Monday, November 25, 2024
Outlaws of Grand Valley
Monday, November 18, 2024
Carriboo Jack
In my last post about the mining towns that popped up around Caribou Mountain, I barely mentioned the mountains namesake. Cariboo Jack, as he was known, was one of the first miners in the area west of Star Valley and Swan Valley. His real name was Jesse Fairchild and was known for his boisterous stories of his own accomplishments in British Columbia. In 1870 he discovered gold near Greys Lake, Idaho and established a mining camp that became the largest in Idaho. The Caribou Mountain Gold Strike lasted 20 years and produced $5 million in placer gold.
He did a lot that was worth bragging about. Below are some of the quotes from Cariboo Jack:
When he spoke of his home in British Columbia as a child, he said, “the caribou ran so thick that a fellow could run all the way to hell and back atop them and never touch bare ground. Their breath, which turned immediately into snow and ice, kept the north country covered in white. They would build a mountain in a minute with their breath.”
Of himself, he said, “I was born in a blizzard snowdrift in the worst damn storm to ever hit Canada. I was bathed in a gold pan, suckled by a caribou, wrapped in a buffalo rug, and could whip any grizzly going before I was thirteen. That’s when I left home.” When challenged on his tales he’d respond: “It is so. I will let you know I am from Carriboo!”
When it came to bragging about his equipment and animals, he said of his mule “so danged smart he had to change socks once a week or she wouldn’t let him ride her. She could open any gate built: she stole a full year of grain, a sack at a time from a Quaker farmer, each night he built the latch higher on the door until finally the mule couldn’t reach it. That only stopped her one night, the next night the mule was seen standing on hind legs telling the family dog standing on her forehead how to open the latch.”
He spent 14 years in the gold mining towns of Caribou and Keenan cities. Below is a picture of his grave in Soda Springs, Idaho and the wild story of his death.
J. J. Call went up the river looking for beaver tracks, he heard there was a big one there, but he didn’t see any outstandingly large tracks until he got to where the big cold water spring comes in the river. He bent over looking at the tracks when he heard a noise and reared up. There was a huge grizzly coming right at him. He didn’t even have time to draw his pistol and turn around, but fired from under his arm.
He hit the grizzly across the face. The animal reared up on its hind legs and hit Call, who was wearing a big canvas hunting coat with an ample lunch in his pocket.The bear’s claws went through the coat and lunch and Call’s heavy underwear, leaving claw marks in his hip. The blow knocked him about twelve feet and into the river. The grizzly was about to come after him, when distracted by Call’s little cattle dog. Call, deciding not to stay and argue with a grizzly when armed with only a pistol went back to town to get his rifle and some dry clothing.
Call’s wife hid his rifle until he could get someone to go with him. In Gorton’s Saloon a man by the name of Lee Wright said he would go if he had a gun. The bartender handed him one. Then Fairchild, being the man who boasted he could whip any grizzly, and probably having a few too many drinks under his belt, quickly volunteered.
While the others set a row of fires to bring out the grizzly, Fairchild took off right down through the willows, and all at once they heard him screaming. Running towards the screams, they found a large grizzly had picked Fairchild up and was shaking him like a dog shaking a rat. When they finally got a shot at the bear, he fell with his head right on top of Fairchild.
Wright ran to town for a buggy and sent a rider to Malad for a doctor. When the doctor arrived, he sewed up all of the cuts instead of leaving an opening so they could drain. Carriboo Jack contracted blood poisoning and a week later was dead.
(Yellow Pines Times: Jesse 'Cariboo Jack' Fairchild)
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Boom towns around the Caribou Mountain Gold Strike
There were 3 mining towns in the Caribou National Forest, to the west of Grey's Lake, Idaho and east of present day Palisades reservoir: Keenan City, Caribou City and Herman. Keenan City and Caribou City were both on arms of McCoy Creek. Herman, more of a supply town than an actual mining town, was on the Grey’s Lake side of the Caribou mountains, closer to present day Soda Springs. In the 1870's and 1880's these towns were scattered along the creeks, really just unorganized assemblies of shacks set up by miners looking to squat on a spot long enough to find some gold and improve their living situation. Hundreds of people came and went through these boom towns. Most busted and abandoned their humble abodes. Those who found good amounts of gold and persevered the winters on Caribou mountain, rising to over 9000 feet, made improvements to their mining operations, set up sawmills, lining man made trenches with wood for sluice boxes and creating ditches to haul water to them. Some evidence of this still exists. Below is an image from some 4x4 enthusiasts showing one of the trenches that was used for mining. (Photo courtesy: https://www2.zukiworld.com/feature_cariboumountain/)
After the gold rush slowed in the early 1900's, more settlers were homesteading and cooperating to farm the land. Settlements, complete with mercantile, schools, and churches were taking the place of boom towns at the turn of the 20th century. The Homestead Act (1862) and the later Desert Lands Act (1877) promoted settlers to move west, especially into the arid countries that were yet to be successfully farmed. The Civil War veterans and freed slaves were being outnumbered by hundreds of thousands of settlers using the Oregon, Mormon and Lander Trails to go find their own manifest destiny in the free lands offered to them in the west.
There are many stories to be told about the people who inhabited these boom towns, including that of the 500+ Chinese people, the famous folks like Cariboo Jack and Billy Clemens, and the outlaws and moonshiners of the area. Each of these will get their own post. As always, if you have information to contribute, please email us at svoldtimers@gmail.com. A lot of the information I use if from Lynn Wiese's book, 'Our Turn in Paradise'. Email us to buy your very own hardback second edition.
Additional online resources:
Idaho State Historical Society: Site Report - Caribou Mountain-Tin Cup Creek
The Yellow Pine Times: Caribou Mines
A Pitch from the Past: Jesse 'Cariboo Jack' Fairchild