J. Earl Garner

              VOICES FROM THE PAST
J. EARL GARNER
By J. Earl Garner
February 6, 1971
Tape # 15
Oral Tape by Harold Forbush
Transcribed by Louis Clements
Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society
INTRODUCTION
The Library of the Upper Snake River Historical Society in the Teton Flood Museum contains over 600 video, cassette, and reel- to- reel tapes. These oral interviews have been gathered to over the past years from individuals throughout the Snake River Valley. I had the opportunity to catalogue this collection over the past couple of years and was amazed at the information containing therein.
I decided that it was unfair to the public to have all of this historical information on a tape and only available to a few who had the time to come to the library and listen to them. The library does provide a service in which copies of the tapes can be made, and during the past few years, many have come in and obtained a copy of a particular tape. The collection has a lot of family stories, some pioneer experiences, a few individual reminiscences of particular parts of history, and some recorded individuals have a personal knowledge of a historical event.
I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a name for this series of stories that would describe the overall text of the message contained herein. Since they are transcribed from the actual voices of those who experienced the history the name, Voices From The Past seemed appropriate. The oral history in this volume of Voices From The Past has been taken from the interviewer with it being recorded on tape. Since Idaho’s history is so young in year, the oral history becomes greater in importance. Eyewitness accounts rank high in reliability of the truth of events, although the reliability suffers as they interviewee ages or the time between the event and the interview grows. As the age of some of the cassette is progressing into the time period of deterioration of tapes, all are currently ( 2002) being copied onto audio discs ( CD’s) for preservation.
I have selected this event as one that occurred in Eastern Idaho which was experienced by the person or persons being interviewed. There was such a vast amount of information available in the library; I had to reserve many of the tapes for inclusion in future volumes. The tapes are being transcribed in order of importance according to my thinking.
Transcribing from a tape to written word is a new experience for me. I have done this on a very small scale before but to attempt to put the contents of a conversation down on a paper requires a great amount of concentration. I have taken the liberty of editing out the many “ a’s” that occur in an interview as well as other conversational comments. Then comes the problem of the book a challenge from the point of view of making a correct transcription and yet an interesting story. I have made a few editorial changes in view of this problem.
I would like thank the many people who have taken the time to arrange for the oral recording of an individuals story. The information obtained in this manner is, in many cases, not available from any other source. One of the pioneers of oral history in Eastern Idaho is Harold Forbush. Despite the handicap of being blind, he travels around the whole Snake River Valley visiting with people and taping their responses. He began his career of taping while living Teton Valley and serving as the prosecuting attorney there. His lifetime interest in history got him started and since then he has been a major contributor to the collection of stories in the library. He continued his oral history recording after moving to Rexburg. After retiring from being Madison Counties’ magistrate, he moved to Idaho Falls for a time and now has returned to Rexburg to continue as occasional taping session. He is to be congratulated for his lifetime commitment to the preservation of Idaho’s history.
There are many others who have done some taping including several Madison High School students. Most of the student tapes are not of the same sound quality as the professional oral history collector, but the stories they have gathered over the years have provided a special look at the Depression, war experiences, farming experience, and many other subjects which can’t be found anywhere else. Many thanks to them.
There are some tapes in which the interviewer did not identify themselves. These unknown records have provided several stories which have helped make up the overall history of the Snake River Valley and I thank them even if I cannot acknowledge them personally.
I hope that as you read the following stories you will be inspired to keep a record of your own either in written or tape form so that your opinion of what has happened in the world or in your life can be preserved. Many think their life has been insignificant and others would not want the years and find each other to have its own contribution to my knowledge of what has happened. Idaho is an exciting place to live and is full of stories which are unique to our area. Share them with others.
Louis J. Clements.
The following interview recorded on reel- to- reel tape is now being transposed onto C- 60 Cassette on this 20th day of January, 1984, by and through the Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society of North Center, Rexburg, Idaho.
HF: Today is February 6, 1971, and I have seated across from me here in my little recording studio at 68 East 1st South in Rexburg, Mr. Garner, whom we all respect as a very fine gentleman of Pioneer vintage of our area. It is a pleasure, Mr. Garner, to welcome you to my office this morning. I’m going to start by asking you the question to state your full name and the date of and place where you were born?
John Garner: My full name is John Earl Garner, born August 4, 1882.
HF: Where?
JG: Ogden, Utah, Weber County, in a log cabin on the west side of the block where now is being built the LDS Temple.
HF: Now isn’t that interesting. Now your lifetime occupation has been what?
JG: My lifetime occupation has been farming and livestock. My father in, I think about 1890, was in the sheep business for two or three years. We had come along a very severe winter, I remember as a small boy. Hay got scarce. It wasn’t to be had and sold the sheep to Thomas E. and Nathan Ricks, who were then in the sheep business. I believe for about $ 2.50 a head or something like that. I remember, before he sold them, watching those sheep on the Teton River in the willows just east of where the overpass crosses the Teton River ( railroad tracks) north of Sugar City. They ate willows and grass that they could get out of the snow. I remember making a campfire and sitting around and watching the sheep as a small boy.
HF: Now did you ranch extend down that far?
JG: Our ranch was a half a mile east of there on the road to Teton. That’s my dad’s old homestead.
HF: I see. Now can you tell me your dad’s name and where he was born and a little something about the Garner name?
JG: My dad was born September 11, 1856, in Ogden, Utah. His full name was John Albert Garner. His father’s name was Phillip Garner. His father left his family in a covered wagon on the banks of the Missouri River and he went with what they called the Mormon Battalion to go fight Mexico. He went to California and there they were dispersed and he returned to his family in the covered wagon on the banks of the Missouri River. That’s the history my dad tells of his parents and beyond there, my great- grandfather’s name was Philip Garner and he lived in North Carolina. The family scattered everywhere.
HF: Now can you tell me a little bit about your mother, her maiden name?
JG: My mother was the daughter of John Pincock who lived in Ogden on what they called Pincock Lane which is now 33rd Street down towards the railroad tracks. He was depot police for thirty long years until his legs were so stiff that he couldn’t get around any more. My mother had the same weakness. John Pincock and James Pincock, they all seemed to be affected with this same thing. And I affected a little too, in my knees, no where else. My mother was the same way at her passing. She lived to be ninety- two years old and was stiff in the knees.
HF: But the Pincock’s and the Garner’s must have had a history of long lives?
JG: Long lives, each family. My grandfather Pincock was one of the finest men I have ever known. They called him “ Honest John.” I’ll tell you a little thing that happened. Everybody in those days, my dad included, we always kept a little wheat in the bin the year round. It was never empty until we knew we had some more to replace it. My grandfather was the same way. So one spring morning a neighbor came to get a seed to plant. Grandfather was eating his breakfast in the morning. The man came in a hurry to get the seed wheat. He said, John, I’m in a big hurry if I could get that wheat right away I’d appreciate it. Grandfather said, go help yourself. The man said can you trust me? Grandfather said can you trust yourself? That put the burden where it ought to be.
HF: Now that was the nature of your grandfather.
JG: That was the nature of my grandfather, “ Honest John.”
HF: Well now, what encouraged your dad and mother to come up here into the Upper Snake River Valley?
JG: Well, like I say, he spent a summer in Menan with Charlie Poole and Hy Poole working at different things and on the railroad some of the time. He saw the possibilities here to homestead ground. A young man in those days was more or less anxious to be on their own. So they decided to move up here. James Pincock married one of my Uncle Fred Garner’s daughters. My dad married James Pincock’s sister and naturally they came together. With them came Harold Henniger, from Ogden and his wife and two children. They all came at the same time together. They stayed in Roberts all night or it used to be Market Lake. From there they drove to Plano in a day through the rocks. The next day, on the 22nd day of June, 1883, they forded the Teton River ( Henry’s Fork of Snake River) about, I’d say, four miles or five down river from St. Anthony on what we used to call the gravel ford. It was a gravel bottom and the river was wide and there wasn’t any deep hole.
HF: You said the Teton River but you meant actually the North Fork, didn’t you?
JG: Yes, I mean, they used to call it Henry’s Fork, don’t they. That was it’s old name.
HF: That was what they called the old “ Eagle Nest Ford.”
JG: Yes, the “ Eagle Nest Ford” and I can remember yet, on this bank was a pond of yellow lilies. I asked Mr. Willford Price, a year or two before he passed away, he owned the ground there. He said the lilies are still there. I herded cows around there as a boy, day after day, and those lilies are still there.
HF: Now let’s see, that was in ’ 83. You were a boy about one year or so when your folks brought you in?
JG: Eleven months old. The horses swam the river and mother said the wagon box floated off the back wheels. We’d gone down the river but the brake cone, where we had the brake on the wagon box, caught on the front bolster. The team then drugged it out on the bank. They had to put the box back on after they got out of the river. Mr. Pincock and his wife and Mr. Henniger were along at the same time. They all three came together.
HF: Now, where did the family first settle?
JG: Mr. Henniger settled on the Teton River. I’d say it was a half a mile east of Teton and across the river north. My folks and James Pincock, they settled a mile east of the Sugar City Factory where now LeGrand Smith owns a piece of the old home where Pincock lived. My dad’s homestead joined him on the west.
HF: Then, when they arrived in the little community of Wilford had been settled a little bit hadn’t it?
JG: Very little. You asked about Wilford and I jotted down here that, as I recalled, James Pincock was the first Presiding Elder in that area. That’s the first church that we went to. That’s the first ward we belonged to.
HF: Up at Wilford?
JG: Wilford. Then later on we were in what they called the Teton Ward because they mad the North Fork of the Teton River the dividing line and that put us in the Teton Ward. That was before there was any Sugar City.
HF: But for a while didn’t you go down to the Salem Ward
JG: No, I don’t ever remember going to the Salem Ward Church. I don’t remember ever going to church in the Salem Ward. We went to Wilford and then to Teton. John Pincock was Bishop in the Teton Ward a long time. George Pincock was Bishop in the Wilford Ward one time.
HF: They were brothers?
JG: They were brothers. HF: Let’s see, Garner Pincock, who lives here in Rexburg. Who was his dad?
JG: His dad was Bert Pincock and his dad was James Pincock. James Pincock is the grandfather of Garner Simpson Pincock.
HF: And James Pincock was your mother’s brother?
JG: Yes.
HF: I see. Now, can you recite and recall some very early recollections, as a boy, before 1900 particularly? In other words, what are some of your very earliest recollections of; we’ll say the wild life on the Teton area?
JG: I can remember my dad taking me along with him down in James Pincock’s, that’s his brother- in- law’s field along one fork of the Teton River that went through Uncle James’ field. Taking me down there, we went to get a deer along the river. There was a bend and a road that had gone in there. These deer went down here along this road. Dad left me standing out there outside of the willows, you know, while he goes in to see if he could get a deer. He didn’t get to see the deer. They saw him or something and they came out of this road after he went in and nearly ran over me. They came just bouncing past me. Course I was just a small boy. Then you mentioned about the rabbits in the early days.
HF: Were there many?
JF: There were lots of rabbits, these great big white hares. No jackrabbits, all big white hares. The Salem Ward had a kind of a program or arrangement where they had ward dances, you know. The men folk would choose up sides, so many on each side and they’d go and kill these rabbits any way could get them. They’d take both ears off. The one that got the least ears to show had to pay for the dance. I know I had a box; the snow used to be deep and drifted bad and the fences covered up. I had a box down by the haystack on the old homestead a tipped lid. I put a little hay there and fastened it on the lid. If a rabbit hopped on there to eat the hay it would tip up he’d land down in the box.
HF: He couldn’t get out?
JG: He couldn’t get out, you see. One morning I went down to see how many rabbits I caught and it was half full of rabbits with their ears all cut off. Course they were dead rabbits. They were going to have a dance and somebody filled it full of dead rabbits. Just cut the ears and filled the box.
HF: Pulled a trick on you?
JG: Yeah, pulled a trick on me. Now the coyotes, I had a funny thing happen when I was a small boy. My dad had I think one of the first buckboards, if you know what a buckboard is. It’s a sort of a buggy with a flat bed at the back with a little old bed around the side. We called it a buckboard. Well, my dad ran those poor sheep he had up on what they called Hog Hollow and beyond Dick’s home between the Teton River and Fall River and Conant Creek and that area. That’s now Drummond and, what do you call it, that area anyway.
HF: At that time was that just a lot of grass?
JF: That was nothing but grass.
HF: There wasn’t any timber or anything like that on it, was there?
JG: Oh, no. Just the finest grass you ever saw. The ground was literally just a mass of grass and antelope in the herds and deer. One day dad was going to the sheep in this buckboard and he had Mr. Al Singleton, who lived on the Willford flats. One of the Davis boys whose family still lives over there, some of the ancestors like Emory Davis, Jack Davis worked for my dad. They were driving along up beyond Hog Hollow, they called it.
HF: That would be north of the river?
JG: North of the river. As we drove along the old road, there stood a coyote right out the side of the road maybe a hundred yards away, pretty close. Broadside, and dad said, to Jack Davis, who was in the back with me, and Mr. Singleton was in the seat with dad. Dad said to him, Jack, take your rifle and get a good shot at that. Just slide off the back end. I’ll keep a driving. He’ll be watching me and you can get a good shot at him. I can see this as plain now as I could then. He kneeled down in the road and he shot at the coyote. He cut his tail off just as slick as a button. It hit the ground. And all the didos that coyote went through it before he could start to run. Well, dad had one of Browning Brother first Winchester rifle. I remember the size of it was 40- 82. It had a big lead bullet. I guess he hit it just right and the tail just fell off.
HF: Then he ran, just took off?
JG: Oh, he just went around and around in a circle before he could get going.
HF: He didn’t have an anchor or anything to go by. Now you were just a young boy?
JG: I was just a young boy. I wasn’t maybe six or seven year. Just small.
HF: Now tell me; was there a lot of timber along the Teton River in that area?
JG: Not much timber except in the bottoms and like it is now.
HF: A lot of willows?
JG: A lot of willows, cottonwoods, and quaken asp and birch willows and things like that Chokecherry and service berry bushes.
HF: You know, talking about rabbits here, according to my understanding a Mr. Beal, M. D. Be
al, made the statement in his book, I think it is correct, that in the early days there were no coyotes or jack rabbits in this area.
JG: I can’t say how many coyotes and how far back but I know I was really small when that Jack Davis shot the coyotes tail off.
HF: You commented that you didn’t find many jack rabbits or maybe no jack rabbits?
JG: No jack rabbits round the valley.
HF: But there were white rabbits?
JG: Oh, big white hare, we called them white hare. They’d come to the hay stacks in trails. Just like the jack does out there now in the desert.
HF: Now, were the deer quite plentiful in these bottom lands in the summertime?
JG: Yes, along the river banks.
HF: How about elk in the wintertime?
JG: I don’t remember any elk. They never came down that far.
HF: Did you find many skunks or porcupine?
JG: Yes, lots of skunks and porcupine. And badgers. I pulled as many as six lambs, live lambs, out of one badger hole.
HF: What was this all about?
JG: Well, you know, when a badger digs a hole he leaves a pile of dirt. They used to lamb these sheep mostly, them days, out on the range. They didn’t lamb in a shed like they do now. Up around Hog Hollow and over there towards Conant Creek and across that area there was just one badger hole after another. These little lambs, when they were just two or three days old, they liked to get in a bunch and play. If there was a little mound or anything they could get on, that’s where they gathered and played. They’d get on this pile of dirt where the badger hole was and the first thing you know, down they’d go.
HF: And they couldn’t get out?
JG: Couldn’t get out and they’d just die. HF: Well now, you don’t find too many badgers anymore, do you?
JG: Not too many, once in a while one.
HF: How about the old grey ground squirrel? Were they plentiful?
JG: You mean the ground hog?
HF: The ground squirrel. We used to call them chiselers?
JG: They used to be there as long as I can remember.
HF: Plentiful too?
JF: Plentiful. Out on my ranch on Camas Creek they’re pretty plentiful yet.
HF: Well now, let’s turn our attention to the schooling you got. Where did you go to school?
JG: Well, I first went to school at Salem in an old one room log building.
HF: Was that located on the north side or the south side of the road?
JG: It’s located on the north side on the road, I’d say about three or four hundred yards east of the Salem Church now, where the church is now used to be a little old store, old man Harris.
HF: Now was it a one room school house.
JG: One room.
HF: About what size, as you remember?
JG: I’d say it was maybe about twenty feet long and fourteen feet wide, something like that.
HF: Which way did it face?
JG: The door faced the east and you came in the east side of the building, only one door. You had some school desks, you know, two of us sat together. Two of us sat here and two in front of us and so on. I remember real well the ones who sat in front of us and whoever was with me, I can’t remember that. Polly and Frieda Kauer sat in the seat ahead of me a long time.
HF: Paula, Pauline Bird? JG: Polly Davis and Frieda who married Orson Johnson down the highway here by the old beet dump.
HF: They were sisters?
JG: They were sisters.
HF: And their maiden name?
JG: Kauer. Emil Kauer’s sisters. Two sisters and two brothers there were. And then there was one other brother, John Kauer, who used to furnish milk year after year. He died some years ago.
HF: Now how did you get to school?
JG: We walked lots of time. That would be nearly three big miles straight west and a half a mile south. You see, the Teton Road a half a mile north of the Sugar Factory corner. And the school was straight west from the Sugar Factory corner.
HF: Now your first teacher was whom?
JG: Well, Miss Gileash. I don’t know what her given name was. I don’t recall that.
HF: Now, can you remember your second teacher’s name?
JG: The second teacher, as I remember it, was Zack Clay. He took the job after she left.
HF: Where did you attend church at that time?
JG: Wilford.
HF: You lived on the south side of Wilford, didn’t you? Excuse me; you lived on the south side of the Teton River?
JG: Yes, of the North Fork of the Teton, just about a mile south of the river where we hit the main road that goes to Teton. Our farm was right on the south side of that road.
HF: How did you get to Wilford? Did you have a pretty good bridge over which you could pass?
JG: Well, they only had a small across what they called the Little Fork that went to James Pincock’s field. A fork of the south Teton or North Teton went down through there too.
HF: Did they have a bridge across the main Teton at that time?
JF: They had a bridge up, just when you go up a little raise west of Teton down there. The roads used to hit the hill and go around past Bean’s house there, a little south. Later on they filled in and made the road straight. But it used to make a curve. Pete Hanson used to have a dairy, a cheese factory there, where Hollist, I think owns the place now.
HF: Hollist?
JF: Dean Hollist brother, what was his name?
HF: Bill?
JG: No.
HF: Was this Pete Hanson, did he continue to live in this area for years?
JG: Yes, he lived here and raised a big family of all girls, I think, but one. Then when he sold that place, I don’t know if he passed away first or his wife. Anyhow they sold that place and moved away. One of the girls, Cora Hanson, married John L. Baliff from Rexburg.
HF: Now before 1900, that is to say, before you were a man, twenty- one, do you think they had a bridge crossing most of these streams?
JG: Yes, I’ll tell you. Mr. Rowe, who lives down on the South Fork of the Teton, was a bridge builder. He built all the bridges in the valley down there. That was his business.
HF: The South Fork of the Teton?
JF: Yes.
HF: That would be down in Burton or?
HF: No. You know when you go north here to Sugar City and you make the first curve there. Instead of going around that curve you went right straight east past the old Roberts place and the Hamilton place. Right straight east until you crossed the South Fork of the Teton and you came on higher ground there. Well, Mr. Rowe lives on the north side of the road in the middle there.
HF: Can you remember when they put the first bridge across the South Teton here north of Rexburg? They’ve torn the bridge out here now and the highway department is putting in another bridge right now.
JG: No I don’t remember when they built the bridge. But I remember when this area out here where Walker’s cows are and the café and all that in there and the Rigby addition and those trailers were all swamp and high water would swim a horse. Before we had the canals to take the water it was all just one wash after another. But I don’t remember when they put the bridge in.
HF: Now, they had a bridge crossing the North Fork of the Teton going towards St. Anthony didn’t they?
JG: It was quite a while before they got the bridge on that, from James Pincock’s and John Pincock’s that goes north across there. I can remember when they didn’t have any bridge and they built that first canal. They put a dam in the river. They used to ford before there was any bridge.
HF: Now you know there is a canal, the Salem Irrigation Canal, going down through Salem. It has its’ diversion point up there where, must be pretty close to where your dads homestead was?
JG: The diversion point now, you mean where they take it out of the river?
HF: Right.
JG: Well, that’s a mile east of that road that goes road that the old ford used to be on. I can remember as a boy when we used to go up there and put the willows in. We didn’t have straw or nothing like that. They’d cut green willows and drive sticks and put the willows in to work the water before they had any other means of damming the water off. Or they cut a tree and put it across.
HF: Now this is on the North Fork of the Teton?
JG: That’s on the North Fork of the Teton.
HF: Now, you’ve commented that your dad used to do a lot of his lambing up north of Teton and north of what they call Hog Hollow.
JG: And east.
HF: And east. There used to be a lot of lambing up there. That would be what they call the spring range I guess?
JG: Yes, sir.
HF: You fellows used to lamb much later than they do now?
JG: Oh, yes. The grass would be nice and green.
HF: How did your father get started in the sheep business?
JG: I don’t recall. He bought his first sheep up in Island Park from Somebody. I was the herder and I can’t remember who it was. He came with just a covered wagon from Island Park down the old road from Sand Creek. That used to be the only road in there, was through Ora, Sand Creek. That was before Ora was thought of. We’d come with a team and a wagon and we’d stay one night at what they called Elk Wallow. That’s a spring north of the divide over in Island Park in the heavy timber. There was an old spring there and we’d stay all night. A bear got in them that night. The herder got up and made a fire and he stayed around there most all night. In the morning about daylight the bear came up close to the wagon. But he didn’t get a shot at it. But I don’t know who dad bought the sheep from.
HF: Now, these where the sheep that your father purchased?
JG: Was he bringing them down…?
JG: He was bringing them from Island Park down to Rexburg.
HF: About what year would this be? Would this be before 1890?
JG: Yes, I think so. Then I didn’t get in the business until the fall of 1908. Dad had nothing to do with that. My brother, George, and I.
HF: Now, at the very earliest date that your dad was in the sheep business, who were some of the other early men who were involved with sheep? Some of the Ricks boys were, weren’t they?
JG: Well, there was the Webster’s, Nathan and Thomas E. Ricks.
HF: Thomas E. Jr.?
JF: Senior. Mr. A. M. Carter lived down here by the river bridge.
HF: A. M. Carter, he had sheep?
JF: He had sheep. But the first sheep that was ever in these forks of the river, I mean from Lorenzo north in this forks of the river, was brought here by Mr. Sutton. Henry Sutton’s dad. They lived down to Sunnydell. He had the first sheep in the Valley.
HF: Did he continue to be involved with the sheep industry for a quite a few years?
JG: Well, he used to freight in the early days and he stayed with my folks a lot. I can remember he drove a blue and a grey team of horses. He took good care of them. They were nice big horses with a nice harness on them. He never went out of the business. He passed away and his son, Henry, took the business right on. He and I used to run together after I went into the business. Then there was Atkinson’s down in Lyman. There was Arnold. There was John Pincock, in the early days, had sheep. Of course, Mr. Siddoway, up in Teton, was one of the early sheep men.
HF: Now that would be, what was the old gentleman’s name?
JG: That was James Siddoway. Clarence was his dad. He was J. C.
HF: Now, the Taylor’s were up in Driggs. They never came down here till years after people were in the business here.
HF: Now, did the Hamilton’s come in quite early with sheep?
JG: Well, no not too early. They didn’t come in here with the sheep until about, when the factory came in. When was that, 1904- 5, around there? Well, they never came in the business until about then.
HF: Talking about the factory and Sugar City. That area where the town site of Sugar is before the town site was laid out, was that quite grassy ground out through there?
JG: Not too grassy. It was a little bit scrub sage brush and grass, of course. But there was no water on it, you know, until they started to farm it. Where Sugar city now is was the ground that belonged to Charles Valentine. His home was just south of the road and a little east of where the railroad crosses that street now. It set out there alone. Charles Valentine.
HF: His son later, apparently, moved to Salem. Charlie Valentine, must have been his son?
JG: Let’s see. His name was Burke, Burke Valentine, his son.
HF: No, there is a Charlie Valentine. You see, he worked for the creamery over there for years.
JG: Well, it was just a flat plank floor fastened to logs, you know. But I don’t remember about the cable that held us form going down the river. This time we crossed it the water was lots of places belly deep on the team between the river and Mr. Carter’s house on the hill there. Some of the low places it would be pretty near up to the bottom of the wagon box. The water was really high. I don’t remember…
HF: Do you think it had a cable?
JG: Well, I can’t remember where it had a cable or whether… I just can’t remember. I was too young.
HF: But you crossed it one time? JG: Yes, I crossed it one time and I remember…
HF: Did they put horses; they carried horses and oxen across the ferry, didn’t they?
JG: Well, they just drive them on and then off.
HF: They had a pier of some type?
JG: A big dirt bank. No pier. They must have had some way to hold that or the water would have taken it on down. They must have had a cable or something to hold it. Anyhow I remember crossing it only once. There wasn’t any bridge at all in them days.
HF: Do you remember going out to Market Lake in those days?
JG: Yes, many times.
HF: By wagon?
JG: By wagon and hauled hogs clear to Market Lake to sell them.
HF: Did they have a kind of livestock yard out there?
JF: No, after the railroad come they were just loaded in this car and took from there. We used to fill the wagon box. If it was hot weather we carried a bucket along and the pigs would be awful fat. And we’d throw water on them to keep them cool, here and there along.
HF: Did they have some type of corrals or pens to hold thee animals until the railroad came to pick them up?
JG: I just don’t remember where we would unload them pigs. There was a livery barn just on the edge of the slough and some corrals. That might have been where we unloaded them.
HF: Well, now after the railroad came to Rexburg, of course, you would take your hogs to Rexburg or Sugar City, wouldn’t you, and load them?
JG: Well, mainly here.
HF: Here to Rexburg?
JG: That took care of all the valley. They never did have any yards to Sugar City for quite a long time and then they were out kind of north of where the factory is. Out on that other street that went straight west from the Teton Road. Then later on as Sugar City built up, then they put some yards over there, didn’t they?
HF: I think they must have. So you would bring all of your livestock right here to Rexburg?
JG: Right to Rexburg. All of this whole area.
HF: They would drive them I guess, wouldn’t they, in large measure?
JF: Oh, they hauled them in wagons mostly. Oh, cattle and horses and sheep we would drive. Hogs, we’d haul them.
HF: Can you recall when the railroad was built into Rexburg, in Sugar City, and on over to St. Anthony?
JF: Yes, real well. They had their camp in the field of John Dalling and Alf Jakes. That’s over where the factory is now or was. That was Jakes and Dalling’s ground, homestead. They had the railroad camp there in their fields. I’m the fellow that lined the ties from that camp to St. Anthony, as a boy. When I say lined the ties, the grade was already made and the ties was laid on the grade. Then my job was to take a pick and pull these ties up to a line on the east side of the track. Then the crew came along and spaced the ties and put the rails down but my job was to pull them around in place and get them up to this line. I did that from that camp to St. Anthony. Then they had a big celebration up there.
HF: Oh, you had to do this by hand?
JG: I done that by hand with a pick.
HF: You’d raise them up…?
JG: Raise them up and drag them up to this line and then they’d space them and put he rails on. But I pulled them up to this line so that east edge of the ties was ill straight. Well, then they had the celebration. John Donaldson, from Teton, who was once Judge Donaldson and was a patriarch before he passed away, made a speech on the street.
HF: Up in St. Anthony?
JG: In St. Anthony. We rode back to camp after the celebration was over. All of us fellows who had worked up there rode back in an open flat car that had sides on. It’s a good thing it did cause some of the fellows; they weren’t able to handle themselves.
HF: Celebrating.
JG: Celebrating. Then I had to walk home. That was about a mile and a half. Every day I would walk down there and walk home after work. So I remember about the railroad. HF: In those days, of course, they had to have water tanks there for the railroad, didn’t they?
JG: Water tanks?
HF: Water tanks so that the power would be converted into steam and so on.
JG: Oh, yes, steam engines.
HF: Do you remember, at an early time, did they put a station there at Sugar City?
JG: Not for a quite a while after the railroad came.
HF: In other words, there was a station over at Rexburg and then they went right on through where Sugar City right to St. Anthony.
JG: St. Anthony. Then, of course, when the factory came, that started Sugar City. Then, of course, they put a station there, when Sugar City started to grow up.
HF: Do you remember when they commenced to build the factory? Did you have any part of working there at the factory?
JG: Yes. I hauled, with a team and my brother George and my brother Walter. We hauled from the hollow up here east of town, where our old farm was, thousands and thousands of tons of lava rock to put in the foundation. Any and all sizes.
HF: Now, this was northeast of Rexburg?
JG: Right, you know where Dell Palmers’ farm is right here on the east edge of town? That was my dad’s farm. We had a half or three quarters of a mile of those lava hillsides up there. We used to roll those rocks on a sleigh with a team and then take them over there and dump them. They had a six foot trench, deep trench, and we filled it all with lava rock for the foundation. Then they put the cement in it.
HF: What, would you take a crow bar or did you do blasting to get lava rock?
JG: No, we didn’t do any blasting. We took bars and had good horses and chains. If there was a big, loose rock we had a chute made of logs. We’d roll it on with a team. What we couldn’t lift we rolled it with a team onto the wagon or sleigh.
HF: This required, what, all summer or all winter to get enough lava to haul over there?
JG: Well, I don’t know how long it was. I think we were hauling rock all one season. Whenever we had time we took rock when we weren’t haying or something else.
HF: And this was used for the foundation?
JG: For the foundation, yes.
HF: What type of pay would you receive for those efforts in 1903 or 1904?
JF: Well, I’d just don’t remember but it didn’t amount too much.
HF: Now, you mentioned that your father had this ranch. Was that a hundred and sixty acre?
JG: Yes.
HF: Did he homestead that?
JG: He homesteaded that.
HF; But he had another homestead over, the first one, over on the North fork of the Teton. Is this right?
JG: Yes, east of Sugar City. That was where he homesteaded. This one up in the hollow he bought. But the one up there he homesteaded. My dad made his living pretty much raising nice horses.
HF: Now this was after he went out of the sheep business?
JG; Yes, when all the country east of Teton, all the country here east of Rexburg clear to the forest was all open range. They ran everywhere. There were several other men around here that were in horse business too.
HF: Where these work horses and if so, what breed did he specialize in?
JG: To start with he brought a Morgan stallion here when they first came in this county. That’s where he got his start. Later on we had, at one time; we had three thoroughbred Clydesdale horses. Beautiful, beautiful stallions.
HF: Now those were the big ones?
JG: Yes, stocking legged and bald faced. Then he used to have some harness horses, pacers. He used to match these teams up and wheel break them and sell them anywhere from three hundred to five or six hundred dollars for a team. This was in the early days when people used horses, nice horses.
HF: What other men were involved in the same type of business? Do you recall?
JG: There was Frank Reagan up at Teton who used to raise nice horses. Hy Clark used to raise quite a lot of horses.
HF: Now, he was also from Teton, wasn’t he?
JG: Teton. Charlie Byrd raised horses and his brand was a bird, the drawing of a bird. Hy Clark’s brand was a C with a bar in it.
HF: How about your dad’s?
JG: My dad was a G with a J inside of it. Reagan’s was a moccasin like the Indians used to wear, kind of the shape of your foot. A moccasin.
HF: Now he would put this brand on his horses? Where, on the hip or the shoulder?
JG: Well, my dad and Hy Clark, they branded on the left hip and Charlie Jones, down to Hibbard, he branded on the left hip. His brand was C. J. I don’t remember where, I think Reagan had his on the left shoulder. I can’t remember.
HF: Well, now these men that you have mentioned, they were the principle horse raisers in those days?
JG: Around this area.
HF: In this area. And that would be horses pretty much for heavy work?
JG: Heavy work mostly. Then when Sugar City came, the Hamilton Brothers came; they had some fancy harness horses, pacers.
HF: Would those be used for just driving wagons and stage coaches and stuff like that?
JG: Oh yes, and races. Bob Hamilton told me they had one mare they drove on a cart in races. He said she’d paid. I forgot how many thousands that mare won at races. Then they paid tithing on the money.
HF: Now that was Bob Hamilton?
JG: that was Rob Hamilton.
HF: Is he the father to those boys over there?
JG: He’s the brother. There was Parl, John Rob, and Charles, all brothers. Parl worked for the Sugar Factory. John looked after the sheep. Rob, he was a horseman. Charles, he lived just a little south on the old Willard Rick’s place and he just farmed.
HF: Where was this Willard Ricks place? Was that kinda down in Salem? JG: No, no. That’s right on the south east corner of Sugar City.
HF: How did you get started in the sheep industry?
JG: Well, to begin with, I never had much opportunity to get an education. I worked hard all my life and helped my parents. I went on a mission in 1905. I was in San Francisco in the earthquake in 1906. I came home the later par of 1907.
HF: Do you want to digress just one minute and tell me about the eyewitness account and recollection of that earthquake? Just take a couple of minutes and do that.
JG: Well, I was laboring in San Francisco with twelve other Elders. The night of the earthquake, which happened at 5: 16 in the morning. The night before I was up in the Call Building, twenty- two stories, the highest building there about 11: 00 at night on my way to Oakland. After I came out of the Call Building and took the ferry to Oakland I was tired and I went to the mission house there where there were three other Elders. I went to bed, tired. In the morning at 5: 00 or about 5: 00 I was awakened by what sounded like a terrible thunder in the distance. A roaring. The next thing the bed rolled across the floor back and forth and the chimney fell off the house and the windows rattled and the soot came down the chimney and filled the room with soot and smoke. Across the alley from my bedroom was a family of Irish people, two or three widows, I mean bachelors and a sister or two. They were screaming and swearing and going on terrible. I grabbed my clothes and went out in the back yard and put my clothes on. Then my companion, Leonard Parkinson from Preston, Idaho, and I took down Telegraph Avenue to the depot to go to Frisco because that’s where our belongings were. By that time we could see clouds of smoke across the bay. Well, we climbed on the train. The doors, when the train came to the depot, the shutters were up and the train was packed full of frantic people and we couldn’t get on. But they pushed the crowd off the track and the train went on through. We climbed up on the shutters and we hung on till we got out on the pier. Then we were the first ones to get on the boat to go across. The bay was as calm as the water in the dish pan. There wasn’t a ripple. There was bananas, there was cocoanuts, there was everything floating on the water. The piers had fallen down. We’d go to the ferry building. By the time we got there the heat was so intense we held out coats over our heads and turned our backs and got off the boat. We went through Chinatown on our way to the mission house. The Chinamen was packed on to Jefferson Square as they could be. We went to the mission house. We found our friends there and nothing disturbed to speak of. The streets were full of brick and stone and steel and everything.
HF: Weren’t there a lot of fires?
JG: Well, the fires came a little later. During the afternoon the wind came and the fires stared. They only had one water main to fight it. All the rest was twisted in two and broke and busted. They didn’t have any way to fight the fire. So it’s the next day that the fire took the mission house where we were. We hired a dray man and hauled our belongings, our books and our clothes a little park a block and half away. We sat there with them and watched the day and night till the thing was over and we found some other place to go. But at night till the sky was red as blood everywhere you looked from this fire. It cleaned every scrap of burnable stuff there was to be had in an area of five by seven miles.
HF: Isn’t that tragic?
JG: I’ve got in my trunk yet, over home right now, glass and tin and I don’t know what all that I took out of the gutter that was running like water from the big windows and places of business. Just melted it like water.
HF: Now going back to how you got started in the sheep industry. I appreciated that comment about the San Francisco fire.
JG: Well, I want to say one more thing that was odd. Mathias F. Cowley, who was an Apostle of the Church, was in San Francisco that night with his newly wedded wife that caused him to be dropped from the Apostleship. I’ve got the picture home and the paper where in certain hotel, he was on the fourth floor, and I am quite sure, him and his wife. The building fell flat to the ground everywhere but that room. They recovered them by climbing up ladders to get them out. Now that’s odd. The whole building collapsed to the ground. Just the corner standing up there. That’s were him and his wife were. Now we can go back to the other.
HF: Now you after getting back from your mission, you got started in the sheep industry.
JG: I got started in the sheep business. The reason, I didn’t have any schooling much there was all these men in the Valley, all over the Valley, that was in the sheep business. It was our thriving citizens. So I thought, well, I might as well try that as anything else. Too old to go to school. No money to go to school. So I borrowed the money and I bought 342 head of ewes from the Webster Sheep Company.
HF: What kind were they?
JG: They were just solid mouth, good average sheep.
HF: Columbia?
JG: Oh, Columbia and Moreno cross. A little more Moreno in those days. We didn’t know Columbia then. But anyway I lambed them myself, alone. I herded them alone. I looked after them and I kept increasing and increasing. I run them up here in the hollow, you know, by Harve Summers is and up along where the farms are now and around on the bench. It was all grass, you know.
HF: Were you renting some of your dad’s place?
JG: I lambed them up in the hollow on my dad’s place. My brother, George, was in New Zealand on a mission so I lambed them alone. I fed them and lambed them and done all of it alone. And I herded them alone. And then I increased them and finally I bought Thomas E. Ricks out.
HF: Now this would be Thomas E. Ricks senior or junior? The Bishop?
JG: The Bishop. He was my Bishop when I went o my mission.
HF: Of the 1st Ward?
JG: The First Ward.
HF: That would be Thomas E. Ricks, Jr.
JG: Well, later on I bought some sheep of Senator…
HF: Nathan Ricks?
JG: No, down to Blackfoot, Peter G. Johnson and Sieverson from Blackfoot. I bought a bunch of sheep from them and got the summer range with it. The summer range was on South Leigh Creek up in Tetonia. That was my first summer range. Then later on I bought Joe Parkinson out. So I just kept…
HF: At the peak, how many herds did you actually acquire?
JG: At the peak I had 3600 head of ewes.
HF: Man alive. And some of your summer range was up there in Teton Basin…?
JG: South Leigh Creek was the first. Later on I got some from a Mr. Hill lived over on Darby, is it? East of Driggs and South.
HF: Up there where the old ski development is?
JG: Somewhere up there, yes.
HF: Targhee and Fred’s Mountain and all up through there maybe?
JG: And then I bought a summer range at the head of Canyon Creek at Garn’s Mountain. From there then I went, when I bought Joe Parkinson out, I got where I go now on Indian Creek in Wyoming.
HF: Is that south of Victor?
JG: Way south, clear south to the Snake River. Joins the highway.
HF: How do you get them up there? Do you truck them up there now? JG: We used to trail them. Sixteen days it took us to go, to trail them.
HF: Did you go up through the Big Hole Mountains?
JG: We went up through what they call Fog Hill and Mosquito pass and down Elk Creek. Down one fork and up the other fork and over the top into Wyoming. Sixteen days. Now we load up out here at the sand at 7: 00 in the morning and by noon there up there and all filled up.
HF: Now is your spring range out her eon the Junipers? Sand Creek area?
JG: No, my spring range is on Camas Creek. I own a ten thousand acre ranch out there, all grass.
HF: On Camas Creek?
JG: On Camas Creek.
HF: Now this would all be in Clark County?
JG: Clark County, yes.
HF: Now, would that be in the vicinity of Kilgore or down?
JG: Down, did you ever hear of what they called the Jacoby Ranch?
HF: Jacoby Ranch, no.
JG: Well, that’s eleven and a half miles straight east of Dubois on Camas Creek.
HF: And that’s where your range is?
JG: That’s my ranch and my ranch. I don’t have any neighbors any where. No homes or anything. But they have good house there and a nice orchard.
HF: Now, that’s your spring range and also your full range.
JG: Fall range. Now in the winter, my sheep are still out now. No hay yet and won’t have for another two weeks yet.
HF: Now that’s over at this place?
JG: That’s west of Roberts out where my farm is.
HF: I see. You lamb them out there then too? JG: We lamb them there.
HF: You have sheds and…
JG: We have sheds and the covers were put on yesterday.
HF: And you’re telling me that here it is the 6th of February, and you haven’t fed them any hay yet.
JG: No hay yet. We have about 800 or a thousand tons of hay we grow ourselves right there.
HF: Now this is wild hay?
JG: No, no. Alfalfa hay.
HF: In other words, what are they feeding on? Just the natural…
JG: Thistles, thistles. I brought a sample in the other day. I haven’t taken it up to Mr. Jacobs ( County Agent). But the boys said it was haligleaton. You can’t tell it from a thistle to look at it.
HF: And that still has a lot of green in it?
JG: No, no green. It looks just like one of those dry thistles but it’s is a weed that killed all those sheep in Utah about a month ago.
HF: Oh, I see. But your sheep are feeding on…
JG: Thistles. These little ole thistles.
HF: But there all dry, aren’t they?
JG: Well, we got a little snow on them the other night. I was there and looked at them day before yesterday and they looked fine. They’re just doing good.
HF: But there’s enough, apparently, food value in those dry thistles then to…
JG: Yes, there’s a seed in them and when their wet or damp they can eat it. When they’re right dry their sticky. But we feed them a quarter to half a pound of pellets every morning, see, grain.
HF: Oh, they eat those out of troughs or something?
JG: No, no. We just scatter it on the ground and they pick it up and in thirty minutes they have it eaten and spread out.
HF: Now these pellets contain what?
JG: Barley and usually we have peas to mix in it but this last year we couldn’t get any peas. They didn’t have any. Now its barley and beans.
HF: But no hay?
JG: No hay at all, just gain and syrup, a little syrup to stick them together. They come in small cubes, you know, about an inch thick.
HF: And you say there is just a little snow out there?
JG: Yes, there is about two inches and it gets wet and just nice for the thistles.
HF: Isn’t that fantastic. Well now, over the years have you gotten along very well without having to feed very much hay?
JG: Well, there have been years when we have had to feel a lot of hay. A year ago now we had this same area and there wasn’t a bit of feed on it. We never got a days feed. But the rain this spring seemed to give those weeds a good start and they got up about six inches high, just right.
HF: Now you feed the ewes hay while their lambing, I guess?
JG: Oh yes, and grain.
HF: When do you start to lamb?
JG: First of March.
HF: How many sheep you got out there to lamb this spring?
JG: Well, we’re going to have about twenty- three hundred or four.
HF: And that will take you over a month?
JG: About a month. Then we shear them right at the farm there before we take them up to the spring range.
HF: Now the spring range is on this ranch?
JG: Camas Creek.
HF: And from thence you take them over to Indian Creek?
JG: Indian Creek, up the South Fork in Wyoming.
HF: And they stay there about how many months?
JG: They stay there till the 20th of September.
HF: By then the lambs are ready for…?
JG: Ready to go to market.
HF: And they would be what weight?
JG: Well, last year, the lambs we sold right up there, I think averaged a hundred and eleven pounds.
HF: That’s very good, isn’t it?
JG: Very good.
HF: And they attained that weight strictly on the natural mountain grasses?
JG: That’s right. Weeds, no grass, all weeds. You can’t believe me but it’s the truth. I brought weeds down and stood them up to the door down here to Thell and Mary’s Café that was eight and a half feet high.
HF: What kind of weed would those be?
JG: What you call broad leaf or cow cabbage.
HF: And the sheep relish…
JG: Eat every bit of it. That’s what the elk on all summer long. On my range I count a hundred and twenty- six head of elk in one bunch and they eat just the blossoms off those weeds.
HF: You say your ranch goes right down to the South Fork of the Snake River?
JG: To the road. When we go up there with them sheep this spring, we just back the trucks around to the bank somewhere along the road and let them jump out. That’s mine, above the road. We’re not allowed below the road, between the road and the river. But all above the road from there to the top clear back there five or six miles on the tops, that’s where the wonderful feed is.
HF: Well, that’s interesting. How long have you had that range? JG: I’ve had that range, I guess, since about 1921 or 2. I acquired it form Joe Parkinson.
HF: Did the Siddoway’s ever have any range up through there?
JG: Siddowway’s had an allotment that belonged to me, that did belong to me that they got from Irvin Murdock when he passed away. They have one herd that joins my allotment.
HF: How about the Egbert’s?
JG: Dick Egbert has some that joins me on what they call Red Creek. Dick Egbert and Tuckers are my neighbors on that side.
HF: This up in Wyoming?
JG: Yes, in what they call the head of Indian Creek. Mines in the heard of Wolf Creek and Cabin Creek.
HF: Well now, in your experiences as a sheep man tell me a little about some of your herders and some of your campers who you have had. Men that you have relied on, men that have been real reliable and real helpful to you over the years. Mention a few of them.
JG: I’ve had some that I think as much as I do my own brothers. Reliable as could be and as dependable as the clock. Two of them were miners from Virginia. You know that coal mine up Grey’s River, what they call the blind bull?
HF: Yes.
JG: Well, my boys were both coal miners all their lives. They came out here and worked for me and got interested in coal mines. Now, you may not know, but there is a mine up what they call Dead Man’s Creek that belonged to a group of us fellow like Ralph Arbaugh in Idaho Falls. You’ve heard of him?
HF: Yes, I know of him.
JG: You know Judge Henry Martin?
HF: Yes.
JG: And I and Fred Gusterson and Walter Vail, he was from up Star Valley. Anyway there’s a man, Robison, runs the bank in Afton, Carl Robison. Did you ever hear of him?
HF: Well, I think so.
JG: Well, us fellow, and Brough, who runs the cheese factory. HF: Yes, I know him.
JG: I see, well, I’m a member f the group and we bought a mine up what they call Dead Man’s Creek. That’s this side of the Blind Bull. My boys had herded for me, such good fellow; they talked me into buying into that mine. We put them up there to work in the wintertime to run a new grid, you see. They had an explosion and killed every last one of them.
HF: Oh my gosh.
JF: Now talk about friends, I seen this man Baker. He and his son both got killed in the in the mine and his buddy. There was four out of six, five out of six of them fellows that had worked for me. All got killed. I still, I talked to this Baker’s wife in Dayton, Ohio, at Christmas time. How much I think of them. I never knew neglect sending her a check for Christmas. That’s how much I think of them all these years now I never failed to remember that woman. She was left alone and she was up there in five feet of snow and never saw a pair of skis or nothing. She came down to that highway in the dark all alone to report the accident. It happened just before dark at 5: 00.
HF: When was this?
JG: That’s been about thirty years now, twenty- seven years.
HF: In other words, about 1949 or there about?
JG: I’ve got the date at home. Anyway we never did anything more about the mine. Ralph Arbaugh, Henry Martin, Mr. Brough, Carl Robison, up at the bank, we just stopped it. We’d built new tipples and had the finest scale we could buy. Cost us $ 600 freight to get them there, say nothing about the price of them. We got 2500 acres of solid coal. We just forgot all of it. Those are the kind of friends and I’ve had a lot of other work for me. Today we got one who has been with us twelve long years.
HF: What’s his name?
JG: His name is Jess Corn. Twelve long years. Dependable as a clock.
HF: Now, what’s he, a herder or a camp man?
JF: He’s a camp mover. He has herded and in the winter time, a lot times, he does herd. But he hasn’t herded this last couple of three years. He has just tended camp.
HF: Can you explain to me the responsibilities of a herder? When he gets his sheep out there what are his specific responsibilities?
JG: Well, his specific responsibility is to see that we don’t lose them. To see that their where they have plenty to eat, see. To keep the coyotes and the bear out of them. You know, avoid any kind of loss like they might be chased by an animal run over a cliff or into a wash or pile them up and kill them by the hundreds.
HF: Have you had any calamities like this?
JG: Not very much. The worst one’s now, the day before Christmas, that’s ever happened to me. That’s out here south of Dubois. The train hit them and killed three hundred and twenty.
HF: In other words, the sheep had gotten onto the track?
JG: Onto the track. The railroad, you know there are some spud cellars over there, a big eastern outfit. I don’t know of the name of it. They got about twelve or fifteen cellars over there for the spuds. The railroad put a spur into their plant. My sheep got a way at night and they went there and they got on that spur and that led them right onto the main track. The barrow pits were full of snow so they walked right down between the rails. Two miles down beyond where they went in, they walked right down the track. The train came along at 7: 30 in the morning and just filled the barrow pits with dead ones. 320. That’s the worst loss I have ever had.
HF: That is tragic.
HF: How about forest fire? Have you ever had any problem that way?
JG: We had two or three little forest fires started with lightening. Electric storms, but not bad.
HF: Now as we approach the conclusion of this interview. I want to ask you, you were married, and I believe you told me in 1910.
JF: Yes.
HF: You father purchased a lot here in town for you.
JG: Yes.
HG: Can you tell me a little bit about the background of that lot and some of your near neighbors that we talked about?
JG: Well, the only background I know about that lot, it was originally Heber Ricks’s lot. He and his wife, I think raised a family. He died or they separated or something. I had as a neighbor on the west end of that lot, old Brother and Sister Archibald. The parents of these Archibald’ that are around the city.
HF: Was that Thomas or was that Robert?
JG: That was Thomas and Robert’s dad. There was Robert Archibald, he used to worn the farm where Bob Erickson is now down west of town. That was Robert Archibald’s farm in the early days. Then there was James Archibald, the father of this Archibald that lives here near the church, who worked in the bank. What was his name?
HF: E. A., Alexander. Then there was an Archibald out north of town down by the cemetery.
JG: That was James. Then there was the one that lived over to North Salem.
HF: That was David. Who was his father?
HF: His father was old man Archibald that was my neighbor here.
HF: And his name was Thomas? I ‘ m confused about these Archibald’s.
JG: Well, now I can’t remember the old mans given name but he’s the father of Robert, Thomas, James and David Archibald. I don’t know how many girls but he had those four or five boys.
HF: Well now, you mentioned that Heber had a twin brother, Brigham. Now those would be…
JG: They were brothers to Thomas E., my Bishop.
HF: Your Bishop. And they would all be sons of Thomas E. Ricks.
JG: They were all sons of the original Thomas E. that was the President of the stake here in the beginning. A crippled old gentleman. He had three or four wives.
HF: Do you remember him a little bit?
JG: Yes, quite a bit. He used to drive a black team on a buggy.
HF: Now, where was this lot of years? You still live on the same lot, don’t you?
JG: No, this lot that I’m talking about that dad bought for me is where Dean’s Enco Stations is now. When we sold the west end of that lot to Keith Parkinson. He built a nice home on it on the west end of that lot. It used to reach down quite a ways west. Keith Parkinson has a nice home on the west end of it. Then the rest of it we sold to Hollist.
HF: Did you have a quite a nice home there where the service station is now?
JG: Well, I had a log building that Rich built or somebody. Then I brick veneered it, see. I added another room to it, brick. When Hollist bought it, he tore it all away.
HF: Now, if I can just ask you a few questions about the City of Rexburg as you remember it? For example, in 1910, when you and your wife were married and lived there in this home that you built, do you remember what was on that lot now occupied by the Madison County Court House? What was built on there about that time before they had the court house?
JG: Well, the only building that I can remember was, there was an open lot there. There was Brenner’s blacksmith shop where Cole’s blacksmith is now. Where the court house was, I don’t remember of any building being there and why I think I’m pretty much right, years ago they use to saw wood chop wood and give to the widows. They had a pile of logs piled out there between the court house and the blacksmith shop. It was open. We had a circle saw, you know. We’d go over there and saw up these logs and haul the blocks around to the widows. Oh, there were eight or ten of the neighbors around there lifting these logs and helping to saw the wood. Swenson, I forgot his given name, he was there helping and for some reason instead of walking around when we finished the pile and had to move on the other side. Instead of walking around he dodged under this saw. He had his head cut completely off his shoulders with that saw. There laid his head and his body here. That was open there. But I do remember about the other corner down where the new bank is now, the Idaho First National That corner used to be the old Rands Hotel. Behind that hotel was a little log cabin about, I’d say, about ten by fourteen feet. It was right behind the hotel just a little porch over there to keep the storm from falling in. I worked for the Sharp Grocery Company years ago. I delivered groceries with this team and a little buggy, see. I went to take these groceries there. They used to buy sugar by the hundred pound sack, you know. Well, in this bill of groceries I had a hundred pounds of sugar. I finally got it on my shoulder to take it into the hotel. I said to old mother Rand, I called her mother Rand, where should I put the sugar. She said just put it in the old log room. Well, ok, I stumbled over there to the door and pushed the door open to put the sugar in. She had a daughter Bertha about my age. She was sitting in a little tub taking a bath when I opened the door. So I dropped the sugar and left.
HF: In this hotel, was it a one story or a two story building?
JG: I think it was just one story.
HF: A kind of a rooming house?
JG: Covered quite a bit of room.
HF: It was probably a place where people could stay and then she would furnish them their meals and so on?
JG: Yes, yes.
HF: Now, between this blacksmith shop and the Co- op, what was built along in there? Do you remember?
JG: Well, as far back as I can remember the first thing on the corner there where the Co- op is, was that called the C. W. & M. Company. That was an implement house. We had the same thing in Idaho Falls, C. W. & M. Company. My dad worked for that company as collector for a long time. Then later on we had this side of the Co- op and C. W. & M. Company, we had Mr. Andregg had an upholstery shop in there. Then this side of that was the Studebaker Company that sold buggies and wagons. My dad collected for them a long time. Then, I don’t remember, they remodeled all that and put in all these other offices that’s there now. But in the early days the C. W. & M. was on that corner. The Rand Hotel was over on that corner. Over on this other corner was the old First National Bank.
HF: Now that’s the corner where the Idaho Bank of Commerce is?
JG: Yes, that was the First National Bank. He was my first banker, Ross Comstock. In the basement was Woodvine’s barbershop.
HF: Now he was the first barber too, I think.
JF: One of the first barbers. Then there was a man killed in that barbershop. I was there. A man by the name of Edwards.
HF: What, a quarrel?
JG: Well, all I know is, he’d been in, he was a fine looking gentleman. He’d been in and had a bath. He’d had a shave and hair cut. He had a white, stiff shirt on. You know they used to wear a shirt that had a stiff front. Well, he’d been in and had a bath, and he came out of the bathroom into the barbershop and reached up on the wall to get his tie to put on. A fellow stepped down the stairway and into the door. He said to Mr. Edwards, I want my money. Mr. Edwards said, you go to hell. Bingo. He shot him just as square through the heart as anybody could do it. Then he backed up all of the stairs and went up towards the college around through thi8s edge of town up to the north end of our farm and Gillespies. He crossed the river and crawled up in a hay stack of Walkers over there. Then they went over and got him. He never made any resistance.
HF: Do you remember the sheriff?
JG: Bertal Larson was the city cop. He went over.
HF: You remember Sheriff Harry Munns, I guess?
JG: Very well. He’s the only man who ever served any papers on me. He came Christmas Eve at the old Liberty Store, Levines; you don’t remember any of this?
HF: Now where is Liberty Store and Levines?
JG: That’s where Larson is now. You know. What do they call that?
HF: You mean Gib Larsen?
JG: Yes, Gib. The men’s store. Well, that’s where he was.
HF: The Liberty Store?
JG: Yes.
HF: Was that a clothing store?
JG: It was a clothing store in those days. I had hard times in my life. Mr. Levine never refused me anything I ever asked. Neither did Ross Comstock. But Christmas Ever I was broke flat and I thought, well I’ll get my good wife a little something. I went in there just before they were ready to close. I started to look for a little something and who comes along but Harry Munns. He saw me in there and he came in. You didn’t know him?
HF: No, I’ve heard a lot about him.
JF: Well, he could look right square through you. He had eyes like that and black, and, oh he, could scare a kid to death. He came walking toward me and I wondered what the world now. He began to reach in his coat pocket and everything went through my mind. I couldn’t think of a thing I’ve ever done. He comes right on up to me and he saw I was upset. He said to me, have you lost a Jersey cow? Then he started to laugh. I said, damn you Harry, you spoilt my Christmas. He knew it was scaring the lights out of me, see, and he got a kick out of it. He was the best sheriff, I believe, that was ever had in this county.
HF: Now, tell me who you married and you children, the names of your children, any comments that you’d like to make.
JG: I married Edith Morgan. Her daddy was a plasterer. He did a lot of work for the railroad. I had born in the old house over here, the Hebe Ricks home; I had born there sons, Reed, Willis, and Morgan. You don’t know them. I’m proud of them. I don’t believe there is a dishonest hair in their heads. I’ve never heard any of them use a slang word, neither drink nor smoke. Never had too much chance for an education but they learned to work. I want their mother to have the credit for them being the kind of men they are because she raised them. They lived with her. I lived with the sheep, winter and summer.
HF: I suppose that is largely true with your interests in the sheep, you had to pretty well be with them, didn’t you?
JG: Be with them, that’s right, I was with them a lot. My wife raised those boys and I am really proud of them because I’ve never found one of them dishonest.
HF: Now, which son is with you now with the sheep?
JG: Reed. He’s the one that mainly looks after them. Willis helps him a lot. That’s the second boy. Morgan is the farm boy. He looks after the farm interests.
HF: He is the newly elected County Commissioner of Madison County?
JG: Yes sir.
HF: That’s real fine. I want to thank you so much for the opportunity of chatting with you today. We’ve covered a lot of ground from 1882 up until 1971. That would be just about 80…
JG: It will be 89 years the 4th of August.
HF: And you would be 89.
JG: I am 89 now; I’ll be in the 90’ s on the 4th of August.
HF: How old were you when you got your first car and what kind of a car was it and what year was this?
JG: Well, I don’t remember the year but I will always remember the car. It was a seven passenger Studebaker. I bought it from what they called Studebaker John’s. For many years I never drove anything but a Studebaker. Then I switched to a Buick. Later on I went don to Idaho Falls to trade in my Buick on a new Buick. You know, keep them three or four years then trade them in. I went down to Mr. Browning, who sold the Buicks in Idaho Falls across from the Bonneville Hotel. I didn’t get a very good trade. So I stepped into the next building south where was Smith Hart Cadillac Chevrolet dealer. And they made me a good deal and I bought a Cadillac and I’ve never had anything else since.
HF: Now as we close, will you recall what conditions were like when you were a youngster, when you were a young boy, and compare the Main street of Rexburg then with what Rexburg is now in 1971?
JG: Well, I remember, you see, most of my early life, after I started to be grown up, up in the Teton Ward. We went to church there. That’s the ward we were in until 1903 or ’ 04 when my dad sold out and moved down here. But Rexburg, I remember, had right over here where this International Harvester is, there was a building there, it was a mercantile business. I forget the name of it. Robert Archibald, who now, I guess he lives in Boise if he hasn’t passed away. He’s a brother to Thomas like I told you and owned the farm where Erickson is down west of town. He was the manager of that store. There’s where I met my wife. Her folks were staying in there, they had a kind of rooming house, and the college did. When they had the old log building, you know, right south of Main Street. It was right over here where John Parkinson’s granary is was the first old college building, old log building. That’s Ricks College. Then you go down the street where the Bank of Commerce is, was Flamm’s old store. That’s the oldest store here. Across the street was the old Rands Hotel and beyond it was a livery barn in there where the jewelry store is. Sam Ricks, a livery stable. Across the street on the cover where the Idaho State Bank used to be. Jim Wright, Steve Hunt, and them, you know, State Bank. That was Whitney’s livery barn. Then you went down the street. You had Skelton’s Meat Market.
HF: And that would be…?
JG: Right in there where it is now. All these years, but it’s filled in. The picture show is there now and it used to be empty corner. And on the other corner across was the Gavin Hotel.
HF: Now on the south side of the street you recall, was there a board side walk that went clear down the street.
JG: Yes, there was board sidewalks that went away down there as far as, oh, the first barber, Woodvine. They had a hall, a dance hall down there. The sidewalks went down along there.
HF: Now on the North Side of Main Street the sidewalk was pretty short, wasn’t it?
JG: Pretty short. Bell’s blacksmith was on the north side for a very long time, you know.
HF: Where was it located?
JG: Well, it was located in there where the Food Center is now.
HF: That was Bell’s?
JG: Yes. That was the old man Bell. Then the boys, they moved on the south side after they sold that property over there. They still got the shop there. Then, by that shop, in there was Lenroot’s Harness Shop. Down Main Street, well in there where this…
HF: Now where the American Service Station is, what was in there? Wasn’t there a livery or a college gym or recreation dance hall?
JG: The dance hall, I think, was just beyond that. The old Woodman’s Dance Hall. We had Lenroot’s Harness Shop on Main Street and McAllister’s Harness Shop on Main Street and then later Jakes’. That was all harness shops. Then we had the Wofensburger Jewelry Store down there where Flamm’s is or just beyond them in one of those little buildings.
HF: Now in those days, of course, College Avenue hadn’t been opened up. JG: No, no.
HF: How about South Center?
JG: Well, South Center, about a block down, you know, John Parkinson lives on a corner there. There’s a church on the corner, no, that church is on College Avenue. A block west of that church was the Heber Sharp built a home. He used to run the store in there where Flamm’s is. I think he was the first fellow to put modern plumbing in a house in Rexburg.
HF: Heber Sharp?
JG: Heber Sharp, from Salt Lake. The store finally went out of business. They had a big storage tank out back of the house, you know, that they used for the house water. I bought that tank after he left here. I’ve got a picture of it way out there in the sand where I put a pump to water sheep. I still have that tank. The first water in Rexburg.
HF: Very interesting. We truly appreciate your comments today in this interview.
JG: Well, there’s a lot of things that you might not even think about.
HF: This is true. There is a lot to be covered and a lot of experience you have had over the course of these many, many years. As we close, might I say this, I appreciate this interview, the opportunity to interview you. I appreciate that you’re one of the remaining pioneers of this area. May the Lord bless you in the years that still remain.
JG: Thanks a lot.