CONCLUSION.
There are twenty-three counties in the state of Idaho, of which sixteen
have a smaller and six a larger population than Bannock, while twelve
counties have a smaller area and ten a larger. Therefore, Bannock
is one of the larger counties of the state. This position she has
creditably maintained in both the number and the quality of her public
men, of whom several were mentioned in the last chapter.
Others who deserve mention here are former State Senators Ruel Rounds,
George C. Parkinson, Louis S. Keller, John B. Thatcher, George H.
Fisher and W. H. Mendenhall, our present senator, and former State
Representatives William A. Walker, Robert V. Cozier, L. R. Thomas,
William McGee Harris, Denmark Jensen, W. H. Lovesy, Edward L.
Holzheimer, Thomas M. Edwards, John Schutt, C. W. Dempster, W. H.
Mendenhall and C. W. Gray, D. J. Lau and D. J. Elrod, the county’s
present representatives.
Many of these men have been returned to office several times, J. Frank
Hunt, of Downey, having represented the county either as senator or
representative continuously since 1900, with the exception of one term
of office. In 1900, Thomas Terrell was elected lieutenant governor of
the state, and in 1908, James H. Brady, of Pocatello, present United
States senator for Idaho, was returned as governor.
Senator Brady was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, June 12, 1862,
but was taken to Kansas by his parents in early boyhood, where he
was educated in the State Normal College. He taught school for three
years, fitted himself for the profession of law, edited a semi-weekly
newspaper for two years, and then became interested in the real estate
business. In time he was operating successful offices in St. Louis,
Chicago and Houston, Texas. The irrigation and power possibilities of
Idaho attracted him to this state in 1895, when he became identified
with the development of the Snake river valley, the Idaho, Marysville
and Fort Hall canals being among the projects in which he was active.
He has been a leading factor in the electrical development of
southeastern Idaho, the Idaho Consolidated Power company, at American
Falls, being one of his useful and successful enterprises.
Although a man with large private interests that demanded much time
and attention, Senator Brady has been an active and ruling figure in
the Republican party in Idaho for several years. In 1900 he was a
delegate to the Republican national convention and in 1908 he was a
member of the committee sent by the convention to notify William H.
Taft of his nomination for the presidency of the United States. He was
vice-president of the National Irrigation Congress in 1896 and 1898,
and a member of its executive committee from 1900 until 1904. The
senator has always represented his constituents efficiently and well
and in return enjoys their personal goodwill and loyalty.
It was Senator Brady who made possible the “Western Governors’
Special,” a railway train which toured the east in 1911 in what proved
to be a very successful attempt to forge closer the links that bind the
east and west, and to demonstrate by exhibits carried on the train that
the sums expended by the United States government for the reclamation
of arid western lands were wisely invested. The governors of Idaho,
Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, North and
South Dakota and Minnesota accompanied the train, each in his own car.
The expedition, which has been justly termed “one of the most unique
incidents in the annals of publicity,” was entertained at dinner in the
White House at Washington by President Taft.
Among the men who played important parts in developing Bannock county,
is the late Henry O. Harkness, who founded the town of McCammon, which
formerly bore his name.
Mr. Harkness was born in Norwalk, Ohio, in 1838, and as a young man
learned the trade of machinist. When the Civil war broke out, he
enlisted in the Washburn Lead-Mine regiment and attained the rank of
captain before he was honorably discharged from the service in 1865.
The following year he left Atchison, Kansas, with an outfit of four
wagons and ten oxen, and crossed the plains to the Madison valley in
Montana. Here he engaged in stock-raising but a severe winter killed
most of his cattle, and in the spring of 1867 he moved south into
Idaho. He spent three years in the northern part of the state and in
1870 settled in the Portneuf valley, where he once more raised stock.
He was a man of unusual business sagacity, combining shrewd foresight
with an ingenuity that defied defeat, and he soon acquired both wealth
and influence in the community. He was county commissioner of Oneida
from 1874 until 1880. At the time of his death in 1911, his estate
consisted in part of seventeen hundred acres of land near McCammon,
sixteen hundred acres in the vicinity of Oxford, the large H. O.
Harkness hotel at McCammon, which was a landmark in the county for
several years but was destroyed by fire in 1913, the flour mill in
McCammon, and several mammoth feed barns in the same town. Mr. Harkness
was the first postmaster of McCammon and the first man in southern
Idaho to own an electric light plant.
Another citizen of McCammon who is a factor in both the political and
business life of the county is the Hon. Thomas M. Edwards, who, with
his brothers Walter and Charles own the McCammon Investment company.
Mr. Edwards was a member of the State House of Representatives from
1908 until 1910, and a member of the Republican state central committee
for Bannock county in 1910 and 1911.
Thomas Edwards was born in Yankton, S. D., in 1864. His father,
Colonel Thomas H. Edwards, was a veteran of the civil war and his
grandfather, Col. Jonathan Edwards, was a veteran of the Mexican
war. Thomas Edwards settled in McCammon in 1900, being attracted to
the town by the opportunities it offered. Since that time he has
helped to organize the McCammon State Bank, of which he was formerly
president, the McCammon Telephone company, the Portneuf-Marsh Valley
Irrigation company, the Downey Townsite & Development company, the
Ferguson-Jenkins Drug company, of which Thomas Jenkins and Samuel
Ferguson are the present proprietors, and several other smaller
enterprises.
The first permanent settlement in Bannock county was made in 1866, when
a party of Latter Day Saints established themselves at what is now
Malad City. Since that time most of the larger Christian denominations
have carried their missionary work into the county, whose religious
development unfortunately has been carried on principally by a
succession of short ministries. In addition to the Rev. C. Van der
Donckt, of whom some account has already been given, two men, however,
have worked long and faithfully in building up the religious life of
the county. One of these is the Venerable Howard Stoy, an archdeacon
of the Episcopal church, who, with headquarters in Pocatello, gives
pastoral care to over twenty-five mission points, although not all
of these are in Bannock county. His jurisdiction, indeed, covers a
distance of more than two hundred miles westward from the Wyoming
line, and in the course of his work he sometimes travels three
thousand miles in a month. He has opened up many a town and hamlet
to churchly influence and has conducted services at points that had
never known a Christian service until his coming. Such men, above all
others, are contributing to both the present and future upbuilding of
the community, and to them is all honor due. Mr. George Peacock, a
missionary of the American Sunday School association of Philadelphia,
is another man who is sacrificing all worldly interests in order to
carry Christian instruction to children who must be without it, except
for him. Mr. Peacock organizes undenominational Sunday schools in
places that have no church, these schools in time being taken over by
the first church to establish itself in the town.
The principal occupations in the county at the present time are
ranching, stockraising and railroading. It is quite possible that
mining will be added to these in years to come, and that manufacturing
will soon be added to the list is a very safe prediction. The
exceptional railroad facilities, the abundant water power afforded by
the rapid current of the Portneuf, and the conveniences of a city like
Pocatello will offer strong inducements to manufacturers, as soon as
the population of the surrounding country is sufficiently great to
offer a lucrative market.
The history of Bannock county is one of which her citizens may well be
proud. It has been consistently progressive and healthy. The suffrage
was granted to women in 1896, when the state of Idaho adopted woman’s
suffrage, and in 1911 the county exercised its local option rights and
voted for prohibition.
With the exception of the strike in the Oregon Short Line Railroad
shops in Pocatello in 1911, when the shop-men walked out, there has
been no really serious labor trouble in the annals of the county, and
in the case of the strike in 1911, which is still unsettled, there was
no violence nor rioting.
The history of Bannock county is a history of honest men and clean
citizens. Its pages are unstained by any public scandal, or official
dishonesty, but, on the contrary, bear the records of an industrious
and true-hearted race of men. The future of the county is promising and
bright. The foundation of her development has been truly laid, and her
commanding commercial position, her abundant and fertile resources,
her splendid climate and her excellent railroad facilities insure a
prosperity that few other communities can expect.
Transcriber’s Notes
Errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 43: “enerring instinct” changed to “unerring instinct”, “runing
from” changed to “running from”
Page 48: “infinite patince” changed to “infinite patience”
Page 134: “becoe firmly established” changed to “become firmly
established”
Page 139: “rade of machinist” changed to “trade of machinist”, “sever
winter” changed to “severe winter”
Page 140: “fire i 1913” changed to “fire in 1913”