon territories at the time the steamer was built. He is probably best-known today as the military officer who ..read more

Oh, the humanity! Fortunately, Boise’s airship crash involved neither fire nor death.   The year was 1908, and it was Fair time. Fairgoers were excited because officials had booked an amazing exhibition. The Strobel Airship, which had just won first prize in the International Races in St. Louis, was coming to Boise.   Charles J. Strobel of Toledo, Ohio had built the contraption. The dirigible looked a bit like a flying sausage. The silken bag was filled with hydrogen and had a rudder and 15 horsepower motor spinning a propeller installed on the framework that hung suspended beneath ..read more

I’ve written before about Fred T. Dubois, fiery U.S. Senator from Idaho 1891-1897, and 1901-1907. He was a zealot about polygamy when he was U.S. Marshall for Idaho from 1882 to 1884, and continued his opposition in his national office. His anti-Mormonism was one reason Idaho Democrats lost the Legislature in 1907, which was why Dubois lost his seat. The newly elected Republican majority Legislature booted Dubois (this was when legislatures named U.S. Senators) and elected William Borah to replace him.   One little-remembered attempt to gin up more anti-Mormon sentiment was a newspaper he ..read more

In doing research for my book, Symbols, Signs, and Songs, I ran across a little interesting history on Idaho’s state flag. Since it is largely the state seal centered on a blue background, one would think we would have had an Idaho state flag for as long as we’ve had a seal since 1891. Not so.   It took the Legislature 17 years to pass a law creating an Idaho State Flag. Even then they punted to the adjutant general, delegating the duty of coming up with the design and specifying that the flag would be blue and have the word Idaho on it. They appropriated 100 dollars to make that happen o ..read more

Stewart W. Hoover was born on Independence Day, 1895, in Montpelier, Idaho. When he was ten, his father, Dr. Clayton A. Hoover, was named Medical Superintendent of the Idaho State Insane Asylum, so the family moved to Blackfoot.   Stewart enjoyed his new life in Blackfoot, a place that allowed him to ride horses, hunt, take nature walks with his dog, and play basketball. He was well-liked in school, where he studied hard and became his class valedictorian when he graduated from Blackfoot High in 1911.   Hoover applied for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, wa ..read more

Idaho has two Malad Rivers, both named such because of encounter early trappers had with bad beavers. No, not juvenile delinquent beavers, or beavers gone rogue because of bad upbringing or the crowd they ran with. These were beavers that were eaten and got their revenge by passing on some malady to the person who feasted on their flesh. Alexander Ross had the honor of naming Idaho’s Malad River that empties into the Bear River. He called it “River Aux Malades.” He recorded the experience in his journal in the fall of 1824. After breakfast that day many of his men were taken ill—so many that ..read more