The Nome daily nugget., 1935-01-26
Exterior Of Fort Holl le49
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON

"A freshly-peeled cottonwood logs
 A A gleaming white in the early
 M. morning sunshine. Inside the
 N M fort a motley crowd of men Is
 N.Y. Ek gathered around a tall flagstaff.
 & @ Hunters and trappers, whose
 EcH , greasy. smoke-begrimed buck
 SN@ skins tell of a hundred camp
 fires in the great West, rub elbows with men whose garb bespeak the East. In the murmur of talk the nasal twang of the Down East Yankee rises sharply above the grufer tones of the frontiersmen.
 Apart from the others stand two young fellows destined for future fame as men of science. One is Thomas Nuttal Cor NuthalD a botanst fresh from Harvard college, and the other is J. K. Townsend of Philadelphia, physician and orn- < thologist. As they talk to third man, scarcely elder than themselves, their deferental manner toward him stamps him the leader of this varied company And he Is, for this Is Capt" Nathaniel J. Wyeth, founder of the Columbia River Fishing and Trading company" a young Boston business man. but already a veteran of westward travel
 Now Wyeth steps forward to the foot of the flagstaff In his hand he holds folded flag. He attaches itrto the halyard and as 1t rises to the peak the roaring of muskets and the popping of pistols mingle with the whining crack of long rifles. As the banner rpples out fin the sun shine in the red, white and blue glory of the Stars and Stripes a mighty shout goes up from
 
 the assembled company
 Thus was another wilderness outpost estab- lished and, although this shouting throng may not realize 1t now the curtain has been rung up on another act in the epic drama which Is to be called "The Winning of the West.''
 Two months later Wyeth Is to write to an uncle back East, saying "I have built a, fort on the Snake River, which have named Fort Hall from the oldest gentleman in the concern, MT. Henry Hall. We manufactured magnificent flag from some unbleached sheeting, little red fan nel and few blue patches saluted 1t with dam aged powder and wet 1t in villanous alcohol and after al assure you. 1t makes a very respectable appearance amid the dry and deso- | late regions of central America. It's bastions stand terror to the skulking Indian and a | beacon of safety to the fugitive hunter. It Is manned by F men and has constantly loaded | in the bastons 100 guns and rifles. These bas- tions command both the inside and outside of the fort. After building this fort sent messen- gers to the neighboring nations to induce them to come to trade"
  August 5, 1884 The modern city of Pocatello, Idaho, Is in gala array Crowds surge through its streets. Flags are flying. Bands are blaring. There Are parades, foats pageants. speeches. For today is the beginning of the four-day cele- bration of the event which took place just a hundred years ago-the founding of the post
  point of trade commerce and recuperation." Such is the characterization of this post by Jennie Broughton Brown, whose splendid Fort Hall on the Oregon Trail" published two years agoI by the Caxton Printers Ltd, of Caldwell. Idaho. In the years that followed Fort Hall was bea con of safety not only to "the fugitive hunter' but to many weary emigrant over the Oregon Trail which ran beneath It's walls; 1t was a port of call for nearly every wayfarer-trapper. missionary ficer-whose name looms large in the early his tory of the West; 1t was to have stirring part in the later stagecoach and freightlng days; and it was a center of activity in more than one Indian war when the red man was making his last desperate stand against the white man.
  The founder of Fort Hall was Nathaniel J Wyeth Born in Cambridge, Mass, January % 1892 of distinguished ancestry (his mother was a relative of John Hancock), Wyeth was intended for Harvard college of which both his father and oldest brother were graduates. But he was impatient to begin a business career and de clined to go to college. By the time he was thirty years old he had made modest success in his home community managing a farm and engaging in the ice trade which brought in an annual income of some $1,2OO Then, influenced by the writings of Hall J. Kelley founder of the Oregon Colonization Society,"" Wyeth determined to organize a trad ing company to exploit the rich natural resources of the Columbia river region in the Pacific Northwest. His plan was to lead an overland expedition to the Oregon country and establish trading posts which were to be supplied by ships that were to sail around Cape Horn to the head of navigation on the Columbia and from there to bring back the furs and salmon collected at the posts On March Il, 1882, the expedition set out. But, although they were lucky at Independence, Mo- to fall in with Milton Sublette of the Rocky Mountain Fur company who was leading party of trappers and traders into the mountains, misfortune dogged the footsteps of the eastern "tenderfeet" First some of Wyeths men grew faint hearted and turned back. Then they were attacked by the fierce Blackfeet Indians and lost three men killed and eight badly wounded.