Before the close of 1885 the families of James Mitchell, A.T. Lawrence, Darius Allen, Joshua Adams, Felix, Heber, Frank and Ann Husband, Albert Christiansen and N.G. Mickelson settled here. Soon other followed. These settlers were organized into a branch of the L.D.S. church in 1893 and a log room built by George Steel served as the first school with Miss Wood as teacher. In Feb. 1895 in the home of Wm. Crandall, the Ward of Shelley was organized with John F. Shelley as bishop. Early pioneers made irrigation possible in this sector.
The above text is from the monument (Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #216) located at 219 South Milton Avenue in Shelley, Idaho.
A few fur trappers, led by Andrew Henry, arrived along the Snake River in 1810. They built log shelters about five miles downstream from St. Anthony and established Henry’s Fort. Other trappers who spent time in the area included men from the Wilson Price Hunt Company and Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh.
The first permanent settlers, brother William, Thomas and Andy McMinn, came from Corrine, Utah, in 1879. William settled near Henry’s Fort on the south side of the Snake River. Thomas and Andy settled on the north side. Several more men arrived in 1883 to claim land. They returned to Utah for the winter and brought families back in the spring.
The pioneers lived in tents and dugouts until cabins could be built. Crops were planted, and then most of the men went to work on the railroad that was being built from Idaho Falls, Idaho to Butte, Montana. The women and children were left to tend the cattle and crops. Mosquitoes were so thick they caused livestock to stampede. It sounded like rain when the mosquitoes hit the tents.
The area between the north and south forks of the Teton River was swampy. Ditches were dug to drain the water and were later used for irrigating the land.
On November 23, 1884, a meeting was held in the home of George P. Ward. A town site was chosen and named “Salem,” which means peace. A congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. George H.B. Harris was sustained as Bishop.
Most of the land had been claimed by 1886. Two church houses were built and dedicated in 1885. One building was on Joseph Larsen’s farm in the north part of Salem and also served as a school. Joseph was the teacher. The other building was constructed on the town site. The town had two stores, a cheese factory and a saloon. Clem Ward, whose horse would swim rivers, delivered mail until a post office was established in 1893.
The above text is from the monument (Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #545) located at3462 North Salem Road in Rexburg, Idaho.
In August 1903, Mark Austin negotiated the purchase of a section of land here, the south half to be used as this town site and the north half, about 1/2 mile northeast, to be used for a sugar beet factory for the Fremont County Sugar Company. By October 1903, E.H. Dyer had contracted to build the $750,000 factor. Early in 1904, the company signed an additional contract with Dyer providing for the erection of an auxiliary plant at Parker, bringing the total to nearly $1 million.
On December 8, 1903, President Joseph F. Smith, elected president of the company, laid the cornerstone of the factory which processed 35,000 tons of beets the next fall. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent 3 chemists from Germany to teach the people how to make sugar. Growing beets required very hard labor. Planting, cultivating, and digging were done with horses, but the difficult thinning, weeding, irrigating, toping, and loading were done by hand by the farmer and his family. In 1906 the company paid laborers and growers $3/4 million. The town grew and 20 businesses flourished here.
At the slicer in Parker, beet juice was extracted and pumped almost 6 miles away through a pipeline to the factory in Sugar City. The slicer was closed in 1913 because of difficulties incident to the extremely cold weather. Juice would freeze in the pipeline, and the water and beets would freeze in the flume.
Because of limitations of acreage and labor, the factory was closed in 1940 and 1941 but reopened for the last campaign in 1942. The factory was dismantled in 1947.
The above text is from the monument (Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #525) located at Park Avenue and Center Street in Sugar City, Idaho.
In the spring of 1883, a group of men led by Richard Hemsley and James Steel left Salt Lake City, by train, in search of a new place to live. They rode to the end of the railroad line, Market Lake, now Roberts, Idaho. Here they obtained horses and rode east across the desert to the Snake River. They followed the river north and found a land of sand and sagebrush with fertile soil and ample water and decided to locate there.
All returned to Salt Lake City and prepared to move. This time they traveled in wagons with their families and household goods. Driving their cattle along, they reached their destination just before dark on October 3, 1883. In April, 1884, Robert Fisher arrived, built a house of logs, and sent for his wife. Thus began a steady stream of settlers.
Later, when a townsite was formed and a post office established in this area, it was given the name of Plano. This was suggested by a school teacher who said that the Spanish word meant “a level place.”
The above text is from the monument (Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #486) located at 5980 North 5000 West in Rexburg, Idaho.
Jenny Leigh, an Eastern Shoshone Indian of Chief Washakie’s People, was born in 1849. She first married a French-Canadian trapper, who was later killed and despoiled of his furs by an Indian in Jackson Hole Country.
She later married Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh, who was the first permanent Caucasian resident of Upper Snake River Valley. This was the first wedding ceremony with a trapper marrying an Indian that was performed according to the laws in this region. They were married by a minister. Six children were born to this union.
Jenny and their children went with Beaver Dick on his hunting trips, After Beaver Dick shot his game, Jenny and her children would take the Indian ponies and bring home the meat. She was inoffensive, hardworking, efficient, and dutiful. Her ability to tan hides, cure meat, make and pitch wickiups, cook meals, and perform all manner of labor make Beaver Dick’s life comfortable. She protected and humored him; she tenderly care for their children. She often assisted the early Mormon pioneers, showing them where to pick wild berries and hunt for small game.
Jenny and their children accompanied Beaver Dick on many government expeditions and hunting trips into the Fire Hole (Yellowstone). She participated in President Roosevelt’s tour of Yellowstone, the first National Park, and Hayden’s Geological Survey of the western United States.
An Indian, named Humpty, died near Market Lake, leaving his squaw and child affected with his illness. Ignorant of their true condition (small pox), these two spread a path of desolation among the trappers of the Upper Snake River Valley.
On December 10, 1876, the diseased Indians exposed the entire Leigh family. Jenny and all six children died, The firstborn (sic, newborn?) child died on December 17, 1876. The other five children from December 14 through December 18, 1876.
Beaver Dick converted his cabin into a burial ground. Because the ground was frozen, he removed the floorboards and buried their bodies in the dirt. This is the actual site of the cabin. Jenny Lake in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is named in honor of Jenny Leigh.
The above text is from Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #565 located at the Jenny Leigh Pioneer Cemetery north of approximately 5500 West Highway 33 in Rexburg, Idaho.
The photos below were submitted by Marshall Hurst:
Two miles east is located the dam and headworks of the canal system. Incorporation was effected Feb. 4, 1899 for the purpose of irrigating this valley. First filing on Bear River to supply the canal was Mar. 4, 1897. To perfect the right it was necessary to put the water through the right of way by Feb. 12, 1899. This tremendous task was accomplished through the ingenuity and perseverance of the brave men and women who pioneered this valley.
The text above is from Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #219, located at 206 North Main Street in Grace, Idaho.
This area, known as Ten Mile Sterrett and Ivins, was opened for homesteading in 1880. Emigrants from Utah and Iceland transformed sagebrush lands to productive livestock farms. They befriended the roaming Indians and Oregon Trail travelers. Jared Williams donated this plot 72×105 feet. Twenty person are buried here from 1893 to 1940.
The text above is from Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #348, located on Ivins Road in Bancroft, Idaho.
One block west from this site, in 1894, the pioneers of this area erected a school house built of red brick made and kilned by them. It was one room, twenty-five by forty feet. Guss Erickson laid the brick, first teachers were Edith Townsend and Nathan Barlow. In 1907 the school was sold to the L.D.S. Church and additional rooms built. It was used as a place of worship until 1930. The bell hung in a tower of the school house and called the people to school, church, and other assemblies. When the building was razed in 1945 the bell was given to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
The text above is from Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #232, located at 95 South Main Street in Bancroft, Idaho.
The Mapleton Ward Relief Society Hall was built in 1888 on Hans Peter Jensen’s property at 195 East Maple Street in Mapleton. The building was 15- by 20 feet, with two doors, two windows, and a tin roof. The interior of the Relief Society Hall was large enough for a quilting frame and chairs. To earn money for constructing and maintaining the building, the Mapleton women held bake sales, made and served dinners, crafted sellable items for their bazaars, and other activities.
The building provided a center for the Relief Society organization of the Church to meet and conduct activities and assist those needing food, clothing, and other items. The women also raised and sold wheat and earned money to build a granary for storage and distribution of the wheat. The Hall was the center of the Relief Society women’s organization until 1917 when it became too small for the growing membership and activities.
In 2019, the original Hall was taken down brick by brick. In 2020, volunteers of Mapleton rebuilt the Hall in the Mapleton Towne Square, using the original brick and materials. The restored Mapleton Relief Society Hall was completed in 2021 and stands as a tribute to the strong and faithful women of Mapleton.
President Brigham Young directed Mariner W. Merrill to explore new town sites. Out of Merrill’s survey, several families from Richmond, Utah crossed the Bear River on April 15, 1865, and settled in the Weston area. The first dugouts were constructed in the Meadows of Cedarville.
The very next year, 1866, a grist mill was constructed by James Mack on Weston Creek south of the present town site. This new mill’s location resulted in the relocation of the proposed town. Rocks were hauled from Cedar Hills to construct the new mill. Mack acquired machinery for the mill from Thatcher’s in Logan. The grist mill used 3 1/2 foot stone burrs to grind grain, a small grain cleaner, two stands of elevators, and one centrifugal reel. Mack also installed a 13 1/4 foot James Leffel turbine that had been freighted to the west in1859.
Brigham Young visited Weston in 1869, and proclaimed that golden fields of hard red wheat would soon surround the community. The grist mill stimulated dry-farm wheat cultivation, and Brigham Young’s proclamation was soon fulfilled. The construction of the mill provided stimulus for several other early businesses, all powered by Weston Creek, including saw mills, iron works, spinning, carding, weaving and dyeing enterprises.
Building of the grist mill launched the new town of Weston. It was the only mill on the west side of Bear River. For many years, the mill operated 24 hours per day to meet the consumptive needs of Weston, Oxford, Clifton, Dayton, Clarkston and Cornish. Weston was also located on the “gold road” to mines in northern Idaho and Montana. Weston settlers shipped flour and other food items northward. The town quickly became a shipping center and was additionally enhanced when the railroad came to Weston in 1890.
The mill was often remodeled over the next 100 years, and it also changed owners several times. The mill operated in a modernized world with steel rollers and advanced technology, but it could not survive for very long in the post World War II Era.
The text above is from Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker #561, located on 2nd South in Weston, Idaho.
The pictures below were submitted by Marshall Hurst:
