The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1916-10-13

sumer at very little expense for hand
| ling and storing. Besides having ia
cilities for getting rid of the produce,
they have means of disbursing a lot
of money among the farmers. The
Commercial Bank Of Shelley occupies
small building but it does large
volume of business. One might think
that banking would be slow work in
town of that size, but the man who
wants to cash check or buy draft
has to step lively and get his turn at
one of the windows, for the swish
of coin and the whisk of currency
thru the window go on all day.
Shelley has large stores and Is a
good trading point. 1t has fine
homes and is a good place to live.
1t is ON the banks of big river and
has one power plant in operation and
others coming on, one of them al
ready well along. 1t has two graded
schools, some churches and a water
system. 1t had booze in days gone
by, but it has been busy cutting 1t
out The fellows are going to quit.
In fact they had already gone and
done it. We mean literally, for some
of them have gone and some of them
have done it. Those that have done
it, (bootlegged a while) have been
taken to Blackfoot by Sheriff Sim
mons, and to get even with him they
and their friends have been telling
orthe sly that he Is a bootlegger him
self. But along with that old fib
they are saying they don't want
whisky anyhow. That is what the
fox said about the grapes, and that
is why Shelley town is so nearly free
from booze now.
Shelley as a town has outgrown
that old saying that we have to take
the bitter along with the sweet. 1t
has banished the booze joints and Is
building a sugar factory. There you
are; now take a new slogan from that
circumstance and say, Danish the
bitter and take the sweet" Fight
the bitter and court the sweet
Swap the bitter for the sweet"
Swap booze for sugar." Work for
the sugar industry" If people had
had a sugar factory and had been in
vited to close it up and start saloons,
what a howl there would have been
about it! But some folks hoWled
as it was and are blaming the law
and the sheriff for the drouth, SO
there you are.
Shelley laid cement walks on its
main street this season. They did
it with the money they saved since
the town went dry. Towns generally
do some foolish thing in their career,
and Shelley has sowed its wild oats.
1t wanted water system and it got
it. Twins, so to speak. 1t had will
age council that realized the import
ance of pure water, and they went
after water while the sheriff went
after bootleggers and horse thieves
The sheriff got first results.
The council went on a theory bor-
rowed from some old medical works
and a we'll digger, that the earth IS
very like a man. Wherever you cut
into a man you will find blood. And
wherever you dig into the earth, II
YOU go deep enough, you will IND
water. 1t is funny the council over
looked the fact that where most peo-
pie are cut into they find an ap-
pendix. Well there is low round
mountain or butte two miles out OF
town, and they decided to store their
water in a reservoir on top of the
butte. That would give fire pressure
on the gravity system. so they lalo
their pipes from the city mains TO
the top of the butte and built the
reservoir. In order to market their
wares, they contracted to sell water
to some farmers along the way ana
that helped pay for the rights-of-Way
for the pipeline. Then they proceed
ed to drill into the mountain for
water and they found an appendix.
Funny, wasn't it! If they had been
operating for an appendix they mlgnt
have gotten water. That mountain
proved to be an extinct volcano cover
ed over with soil. Deep down In lts
-system-were great deposits OF
ashes and dust and rocks and all
manner of stuff that well drillers de-
light to leave alone. In each place
they drilled they encountered an ap-
pendix or something related 10 IT,
So the city fathers went back to town
and supplied water from the other
end of the system. They pump water
out from town to the farmers along
the right-of-way. 1t is doubtful II
there is another town. in the valley
that takes as good care Of the farm
ers Farmers who drive into Black
foot have to go out two miles 10
find hitching racks, or did for Whlle
till they got done laying pavements.
Shelley is in the center Qf a great
farming region, and the town that