The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1924-09-18


The Spokane river seems to flow
nearly south there, and the greater
part of the valley is on the western
side of the stream. On the eastern
side rise rocky bluffs all snarled with
lava groupings, rough and fantastic
In the earlier settlement of the
place it seems the people chose the
smoother sites back from the
bluffs, but the newer and finer resi-
dences are built among the snarls
of lava. In many places they had
seemingly hauled in soil and filled
in about the snags of rock and 1t
was rustic indeed. Some of the pa
latial homes were built on rocky
domes with flights of stairs leading
up to the base Of the house. Where
ever there was sod it was very rich
and fresh looking as If it had been
kept sprinkled with soft water.
Where there was a tree it was a
choice tree, none of the shaggy old
cottonwoods and poplars with era
tiers in them and warts on them.
One would think that the choicest
nurseries of the world had yielded
up their intelligence with bark on.
The contrast of dainty green boughs
standing upright and saucy and the
mild gray ones dropping in obeis-
ance; the grouping of beautiful
shrubs, the lovenests of creepers
and climbers mingling with mineral
colored rocks, hanging all over a
wall or kissing the face of the Cliff
showed that lot of people in Spo-
kane are lovers of nature and carry
the keys to her treasures. gOOd
many of the men were at home still
dressed in office clothes or with
coats and collars of operating the
or the hose, spending
afternoon resting their
nerves from the buz of business. On
the smoother, more. rounded parts
Of the heights where there were no
rocks or cliffs, beautiful places
were tucked away in the background
with fine friendly trees and shrubs
not quite hiding the house, yet shell
tering it enough so the inmates
would feel that it was quiet re-
treat from the noise and commotion
and publicity of the world about
hem. In other places a fine man
sion doomed on a gentle eminence
yet with few trees that had grown
@ lofty size and half revealed, half
concealed the beauty of it's architec-
ure. Some had the grace of curves /
from drives to trees and |
with perhaps weeping birch |
)r weeping ash or weeping willows
ldding their fine lines to the gener-
Il harmony. In such districts there
vas little or nothing to identify the
ZONES except their individuality,
10 street names or numbers visible
Tor any way of knowing who lived
n those little worlds.
We found the city park and stud
ed it's formal gardens, its tracts of
natural landscapes its greenhouses
md it's zoo, noted it's comfort sta
ions, it's drinking fountains and pic
tic grounds. People in the cities
eem to have been trained more to-
aspect public grounds and to pre-
erve them clean and natural than
We of the frontier. We homestead
rs stop to eat a meal, picket the
lorses on the best grass, build a fire
# unnecessary size as If clearing
If a farm, throw our chicken bones
n all directions, toss our bacon
inds into the fire to make smudge,
nd go off and leave it. The city
weller opens his cartons and
preads things around on cloth,
avs each bone and rind back in the
arton and leaves the place without
mark of his presence or any food
or flies.
l wish the city dweller and de-
artment of forestry may teach all
I us who go camping, how to pre-
erve natures beauty spots clean
nd natural I wish that the thous-
nd fine camping places along the
Torth and South highway may never
e polluted and ravished by our CIV
lied savages. Out of respect for
he men who promoted and built the L
Dad l hope they may never travel
yer it and see its beauty spots
tripped by vandals. have won
cred sometimes at the tenacity Of
urpose that kept men working on
ne project for twenty forty, fifty