Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1908-04-23

A land CT silver, gold and fruits,
This Gem of the Mountain.
grand;
A land of men of noble hearts
And women peerless and fine,
We grew so great they made us
a state
In the days of cighty-nine.
These lines are the first stanza
OF song heard in Portland during
the exposition, by blind street
singer, U. p. Sam, we'll known
from Omaha to Fricso. At the time
time l caught these lines thought
the blind bard was getting off his
mental plane little, as Idaho WIS
not, to my notion, state until the
ensuing year. On reflection, how
ever, and reference to clippings
from the old Bulletin, then pub
lished by the Herald man at Rocky
Bar, | found the case of blind Sam
to be historical par adox-he was
right and wrong at the same time
and in the same instance.
Idaho territory made her bow to
the world in 1868, in the days that
tried mems souls, the days whence
the demon of civil war had spread
its dark pinions over our land and
the heavens. above us were lighted
by the fires of secession am rebel
lion. Verify, she was one of Uncle
Sans BATTLEFRONT babies.
Until the early SOS however,
Idaho existed in the minds Of most
of the American people as an out
post of civilization, far, far away
home of wild beasts and still
wilder men; stamping ground for
desperadoes and a place where the
dusky savage roamed unrestricted,
hunting for scalps.
| remember we'll in the early 7O's
while still scholar in the little
red school house in a far eastern
state of reading in an eastern maya
zine of Idaho being place where
the men vent about clad in buck
skins and adorned with Colts ASS
in their belts, ready at all times
tor immediate use, and where the
little boys went to adobe schools
with Bowie knives in their boot
legs, the bootlegs being worn outside
their pantaloons. OF the women
and girls of that strange land it said
nothing. However, l formed an
idea that the little girls played
with skulls of the victims of their
papas and their little brothers.
Among the principal places men
toned by the writer were Rocky
Bar, Skeleton Bend on the South
Boise river, Poker Flat on Feather
river, Atlanta on Yuba river and
Poverty Gulch, close by.
According to the truthful? writer
of that article, pious young man
in Boston left his happy home on
the Back Bay with its numerous
beanei les, and started for Idaho to
educate the natives and train the
young ideas how to shoot. After
many hardships he reached Skele-
ton Beud, which was somewhere
close to the present site of Junction
Bar, and opened his school. Before
a eek had elapsed he under took tc
correct bad boy and S a result oil
such a rash undertaking the Idaho
youth explored the pedagogue' s
internal regions with Bowie
knife and landed his spirit in the
sweet after while. His brother,
back in Boston, when the sad news
was broke gently to him, deter
mined TO avenge the death anC
started for that strange land, taking
care, however, to take out an insur
ance policy iii favor of his young
wife. He arrived and shortly there
after tried to stop pail from Z
Colts pistol in the hands of the bad
boys father, he fell down never tc
rise again and gave up thu ghost.
He was buried alongside has
brother in the old grave yard colst
to warm Spring ranch near the
South Boise. His widow re.
manned in the e asst long enough tC
get the insurance money and then
came odt to Rocky Bar and MARI ice
the bad boys father.
When came to Idaho few
years later and anchored in Gilmore
and found the scenes above described
to be in the upper levels of oul
country, my interest and ardor
were both aroused and never ye
cooled.
The Wood river mines and the
Snake river placers, however, soor
brought a large population. BY
the close of 1885 The Oregon Short
Line crossed southern Idaho anc
the Northern Pacific it's north re.
gions, and a flourishIng common