A. C. Saunders

“ At the last sun dance held in the Bottoms near Pocatello, it was necessary to pay one old centenarian five dollars to induce him to pose for one snapshot.
Among the common-places of former days that are fast passing away are the wild horses. These animals still roam the plains of Bannock county, but they are becoming more scarce every year. They travel in bands of fifteen or twenty and are very bold. They will approach within close range of a human being and feed unconcernedly under his gaze, but at the sound of the human voice they become terror-stricken and stampede away in great confusion. ”

“ Christianity alone will bring these people as much civilization as they need for both their happiness and salvation, and that is more than many of our own boastful race possess. For the rest, the Indian, to his honor, be it said, is a child of nature, who loves his sagebrush and desert freedom, and it is no kindness to tear him from the life he loves so well. ”

“ The Oregon Short Line is the artery through which pulses the very life blood of Bannock county. In the Pocatello shops over eleven hundred men are employed, and those who find work on the Montana and Idaho divisions bring the number to about 4000. It is, therefore, a very fortunate thing for the community at large that the Oregon Short Line Railroad company is one of the apparently few large corporations in this country today that realizes a moral responsibility toward the general public. ”

“ The Bannocks, in common with all other Indians, have a decided sense of beauty,—a trait that is seldom noticed, although one of the best possessed by the red-men. This artistic instinct finds play in the basket and bead work done by these people. Many of their designs combine great beauty with great simplicity, and display a taste that is far from uncultured. In their names, too, the Indians show a love of the beautiful. ”

“ But two men practicing the principles of Christianity can live as happily in a wig-wam as in a palace—perhaps more so, and there is no reason why we should want the squaws to wear split-skirts because our own women wear them. There is but little choice, and perhaps the squaw has the best of it at that. The South Sea islander does not want us to wear rings in our noses because he does, and it seems hardly fair that we should wish to throttle the poor Indian with the shackle that civilization calls a collar, just because we are foolish enough to wear collars. ”

“ Her pen is the impress of time, and in characters more durable than the most lasting creations of man, she has written the story of the ages as they rolled slowly by. Impartial, unprejudiced, and in this respect omniscient, she has patiently and unerringly recorded a history more ancient than that of primeval man, more valuable than that of the proudest monarchy. ”

“ Perhaps it is some such reason as this that leads the Indians on the reservation to despise those who live among the whites. The average Indian who hangs around Pocatello is certainly inferior to his brother in the sage brush.
Although the Indian is a lazy man, who makes his squaw do most of the work, he is not without some strain of generosity. The squaw usually follows along some ten paces behind her husband, and it is no uncommon thing to see the buck eating a bag of apples or other delicacies and throwing the cores to his faithful squaw, who devours them with relish. ”

“ The mountain fastnesses along the Portneuf canyon, made this the most dangerous stretch of road between Salt Lake City and Butte. It was very difficult to trail men over the lava rocks that abound along this route, and the wild nature of the country beyond them offered road agents a fair chance of safety. The gold bullion brought down from the Montana mines made a tempting prize, and encouraged highway robbery to such an extent that the outrages in time gave birth to the vigilantes, who gave the robbers short shrift and in time succeeded in practically ending their operations. ”

“ That western people are fully alive to the romance and adventure connected with the settlement of the west, is shown by the fact that moving picture representations of western life are popular to an equal extent in no other portion of the Union.
The mouth of the Portneuf canyon was a favorite wintering place for cattle men and freighters because of the feeding ground to be found on the bottoms, the shelter afforded by the surrounding hills, and the water supplied by the Portneuf river. For similar reasons the Indians used the present site of Pocatello for their winter quarters. ”

“ It is said that the only way to bind a bargain with [Pg 41] the Indians is by a deed of sale. On the other hand, the missionary previously mentioned, says that he would rather lend money to an Indian than to a white man, as the former never fails to repay the loan.
We have spoken of the Indian’s sense of beauty. He is also cruel, and his cruelty is written on his face. Imagine, then, the dismay and terror of a missionary’s wife, who, with her husband, alighted one dark night at a little way station just north of Pocatello. ”

“ Otherwise their skin would blister and dry up with the reflected heat of the desert. This is probably true, and it is no doubt for some similar reason that the Indians wear blankets all through the summer. It has been said that the Indians use a powder of vegetable or mineral character with which they rub the inside of their blankets, thereby rendering them impervious to heat rays. Certain it is that an Indian, clad in a blanket, is seldom seen to perspire, even in the hottest weather, while his civilized brother drips just as profusely as a white man. ”

“ Wyoming and Arizona, Idaho and Oregon, Nevada and Oklahoma? Resonant and poetical names they are, suggestive of a bigness quite commensurate with the vastness of the states they name. It has been said that the west, inspired by the beauty of her Indian names, will some day produce a new school of poetry, made possible only by the poetry of the wild, free red-men.
As in all frontier communities, many amusing incidents have transpired between the Indians and whites. Probably everyone in Pocatello knows “Stonewall” Johnson and probably no one in Pocatello knows horseflesh better than he. ”

“ The days of the stage coach have passed, and with them the incidents that we class under adventure and romance in the reading, but that meant hardship, danger and exposure in the making. The advent of the railroad was the beginning of a new era in Bannock county—an era of prosperity and growth, but also, let us not forget, an era for which the way was paved by the hardy pioneers [Pg 100] who faced the wilderness unafraid, and tamed it for the uses of civilization. ”

“ Having once learned the noble art, it is hard to make them keep the peace. Their pelts have a market value today, and in time to come will probably be highly prized.
Another class of men who made a winter rendezvous of the present site of Pocatello were the freighters—men who drove the old freight stages from Salt Lake to Butte. These men were true pioneers, camping along the old trails until they knew them blindfold for hundreds of miles, and encountering great risk from exposure and from the Indians. Sometimes an impoverished traveler worked his way with these freighters. ”

“ In May, 1877, Chief Joseph and his followers were ordered from the Wallowa Valley, Oregon, to the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, and given until June 14th to make the move. The Indians felt the injustice of being called upon to observe a treaty to which they had never agreed, and instead of obeying the order, made a rapid journey to the east of the Salmon river country in Idaho, and suddenly attacked the thinly settled whites there, killing seventeen, and wounding many others. ”

“ This was especially true of the early days in the west. Time was when the regular method of collecting [Pg 107] overdue bills in Bannock county was at the mouth of a gun, and this within the memory of living men. Horse theft was punishable with death throughout the far west, the penalty being no more than proportionate to the crime. For the west in those days was a desert country, and the loss of a man’s horse often meant a horrible death by thirst because the next watering place was further away than a man could walk. ”

“ Stream flow protection is the first object of the service on the area of the Pocatello city watershed. During the time that this area was part of the Indian reservation there was not much difficulty with stream flow protection, but when it was opened, the citizens received an object lesson in the effects of free grazing that led to the inclusion of the watershed in a forest and the prohibition of grazing. The protection of this area has been devoted to prevention of fire, prohibition of grazing and replanting to forest. During the last five years, not five acres of this area has been burned. ”

“ Few features of the far west are more widely known, or more characteristic than the prairie schooner. In parts of South Africa the same pioneer conditions exist that prevailed in our western states until a few years ago. The climate and nature of the country are much the same. It is interesting to notice that the same conditions, ten thousand miles [Pg 54] away, and untouched by American western influence, have produced the same prairie schooner that we see winding the dusty trails of Bannock county today. ”

“ They broke into small parties, traveling along out-of-the-way trails and largely by night, killing and plundering when the opportunity came, but always heading for the reservation and safety. It is now more than thirty-five years since this war ended, during which time the Bannock Indians have given no further trouble. The large increase in population makes another outbreak practically impossible.
Idaho has seen one other Indian war, known as the Sheep-Eater Indian war. ”

“ In July, 1882, congress officially ratified an agreement made at Fort Hall between the Shoshone and Bannock Indians and Joseph K. McCammon, whose name has been given to the town of McCammon in this county, and several railroad officers, by which the promoters secured a right of way through the reservation.
The opening of the Utah & Northern railway gave the first great impetus to settlement and development in southeastern Idaho, making it possible to market produce profitably and at the same time bringing the settler into touch with the outside world. ”

“ The governor of Idaho was instructed by the authorities at Washington to have the proposed reservation surveyed, probably in accordance with the clause which provided “reasonable portions of the Portneuf and Kansas prairies.” The governor is said to have visited the Portneuf valley, and with a wave of the hand to have instructed the surveyor to “survey [Pg 62] out a good-sized reservation around here for these Indians.” He then returned to Boise. As the surveyor was paid by the mile for his work, he ran the survey out to as many miles as possible. ”

“ In spite of the wild and sometimes forbidding scenery that meets the traveler’s eye from the train window, there are probably few more peaceful communities than Bannock county in the farming sections of the east. Women frequently live alone and unprotected on isolated ranches and are seldom molested. The case of Hugh Whitney, the bandit and outlaw who [Pg 120] robbed Pocatello of a true citizen, and upon whose head there rests a large reward, is today an exception. ”

“ The prolonged and faithful services of such a man as Father Van der Donckt are invaluable to any community, but especially to a country in its formative stage. The hardships, discouragements and indifference that the latter condition always throws in the way of a missionary call for no ordinary amount of pluck and perseverance, and great credit is due to the man who faces them unflinchingly and who out of nothing builds up a flourishing and useful work.
Among the religious activities of Pocatello, the Railroad Young Men’s Christian Association takes a leading place. ”

“ There is a large acreage of fine, well-watered pasture land in the county, on which grows an abundance of nutritious bunch grass. McCammon, Downey, Oxford, and Soda Springs are all surrounded with rich agricultural lands, and at the latter place are a number of hot mineral springs, whose waters are bottled and widely sold. Lava Hot Springs will in time be a health resort of more than state-wide fame, the beauty of its surroundings as well as its health-giving springs making it an ideal spot for rest and recreation. ”

“ Most of the first settlers of Idaho were poor in purse, but were rich in muscle and energy, and most all possessed a good moral character. The rule that was in common practice was for each person to attend to his own private business, and to have an affectionate regard for his neighbors and his neighbors’ rights, and to extend a helping hand to the unfortunate that needed help. ”

“ He learned to his surprise and chagrin that the property he had sold for fifteen hundred dollars is worth more than twenty thousand today. Another old-timer who grew tired of the west and returned to his eastern home, in acknowledging the receipt of a picture of Pocatello, wrote that the picture was very nice but that he knew it was not a picture of Pocatello because Pocatello had no trees!
Not only is the city well supplied with trees, but it is equipped with the full complement of an up-to-date city. Commercially it is one of the most active and prosperous in the west. ”

“ According to the testimony of all the old timers in this region there are many rich deposits of the respective valuable minerals in nearly all the mountains of Bannock county. Apparently there is enough of coal and asbestos deposit here to make a whole community rich.”
Pocatello’s railroad and ranching interests alone insure the development of a prosperous and fair-sized city, and in the immediate attention [Pg 31] demanded by these activities, the mining possibilities of the neighborhood seem for the time to have fallen into the background. ”

“ The Indians did not remove the whole head of their victim’s hair, but only a circular portion, about the size of a silver dollar, from the crown of the head. Sometimes in an attempt to win false glory, a man would cut two or three scalps from one head, taking the extra ones from the sides, but a judge of scalps could always detect the fraud, and unerringly select that which had been taken from the crown. Some white scouts scalped the Indians they killed, and sold the trophies, properly cured, for good sums, the price among eastern curio seekers ranging from fifty to seventy-five dollars. ”