Museums by Alison Smith

TIMES-NEWS

SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017 |

Under threat

State-bound Blackhawks

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UI dairy plan riles residents

Pop quiz time! Test yourself on this trivia from south-central Idaho's historical museums. Then turn to today's "Big Story" section on Page E1 to explore many of the other fascinating finds there. You'll also learn why some of the museums' futures may be uncertain.

CAFE would be largest in the nation

MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com

EDEN — Folks in the east end of Jerome County are riled up about the possibility of a new dairy coming to the area. “We don’t want a stinking dairy near the freeway,” said Judy Holland, who lives a “This won’t mile south of the Interstate 84 south of go through Eden. without Holland is not alone the public’s in her sentiments. “We are all furious,” involvement. she said. I promise.” But such hostility is premature, Jerome Jerome County County commissionCommissioner ers say. Roger Morley The dairy residents are worried about is not an ordinary dairy operation: It’s the University of Idaho’s Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment — CAFE — a $45 million world-class agricultural research facility to be funded by the state legislature, the university and private industry. “There’s a lot of objecting going on about nothing,” Commissioner Roger Morley said Thursday. The university has not purchased land for the facility nor has it chosen a location. Several dozen county residents showed up at Eden’s July City Council meeting, said Larry Hall, executive director of Jerome 20/20 Inc., after hearing rumors that the university had purchased a thousand acres

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

PAT SUTPHIN,, TIMES-NEWS ESMYCHEL MATTHEWS, TIM

1. The town of Hagerman was named for ... A. Stanley Haggerman, a bartender from St. Louis. B. Stanley Hagerman, a master sturgeon angler.

4. This brand is carved into an 1880s rifle at the Gooding County Historical Museum in Gooding. The rifle is a ... A. Winchester.

NEWS

B. her grandmother’s wedding dress.

The number of high school students taking college-credit classes is exploding

5. This Hopi Kiva Sioux ceremonial robe from the 1800s sits on display at the Hagerman Valley Historical Museum in Hagerman. The robe is made from ... A. bird pelts.

JULIE WOOTTON

jwootton@magicvalley.com

C. alpaca wool.

C. Gooding’s founder, an Idaho governor, died in the bed.

C. fire retardant.

 If you do one thing: American Legion Post 7 is hosting bingo with doors opening at 2 p.m. at

447 Seastrom St. in Twin Falls. The event is open to the public.

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A Lee Enterprises Newspaper

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ANSWERS

B. Lucy Stricker dragged the bed from her burning home.

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS extinguishers, filled with caustic soda. 4. A; The brand contains the letters WRACo, for Winchester Repeating Arms Co. 5. A; The robe is made from pelts of goose bellies. 6. B; After Stricker’s log cabin burned in 1900, it was replaced with the Stricker Mansion the same year.

B. fertilizer.

6. What’s special about this bed? A. John Hansen’s daughter Anna was born there.

1. C; Stanley Hageman, who came to work the mines in Salmon Falls Creek. The "r" in Hagerman was a clerical error. 2. A; A parachute. Paoli's fiance, Melvin Pope, sent the nylon parachute home during World War II. 3. C; Fire retardant. The glass globes are old fire

3. These glass globes displayed at the Minidoka County Historical Museum in Rupert contain ... A. smoke.

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TWIN FALLS — A state program that provides money for teenagers to take college classes is getting more popular — and expensive. State legislators appropriated $6 million for Advanced Opportunities for the past year. But the total bill came to $12.1 million — about double the cost, Idaho Education News reported. In June, the Idaho State Board of Education came up with a series of ideas they may want to propose to the 2018 legislature. One of them: to consider limiting which types of dual credit classes state money would pay for.

B. pronghorn hides.

C. bedsheets.

Volume 112, Issue 268

C. Winston.

2. Ada Marie Paoli’s 1945 wedding dress hangs on display at the Lincoln County Historical Museum in Shoshone. Paoli created the dress from ... A. a parachute.

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State looks to reign in dual credit costs

B. Western.

C. Stanley Hageman, a storekeeper from Ohio.

$3.00

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THE BIG STORY

Sunday, July 23, 2017 | E1

Sunday, July 23, 2017 | magicvalley.com | SECTION E

PHOTOS BY PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS‌

Shaky future

Curator Melissa Alley peers inside Rupert’s first jail cell, built in 1906, on July 7 at the Minidoka County Historical Museum.

Local museums preserve history that’s uniquely ours. But how long can they do it without money or manpower?

from the local historical society was available that day, the museum was open. WIN FALLS — It wasn’t But times have changed, Cassia just ordinary pioneer life at County Commissioner Bob Kunau said. this old family homestead at Many museums are struggling finanRock Creek. cially and for lack of volunteers. Owner Herman Stricker “If you can’t pay someone to keep in the 1870s sold opium the museum open,” Kunau said, “you to Chinese miners who worked and might as well lock the doors.” lived in the Snake River Canyon. The Cassia County embraced that new foundation of his China House opium reality. Jolynn Gummow, 44, of Heyden still stands near the rock outline burn is one of two part-time county of “Stagecoach King” Ben Holladay’s employees at the Cassia County Hisstage stop. torical Museum. She turned down a West of the site lie the remains of higher-paying job elsewhere to replace Bill Dowdle, who shot up the “town” longtime museum curator Valerie during a drunken rampage and was Bowen, who resigned to go on a misshot and killed by Lucy Stricker’s sion. brother Charles Walgamott. Some The Burley museum holds live hisburied alongside Dowdle in the small tory days for hundreds of local stucemetery died while following the Old dents every September. Black powder Oregon Trail; others died while on the Treasurer Leroy Jazwick talks about Archie ‘Teton’ Teater paintings June 29 at the demonstrations, cheese making, yarn intersecting stage route and Kelton Hagerman Valley Historical Museum. spinning, gold panning, Dutch oven Freight Road. secure well into the future. a Stricker descendant. Local history cooking, fiddlers and mountain men Yes, there’s plenty to intrigue at “It gives everyone an incentive and prehistory are displayed onsite in a educate and entertain. Schoolteachers the historic Rock Creek Station and knowing there is some money to work modern interpretive center. organize the entire event. Stricker Homesite south of Hansen. with and we aren’t going to have our But few community museums in Gummow — one of the few paid muAnd the site is a prime example of lights shut off tomorrow,” said Gary south-central Idaho have such strong seum workers in south-central Idaho — what’s possible when public funding Schorzman, a former board president. backing as Stricker Ranch. enjoys her job but could use some help. and private efforts combine. Museums’ confines — both physical “It keeps the museum alive, looking Gone are the days when folks would The Stricker family eventually sold good and bringing people in.” and financial — determine much of volunteer to arrange exhibits, greet visthe farm ground. But it donated to Schorzman is spearheading the histheir potential. Financial backing for itors and polish displays. the Idaho State Historical Society historical museums varies from zero in torical society’s project to digitize 111 “I have no volunteers,” Gummow the homesite with its 1900 Victorian Gooding and Lincoln counties to more years of old newspapers, a project that said. “No one wants to do it. No one mansion, log store and two dirt cellars costs $10,000 per 25 years. So far he has wants to come in here unless they get carved into the basalt bedrock — one of than $20,000 per year in Twin Falls and Cassia counties and double that in raised enough donations to finish the paid.” which was used as an early jail. Today first 50 years. He expects those pages to Minidoka County. Cassia County over the years has the site is managed by the nonprofit be available to the public by the end of And the amount of support given increased its financial support for the Friends of Stricker Inc., whose volunthe year. museum. Burley also chips in, Gumteers give tours and host events to help each is evident. The future of other local history mu- mow said, by providing the park and Minidoka County Historical Socicover the cost of its operation. seums, however, is shaky. They need ety received nearly $42,000 this year The site, surely an oasis to travelers on the old trails with its cool mountain from the county coffers. Its displays are money and manpower, and both are Please see MUSEUMS, Page E2 hard to get. attractive and well organized, and its stream and plentiful shade trees, was paid staff is knowledgeable and enthulisted on the National Register of His More online: A big new gallery toric Places in 1979. It now draws 2,500 siastic. The museum, open year-round, The staffing problem‌ on Magicvalley.com displays more to 3,000 visitors each year, said Jennifer has an air of optimism — based partly photos of fascinating items in southIn the past, small museums ran on Hills, Friends of Stricker president and on the knowledge that its operation is central Idaho museums’ collections. the energy of volunteers. If someone

MYCHEL MATTHEWS

‌T

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

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BIG STORY

E2 | Sunday, July 23, 2017

Rupert museum

Minidoka County beginnings Minidoka County was populated as a result of the Minidoka Irrigation Project stretching from western Wyoming to south-central Idaho. Minidoka Dam — completed in 1906 — was the first of the project’s five dams built by the Bureau of Reclamation on the Snake River.

Jail cell and a caboose

But the name Minidoka predated the irrigation project by two decades. The Oregon Short Line railroad built a construction camp and post office in 1881 at what became the village of Minidoka, about six miles north of the future Minidoka Dam. The railroad’s chief engineer named the camp Minidoka.

MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

RUPERT — The Minidoka ‌ County Historical Museum is the only historical museum in the Magic Valley that’s open yearround. It holds an impressive expanse of artifacts from the area, including American Indian tools, a 1906 railroad depot, World War II military memorabilia and 111 years of soon-to-be-digitized local newspapers. The site also houses the county seat’s original jail cell. The Minidoka County Historical Society, launched in 1970, is governed by a seven-member board of directors. A Union Pacific caboose and rail cars sit near Rupert’s 1906 railroad depot, which was moved to the museum site in 1985. The town was named after a man named Rupert who hooked the mailbag from the train as it went by. “So people ‘went to Rupert’ to get their mail,” said historical society treasurer Gary Schorzman. “If

Times-News

It’s likely the entire irrigation project got its name from the Minidoka camp, because the first land surveyed for the project — authorized by the Secretary of the Interior on April 23, 1904, under the 1902 Reclamation Act — included the village of Minidoka. Minidoka County was carved from Lincoln County in 1913. Ironically, irrigation water from the Minidoka Project never reached the village of Minidoka. Historians still debate where the word minidoka originated. Some say it’s a Dakota Sioux word for “fountain” or “spring of water,” which would be appropriate for the irrigation project but not the village. Others say the word means “absence of water” — appropriate for the village but not the irrigation project. PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS‌

An extensive collection of Ice Rupert. Age mammal fossils found near When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., MonAcequia. day through Saturdays. Cost: Free admission. A massive firearms colleche missed it, everyone was mad.” Kitselman Duplex Automatic Contact: 208-436-0336. Ball Bearing Woven Wire Fence tion donated by resident Wayne 3 can’t-miss items‌ Machine — that weaves wire into Birch. At the museum, be sure to look a fence on site. A three-man crew More online: On Magicvalley. could construct a mile of fencing Museum information‌ for these: com, see a video of the woven wire An 1898 wire fencer — the across hilly terrain in five days. Where: 99 E. Baseline Road, fence machine in action. Curator Melissa Alley gives a tour July 7 of the firearm display donated by Wayne Birch at Minidoka County Historical Museum.

PAT SUTPHIN PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Catherine Daily, vice president of Hagerman Valley Historical Society, talks about unique artifacts at the Hagerman museum June 29.

Hagerman museum Ancient fossils and an explorer’s map MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

‌ AGERMAN — The Hagerman H Valley Historical Society is the unlikely owner of a valuable art collection, which has the group scrambling to raise money for a new building to display the paintings. For now, 600 oil paintings by landscape impressionist Archie “Teton” Teater donated to the society are housed in a Twin Falls bank vault. Other artifacts owned by the society have been housed since 1984 in a 1909 bank building at Hagerman’s State and Main streets. Prior to becoming what the historical society calls “the biggest little museum in Idaho,” the building was a post office for nearly a half-century. The historical society leases it from the city for a small fee. To launch the fundraising campaign for the new museum building, the society will host a dinner from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 5 in City Park along with tours of Teater’s studio, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, overlooking the Snake River near Hagerman.

MYCHEL MATTHEWS, TIMES-NEWS‌

A 1906 crazy quilt sown by Marion resident Esther Frost hangs near Frost’s portrait June 6 at Oakley Valley Historical Museum.

Oakley museum

Hagerman beginnings The first settlers in the Hagerman Valley were miners during the 1862 gold rush. Farmers then moved to the area known as Idaho’s “Banana Belt.” In 1892, Stanley Hageman moved to the valley and established its first post office. Somewhere in official documents, an “r” was incorrectly added to Hageman’s name and the new name stuck, according to local legends. Hageman died in 1897. After the turn of the 20th century, the sheep industry took root in the valley. Some wool-growing families continue to ranch in the area. on loan from the Smithsonian Institution. An original lithograph map of Capt. John C. Fremont’s 1843 expedition from St. Louis to Oregon, one of five copies known to exist. Teater’s oil painting of Custer’s Last Stand.

Museum information‌

Where: 100 State St. S., Hagerman. When: 1-4 p.m. Friday, Satur3 can’t-miss items‌ day and Sunday, year-round. At the museum, be sure to look Cost: Free admission. Memfor these: berships are $15, or $25 per couA full replica of the 3 million- ple. Contact: 208-837-6288. year-old Hagerman Horse fossil

‘Crickets’ and a crazy quilt MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

‌ AKLEY — Sometimes nothO ing remains of an event but memories. Painted high on a wall in the Oakley Valley Historical Museum is a mural of famed aviator Charles Lindberg, on Sept. 4, 1927, dropping a bouquet of flowers from the Spirit of St. Louis over the home of Oakley resident Lena Davis Price. Price was the mother of Lindberg’s friend Noel Davis, a fellow aviator who died while preparing to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindberg had recently returned to the U.S. after becoming the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic and was on a nationwide tour when he flew over Oakley. Sometimes only photos are left to display. A large photo in the museum shows the family of Mormon pioneer Hector C. Haight, including sons David B. Haight — an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, father-in-law of billionaire philanthropist Jon Huntsman and grandfather of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. — and Horton Granville Haight, husband of I.B. Perrine’s daughter Stella. The Haight/Perrine union was the “marriage of the cen-

Museums From E1

structures that house its artifacts. Still, the museum has a lot of work to do: A log schoolhouse needs to be moved to a new foundation before the rare structure collapses, and warehouse space needs to be converted for expanding exhibits. It’s more than Gummow can do by herself.

Upping investment‌

As volunteer labor declines,

Oakley’s beginnings In the mid-1860s, William Oakley ran a stage stop in the Goose Creek Valley, where Mormon pioneers from Grantsville, Utah, later settled and used Oakley’s name for the new town. A wave of Mormons into the valley came in 1878 and continued for several years. Many had sheep, which didn’t sit well with non-Mormon cattlemen who had claimed the rangeland for their herds. Three Oakley sheepmen died during the range wars over the next two decades. Early Oakley was “a rough and tumble frontier town as well as a staid Mormon community,” wrote resident Kent Hale in his book “A History of Oakley, Idaho.” The town has since lost its rough-andtumble elements but is still a staid Mormon community. tury,” said Robert Fehlman, Oakley Valley Historical Association co-president, joining the “royal families” of Oakley and Twin Falls. Sometimes something new comes from the ashes of something old. The Oakley museum was built in 2002 on West Main Street, where silent movies were shown at the old Orpheum Theater and families gathered at the old Oakley Tavern before the two businesses burned down.

by Marion resident Esther Frost, an English convert to the Mormon Church who worked as a seamstress in the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow after she came to America. A collection of Anabrus simplex, commonly known as Mormon crickets, preserved in resin. Mormon crickets, actually shield-backed katydids, attacked Mormon settlers’ crops in Utah during the mid1800s.

3 can’t miss items‌

Where: 140 W. Main St. in Oakley. When: 1-4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day. Cost: Free admission. Twoyear memberships are $20, or $30 per couple. Contact: 208-862-7890.

At the museum, be sure to look for these: A cedar post that marked the Idaho border at the northwest corner of Utah and the northeast corner of Nevada, about 20 miles south of Oakley. A crazy quilt made in 1906 public investment must rise if a museum is to survive. Somehow Jerome County has kept two historical sites open with little financial support from the county: The Depot Museum in downtown Jerome and the Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum just off U.S. 93 north of Twin Falls. Until three years ago, the county contributed just $1,000 per year to the Jerome County Historical Society, longtime volunteer Linda Helms said. The rest of the museum’s expenses are paid by donations and society membership dues.

Museum information‌

The county now chips in $5,000. “There’s a big push now for us to look at our heritage and genealogy,” Jerome County Commissioner Charles Howell said. But even the bigger county contribution can’t erase another loss. In past years, the Jerome society maintained a robust volunteer base, Helms said. But 20 of the group’s volunteers have died in the past decade, and many of the remaining volunteers are 80 and older. Only four are younger Please see MUSEUMS, Page E3

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BIG STORY

Times-News

Sunday, July 23, 2017 | E3

Stricker Ranch

The site’s beginnings Thousands of emigrants on the Old Oregon Trail stopped to rest under the shade of trees along Rock Creek north of the South Hills before continuing on their journey west through south-central Idaho.

Pioneer graves and an opium den MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

‌ OCK CREEK — The old VicR torian mansion at Stricker Ranch isn’t actually a museum — it’s the real thing. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, the Rock Creek Station and Stricker Homesite symbolizes life on the Oregon Trail. The old log store, built in 1865, was the first trading post on the emigrant trail between Fort Hall and Fort Boise. The rock outline of “Stagecoach King” Ben Holladay’s stage station is still visible at the site, near the rock foundation of the “China House” — an opium den Herman Stricker built for Chinese miners. The Stricker Mansion was built after the family’s log home burned down in 1900. The mansion, which sat empty and run down when the family donated it to the Idaho State Historical Society in the early 1980s, has been restored. The ISHS in recent years added a modern interpretive center to the site, giving an overview of the history, geology and geography of south-central Idaho. The site is managed by the nonprofit Friends of Stricker Inc.

When the railroad came to Kelton, Utah, in the mid1860s, stagecoaches began to transport mail and newcomers to Idaho on the Kelton Road. Ben Holladay was awarded the U.S. mail contract from Salt Lake City to Walla Walla, Wash., and he built a “home” station where off-duty stage drivers and passengers stayed at Rock Creek where the Kelton Road joined the Oregon Trail.

DREW NASH PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Above:The interpretive center at Rock Creek Station and Stricker Homesite, July 3 near Hansen. Below: The general store used to have a saloon attached. The “jockey box” from a freight wagon on the Kelton Road. A small pioneer graveyard west of the site.

James Bascom and James Corder built a store near the stage stop, which served freighters, emigrants and miners. Soon a community grew up around the stage stop and store. The store became a vital supply station to cattlemen who brought their herds into Idaho from Nevada. German immigrants Herman Stricker and John Botzet purchased the store in 1876. Stricker married Lucy Walgamott in 1882, and together they ran the store until 1897. Their six-room log cabin burned down in 1900, and only Lucy’s walnut bedroom set, pump organ and photographs were saved. The Strickers built a 1 1/2-story Victorian “mansion” that still stands today.

Site information‌

Where: 3715 E. 3200 N., Hansen When: Buildings are open 1-5 p.m. Sundays, April to Sep3 can’t-miss items‌ tember. At the site, be sure to look for Cost: Free admission. Memthese: berships to Friends of Stricker Inc. The walnut bedroom set that is $15; students and seniors, $10; Lucy Stricker dragged out of her families, $25. Contact: 208-423-4000. burning home in 1900.

Gooding museum Embalming table and a rocking horse MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS‌

Chinese miners in the 1870s buried empty beer bottles in irrigation ditches at Stricker Ranch. The bottles, seen June 15 at the Twin Falls County Historical Museum near Curry, were dug up and sold at auction 100 years later.

Twin Falls museum Beer bottles and buckaroos MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

‌ URRY — Twin Falls County is C a relative newcomer to southern Idaho, compared with territorial counties. It was cut away from Cassia County in 1907, 17 years after statehood and three years after the city of Twin Falls was founded. But the county’s history started long before 1907. Several hundred thousand emigrants crossed the area during the 19th century on their way to Oregon. Cattlemen grazed their herds in the grassy valleys of the South Hills. And many others came to mine gold in the Snake River Canyon. Still, it was an area that few came to settle until a young man from Indiana built an agricultural empire in the canyon at Blue Lakes. Ira Burton Perrine farmed on both sides of the river, and he brought global attention to Idaho in 1900 by winning numerous blue ribbons for his fruit at the World’s Fair in Paris. Soon after, Perrine used the 1893 Carey Act to start a worldclass irrigation system that turned

Museums

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nearly a half-million acres of southern Idaho desert into some of the most productive farming ground in the nation.

3 can’t-miss items‌

If you go to the Twin Falls County Historical Museum, housed in the 1914 Union School building, be sure to look for these displays: A wooden board on which three-time presidential candidate and noted orator William Jennings Bryan scribbled a poem about Shoshone Falls and I.B. Perrine. “Happy Holly” Houfburg’s radio microphone and suits worn by Houfburg’s band, the Double H Buckaroos. Chinese beer bottles dug up years ago from the banks of Rock Creek at Stricker Ranch south of Hansen. Chinese miners bought opium from Herman Stricker and frequented the Stricker Store in the 1870s.

Museum information‌

Where: 21337 U.S. 30 at Curry. When: Noon-5  p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, March 1 through Dec. 1, or by appointment Cost: Free admission. Annual memberships are $15. Contact: 208-736-4675.

their teachers,” Helms said. The historical society draws its largest crowd at its Live HisFrom E2 tory Day each September at the IFARM, and the event’s $5 adthan 70. It’s a challenge to get mission charge brings in a small young folks involved, let alone income. interested. The museum has reached a “The only young people who critical point, volunteer Sue come to visit are grade school children who come on a tour with Black said. The group has had

GOODING — Steve and ‌ Kris Quigley’s grandchildren are getting a good dose of volunteerism. As heads of the Gooding County Historical Society and its museum, the Quigleys put their family members to work doing things they can’t do. Many of the museum’s 12 board members are getting on in years, said Kris, who stepped in to run the museum when the past director became ill. “We really need some younger people to help,” she said. She’ll get no argument from board members and volunteers, the youngest of whom are in their 40s, said research director Lorna Bard, a member of the historical society since the 1970s. Operating a museum demands a mix of old and new blood: old for continuity and new to continue the work into the future, Bard said. The group has squirreled away $5,000 for a museum expansion, but they fear there’ll be no one around to continue their work. The historical society only recently finished unpacking boxes moved about a decade ago from its first museum — the old Gooding post office — to a new building at the south edge of town. The old building, donated to the group when it formed in 1971, was condemned and artifacts were stored for several years while the new museum was built. Board members are proud of the new museum, said Nancy Turley, in charge of growing the historical society’s membership. “It’s a warm place,” Turley said. “It’s welcoming.” It’s a work in progress, Bard said. New artifacts come in every week.

MYCHEL MATTHEWS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Hand-sewn booties, June 22 at the Gooding County Historical Museum.

Gooding County beginnings The Oregon Short Line opened a railroad station in 1883 at today’s town of Gooding and called it Toponis. A post office came a few years later. Meanwhile, Frank Gooding became one of the largest sheep ranchers in Idaho. A native of England, Gooding first settled in Shoshone but moved his family in 1888 to Toponis, where he thought it would be easier to keep his alcoholic wife from drinking. Gooding purchased property — including the Toponis saloon, which he immediately closed. Gooding entered politics in 1896 and served one term as state senator before serving as governor from 1905 to 1909. Gooding was a U.S. senator from 1921 until his death in 1928. Many residents of the county believe he would have run for president had he been born in the U.S. While governor, Gooding donated 160 acres for the town of Gooding in 1907 and gave it his name. When the state school for the deaf and the blind burned down in 1908 in Boise, he donated land for a new campus in Gooding. Gooding County was formed from Lincoln County in 1913. Gooding also built many facilities in town, including the Schubert House (a wedding present for his daughter), the John Thomas House (a rejected wedding present for his daughter later sold to a U.S. senator), the Schubert Theater and the Lincoln Inn, which burned down in 1968.

on the George Z. Arkoosh ranch. A wooden embalming table and wicker “ambulance basket” donated by Demaray Funeral Home. The one-room 1914 school3 can’t-miss items‌ house from Thorn Creek, eight At the museum, be sure to look miles northeast of town, donated for these: to Gooding County Historical A wooden rocking horse Society and rehabilitated at the handmade in 1905 by hired men museum site.

to get creative in finding other ways to raise money; it now rents buildings at the IFARM for special events. “If we are going to continue to operate this museum,” Black said, “it needs to go on the tax roll.”

A town’s identity‌

In Oakley, a particularly sup-

portive community means a museum can thrive without either public funding or plentiful volunteer labor. The Clark family of Oakley donated two spaces on Main Street for the Oakley Valley Historical Association’s museum, which was built in 2000 and later expanded. Several local businesses

Museum information‌

Where: 273 Euskadi Lane (next to the Basque Center) in Gooding. When: 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, April 1 to Oct. 31. Cost: Free admission. Annual memberships, $15. Contact: 208-934-5318.

donated funds and labor. Community members donated artifacts and money. And certain residents welcome strangers into their homes again and again for the museum’s sake. The town got its start when Mormon pioneers moved from Please see MUSEUMS, Page E4

BIG STORY

E4 | Sunday, July 23, 2017

Times-News

Jerome museums Barracks and a train depot MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

PAT SUTPHIN PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Above: Lanita Hall, right, talks June 28 about items in the Lincoln County Historical Museum in Shoshone. Below: Shoshone High championship football trophy, 1933.

Shoshone museum Dairy artifacts and a notable signature MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

‌HOSHONE — The Lincoln S County Historical Society is a relative newcomer to the Magic Valley, established in 2009. Its museum is housed in the historical Masonic Lodge in Shoshone, a building it shares with the county Emergency Medical Services. Each month, the museum hosts a program on historical topics such as how to record oral histories or historic preservation. Patrons can help the museum through its “Brick Legacy” fundraiser by purchasing $35, $50 and $100 memorial bricks.

3 can’t-miss items‌

At the museum, be sure to look for these: I.B. Perrine’s signature in an 1890 register from the Logan Hotel, later replaced by the still-standing McFall Hotel. Perrine’s “I” looked like a “J,” and his name was frequently transcribed as J.B. Perrine. A collection of early dairy industry artifacts on loan from Andrew Fitzgerald and 4 Bros. Dairy of Shoshone. A collection of unidentified photos from the community. Maybe you will recognize someone?

Museum information‌

Where: 112 W. B St., Shoshone. When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays, late May through October. Cost: Free admission. Memberships are $10, or $25 per family; $50 for businesses. Contact: Payson Reese, 208886-7787.

Museums From E3

Tooele County, Utah, into the Goose Creek Valley in the early 1880s. Many — just one generation away from their British homeland — built stately Victorian homes, which a century later put the town on the National Register of Historic Places. Now, Oakley’s biennial tour of Victorian homes raises money for the museum every other summer. The Oakley association’s board of directors includes two appointed positions for liaisons from the Oakley City Council and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, which gave the association its start with a large donation of artifacts. The museum is a subchapter of the city, and the city owns the building. The historical association owns the artifacts. And the community is proud of it all. More than ever, Hagerman needs what Oakley has. The donation of a priceless collection means the Hagerman Valley Historical Society must take on a bold project: a building suitable for housing it. The society was given about 600 oil paintings from the estate of renowned artist Archie “Teton” Teater, an impressionistic landscape painter who spent his later years in the Hagerman Valley. But in its current museum — a tiny old bank and post office building in downtown Hagerman — the society has no ability to display the pieces, stored for now in a First Federal Bank vault in Twin Falls. To launch the fundraising campaign for a new museum, the historical society will host an Aug. 5 dinner and tour of Teater’s Knoll, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Society leaders hope other Hagerman folks share their excitement.

Lincoln County beginnings While many Magic Valley towns had “civilized” beginnings after the turn of the 20th century, one of the earliest settlements began as a rough and rowdy railroad town serving Wood River mining camps to the north. The coming of the railroad shifted travel through Idaho from the south side of the Snake River to the north side, and Shoshone was established in anticipation of that shift. First known as Junction City because of its position on Union Pacific’s route, the town got its first post office in 1883. By then Shoshone was a lively boomtown with “not a bed to be had in the town,” wrote a Hailey newspaper. Agriculture began to replace mining in the 1890s as the area’s driving economic force. As the closest train depot to the irrigation project soon to transform the desert, Shoshone became the rail destination for all building supplies and materials for the Milner Dam and developing Carey Act towns. Later the train town became the gateway to Sun Valley as the young ski resort developed into “America’s First Destination Ski Resort.”

Who cares for history?‌

In some towns, however, the locals can be the hardest audience to interest. At the Twin Falls County Historical Museum, a sizable share of the signatures in the visitor register are from outof-towners. Yet the museum’s own origins reflect a desire to teach the locals. The Twin Falls School District sold the 1914 Union School building and grounds at Curry to Twin Falls County after the building was decommissioned in the late 1960s. The agreement between the school district and the county rests on the stipulation that the building would house a museum with free admission to students. At that point, the Twin Falls County Historical Society, started in 1957, was using a building at the county fairgrounds to house its collection. The two entities have collaborated ever since. While the county owns and maintains the building and grounds, the historical society owns the artifacts and operates the museum. The county allots about $20,000 per year to the society for utilities and payroll, said Steve Westphal, the nonprofit’s president. “We keep it going with grants and donations,” Westphal said. “(It’s) probably one of the most cost-effective places in the system.” Museums draw tourists, but local history can surprise even someone with deep roots here. Visiting great-aunt Gladys Stricker on the old family homestead at Rock Creek was a normal part of Curtis Johnson’s childhood; he didn’t understand until years later the importance of the property locals called the Stricker Place. “Growing up, I didn’t realize the significance of the history here — I feel bad about that,” said Johnson, a great-great-grandson of Herman and Lucy Stricker. “I want people to learn about our history.”

‌JEROME — Jerome County was home to the Minidoka Relocation Center — known to locals as “Hunt Camp” — the largest of 11 relocation centers throughout the West used by the federal government during World War II to house thousands of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Barracks from the Hunt Camp can be found reused as homes, office buildings and barns on both sides of the river. A barrack recreating life at the camp is featured in every tour of Jerome County Historical Society’s IFARM (Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum) at the crossroads of U.S. 93 and Interstate 84. But that’s not the society’s traditional historical museum; it’s in downtown Jerome in a former train depot. The society, founded in 1981, started its first downtown museum in a log cabin before moving into The Depot Museum about a decade ago. Jerome’s historical society had an unusually robust group of volunteers, but many are aging out now.

3 can’t-miss items‌

At The Depot Museum, be sure to look for these: Photos and memorabilia from the iconic North Side Inn which sat until 1967 at the northwest corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. The building was deemed a fire hazard and demolished. A near replica sits near the west end of Crossroads Point Boulevard off U.S. 93. The 1910 museum building itself — one of Jerome’s two railroad depots — sat on the west side of town across the street from today’s livestock commission yard. The city of Jerome purchased the building in the 1970s from Union Pacific Corp. for $1 and moved it into town for

DREW NASH PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS

Above: Dolls once played with at the Minidoka Relocation Center. Left: People mosey around old farm equipment in September 2013 during Live History Days at the Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum.

Early Jerome County Many small communities made up Jerome County in the early years. Coppdale (which soon became Falls City), Barrymore, Hunt, Greenwood, Hillsdale and Sugar Loaf are names of Jerome County towns rarely uttered these days. Only Jerome, Eden and Hazelton are left. Jerome County grew up in the shadow of Twin Falls County, as the north side’s development of irrigation came on the heels of its neighbor to the south. That area on the north side had a few hiccups in the years before becoming a county in 1919. North Side Canal Co. developers ran into problems because of the porosity of the bedrock north of the Snake River. Jerome Reservoir, built to store irrigation water, leaked like a sieve and never filled. Kuhn brothers Jerome and Wendell eventually went into receivership. the senior citizens. A child’s sled made by internees at the Minidoka Relocation Center from metal scraps and wooden shipping crates.

Museum information‌

Where: The Depot Museum is at 220 First Ave. E.; IFARM is at U.S. 93 and Interstate 84. When: Depot Museum hours are 1-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Satur-

days, April 1 to Dec. 31; winter hours are 1-4 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, Jan. 1 to March 31. IFARM is by appointment. Cost: Free admission at both locations. Memberships: $15 individual, $25 family, $75 supporting member and $100 business member. Contact: Rob Ellis, tour guide, 208-308-9156.

Burley museum Covered wagons and log cabins MYCHEL MATTHEWS

mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

BURLEY — The Cassia ‌ County Historical Museum reflects the struggles and triumphs of those on the land, from American Indians to cowboys and sheepmen, to farmers and businessmen. Historical outbuildings — a log store, a log schoolhouse and a log cabin — were moved to the museum grounds and are used to show what life was like in 19th-century southern Idaho. MYCHEL MATTHEWS, TIMES-NEWS‌ The one-room, sod-roofed log A log cabin and schoolhouse, June 8 on the Cassia County Historical cabin, built by Oakley pioneer Museum grounds. The schoolhouse needs work to stabilize its Andrew Gustave Larson, is lean- foundation. ing and needs reinforcement before it collapses. The museum building is chock full of interpretive disIt’s said that Cassia County has more pioneer trails weaving through plays showcasing pioneers and it than any other county in the U.S. Various alternatives to the Ormore recent dignitaries. The egon and California trails crisscrossed the county looking for the museum complex also has a easiest route west. Freight and stagecoach routes filled in the voids. metal outbuilding with several rooms full of old firetrucks, covTravel through the area was first recorded in 1811 when the Wilson ered wagons and Basque sheep Price Hunt Expedition tried to reach the mouth of the Columbia camps and another dedicated to River by floating the Snake River. The party of 65 explorers and World War II veterans. trappers met disaster on the Snake just west of present-day Milner Dam. About three decades later, the first emigrants crossed Cassia 3 can’t-miss items‌ County on the Oregon Trail. Soon after, the California gold rush deAt the museum, be sure to toured emigrants from the Oregon Trail, through the City of Rocks look for these: and southwest into Nevada. The luxury Pullman rail Cassia County was settled in two phases. Cattlemen came first, then car that once displayed what the Mormons followed in the late 1870s. The towns of Albion (the was said to be the mummy of first county seat), Almo, Elba and Oakley sprang up where the first John Wilkes Booth. William settlers staked their claims. The second phase came after irrigation Evans, “Carnival King of the and railroads gave more people a reason to stay. Towns such as Southwest,” paid a $40,000 Burley, Declo, Springdale, Unity, View, Pella and Kenyon developed bond, plus a fee of more than as canals were dug to carry river water to the thirsty desert. $2,000 a year, to display the mummy in what he called the greatest freak-animal show in Cost: Free admission. Lifethe country. Museum information‌ time memberships are $150. A 1903 photo of Anna HanWhere: East Main Street and One-year memberships are $10, sen acting in a play presented Hiland Avenue in Burley. or $25 per family. Pioneer memby the Albion Normal School. When: 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Tues- berships for those older than 80 Hansen, daughter of Swedish days through Saturdays, April 15 are $1. Contact: 208-678-7172. pioneer John Hansen, later mar- to Oct. 15. ried surveyor John E. Hayes, who laid out many of the towns and canal systems in the area. Anna Reporter Mychel Hayes became influential in the Matthews was Magic Valley, and the Shoshone director of the Twin Falls View Point is dedicated to Falls County Historical her. Museum before A golden eagle electrocuted working for the Timeswhen a rabbit it carried in its News. Matthews is no talons touched a power line as longer affiliated with it flew over. The museum went the museum. through the proper channels in order to have it stuffed and disM 1 played in the World War II room.

Cassia County beginnings