The 23rd Annual Swan Valley Old Timers Reunion (1985)

 

This story below was submitted by Jordan Higham.  He is the son of Charles W. Higham, the storyteller. Charles parents were Joseph Lawrence Higham and Katherine 'Katie' Marie Goettsche Higham. Joseph Lawrence was born in Conant Valley in 1891. Katie was born in Oklahoma in 1894.  They were married in 1916.

Joseph Lawrence Higham and 

Katherine 'Katie' Marie Goettsche Higham

 Below is a picture of the Higham brothers homestead in Conant Valley.

Joseph Lawrence's father was Joseph William Higham. He and his brother, Charles Richard (Dick) homesteaded in Conant Valley in 1876.  They came to Conant Valley with their father, also named Charles Higham, as young adult men.

Joseph William and Margaret Jones Higham

 

If you have a story or photos to share about Swan Valley, Grand Valley, Pine Creek Bench, Conant Valley, or the surrounding area, send us an email at svoldtimers@gmail.com.  Thanks- Audi

Horse Thieves in Conant Valley 

Told by: Charles W. Higham 

My great grandfather, Charles W, had two sons, Joseph and Richard(Dick) Higham. They did a lot of moving and homesteading. Homesteading means that the government would allow you to move onto some vacant land. If you built a home, a couple of corrals, a barn, took good care of the property and stayed long enough then eventually it became yours for free. Joseph(my grandfather) and uncle Dick went up to Conant Valley and decided it would be a great place to homestead. They built a log cabin, barn and whatever else they needed to do to make homesteading a sure thing for them. That's where this story begins. My dad, Joseph L Higham, was given the assignment to watch after the ranch up in Conant Valley. He was a young man about 18 or 19 years old. One day he was sitting on the porch of the little cabin they had up there. As he was sitting there, he saw some riders coming down the Stagecoach Trail into Conant Valley. There were 3 guys on horses and they were pushing the horses as hard as they could go. As he watched them he could tell they had about used up their horses because they were having a hard time running. When the riders stopped at the cabin the horses were completely tired out with their tongues hanging out in dire need of water. The riders asked him which was the way they needed to go, to go to Jackson, Wyoming. My dad pointed the way up the trail they were going on and said just keep going the way you're going. They got back on their horses and headed down the trail. About an hour after they left, a second group of about 15 horsemen came down the trail. This was the sheriff and his posse. A posse is a group of men the sheriff rounds up to try and help him catch someone who has done something wrong. The sheriff told my dad they were chasing some horse thieves and asked my dad if he had seen 3 riders come by here. He replied that he had and said they went that way towards Jackson. The posse left the cabin and took up on the trail after the 3 guys on horses and my dad never heard from them again. One day about a week after all that happened, he went for a ride to check on their cattle. A ways up Pritchard Creek he came across the horse thieves again. They were all there together in a row hanging from a big limb on a big tree. The posse had caught them and that's what they did to the horse thieves in those days. If they caught them they didn't give them a trial, they just hung them. He didn’t have a shovel with him so he went back to the cabin and got a shovel, took it back up there, dug a grave for them and put them in there. I really wish I knew where that was and if those men are still there.

 In the picture below, you can see the stagecoach trail cut across the hillside in Conant Valley.

Outlaws of Grand Valley

Miners and mountain men, horse rustlers, train robbers, and outlaws were prevalent in the area between 1850-1930.  Jackson Hole was a notorious hangout of outlaws. Grand Valley and Swan Valley were great places for outlaws to hide out as well. Horse rustlers and bank robbers alike found the area suitable to pass through. They could hide in the draws to rebrand horses far from the detection of homesteaders. They found relief and sympathy from some, yet were feared enough that most respectable people didn’t want anything to do with them. The likes of Butch Cassidy and Al Hainer, Lum Nickerson and Ed Harrington, Hugh and Charles Whitney, Matt Warner, and Tom McCarthy were hopscotching from Jackson’s Hole to Pierre’s Hole, over Pine Creek Pass and down the Rainey Creek drainage; slipping through the hills to Grand Valley, across the river, either fording it or using one of the river ferries; heading over the Caribou foothills to Pocatello or Fort Hall; heading south to Salt Lake City or down through the Salt River valley, slipping past Salt Lake City to southern Utah; or heading north to Montana. There was a steady flow of stolen horses being rebranded, as evidenced in nearby Horsethief Canyon, at the upstream end of the Grand Canyon of the Snake River, and then relocated to be sold. Horses stolen in Cokeville would be ‘laundered’ by way of rebranding and then taken to Virginia City or Bannock, Montana. They would then steal horses on the way back to their operational headquarters and hide them in the uninhabited draws. Eventually they would deliver these newly acquired horses to unsuspecting folks in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming and the cycle would start over. 

 

 

Grand Valley's location at the junction of Idaho, Wyoming and Utah made it a strategic place for outlaws to dance around jurisdictions. Idaho and Wyoming became states in 1890 but Utah was still a territory until 1896. The laws of the new states were just being made and could hardly be enforced. State lines weren't defined. Butch Cassidy and Al Hainer were among the outlaws who hid out in the upper reaches of the Snake River. After rustling horses, they wintered at the Davis Ranch in Star Valley in 1893, just inside of Utah territory. They were discovered in the spring when their mail was flagged by the postmaster. The sheriff went looking for them and in 1894 Butch Cassidy was sentenced to 2 years in prison in Wyoming. He was pardoned by the governor before he served his full sentence and returned to the area to continue to do what he did best.

 

 

Ed Harrington, pictured at right with his family, and Lum Nickerson were well known to frequent the area. Not as notorious as Butch Cassidy, but just as troublesome they were. They were both residing in Teton Valley, Idaho and made their own community their favorite place to rob. What started out as petty theft grew their appetites for more brazen endeavors. They started out rustling horses, but went on to frequently rob the local mercantiles of the area. Ed Harrington, for a time held a respectable job as a mail carrier. I suspect his wandering eye was always looking at other peoples property on his mail route to steal from in the night, a respectable job and his faithful wife always providing him an alibi. They were also train robbers, holding people at gunpoint to take their valuables. They were said to have robbed 19 trains in one day. They must have been feared, because they lived in relative peace by all accounts in Teton Valley, Idaho. Their neighbors, probably not so much. You can read more about Lum and Ed at Teton Valley Magazine: Teton Valley's Checkered Past

 

There were sympathizers among the Grand Valley homesteaders, including Oliver and Cy Jacobson, and Ralph Janes, who had worked on cattle ranches in Wyoming with the Whitney brothers, pictured to the left, and said they were good, honest, and hardworking men. After robbing a saloon in Monida, MT, Hugh and Charlie Whitney jumped on a train to Idaho, only to end up in a gunfight aboard the train, killing the conductor and getting away. The saga of the disappearing Whitney brothers is as good a story as can be told. Follow this link to read a 3 part story about how slippery they really were. Speaking of Idaho: Hugh Whitney Got Away The Edwards ferry near Edwards Creek (now under Palisades Reservoir) transported outlaws across the river, turning a blind eye to their warrants. Jeff Clark, a homesteader from the Ririe area, and Lydes Canary, who was supposedly Calamity Jane’s brother, were said to have gone as far as South Dakota to steal horses and bring them back to the upper Snake River for rebranding and sale (OTP pg 69-70). 

 

 

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.

 

 

(This account of Fairchild’s death is taken from “Historic Soda Springs Oasis on the Oregon Trail” by Ellen Carney with permission.)

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)

 

 

 

Boom towns around the Caribou Mountain Gold Strike

 

Trappers and mountain men were becoming fewer by the 1860’s, but mining was booming and there were lots of miners trying to find gold in the upper Snake River area. McCoy Creek was a major mining tributary of the upper Snake River during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The ‘Cariboo Mountain Gold Strike' happened in 1870 and the boom towns were up and running by 1871. Gold, silver, and copper were taken from these mining operations around the Caribou Mountain. It is estimated that between $1.6 million-$5 million dollars worth of gold was extracted before the boom was over.

 

 

 

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/)

Jesse Fairchild, also know as Caribou Jack, was said to be one of the first to find gold and set up shop. He was reported to be a boisterous frontiersman from British Columbia, often bragging about his enterprises which, besides mining included bear hunting, gambling, and swashbuckling. Caribou City is named for him. Billy Clemens, Mark Twain’s cousin, was an important community member of Caribou City (Our Turn Paradise, Wiese, Lynn, pg 57-58). He was the first postmaster and a bar owner, besides reportedly doing very well as a miner. He first took up a claim in 1871 and was raking in as much as $1500 per day for an entire month across his enterprises.  By 1897 the town of Caribou City was 'settled' and by 1900 it had tallied 32 saloons, also serving as whorehouses and gambling establishments.

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. 

The last resident miner to leave Caribou City was in 1930. He was 96 years old and was moved to a family home in Star Valley, Wyoming. During the Great Depression, there was an uptick in mining again at Caribou Mountain, but when the 2nd World War began, most men were conscribed to service, so these mining sites were finally abandoned. The mouth of McCoy Creek (and about ½ mile up the creek) was flooded by the rising waters of Palisades reservoir in 1958, but this was long after the gleam of gold had swept over Caribou mountain. There are still a few mining claims on McCoy Creek to this day.

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  

 

Star Valley Historical Society: Caribou City 

More notes from the 1984 OTR Reunion

 

Doward Kopp's Life Sketch