HISTORY OF THE BOISE NATIONAL FO 1905 1976. C 0 0 0 • A HISTORY OF THE BOISE NATIONAL FOREST 1905-1976 by ELIZABETH M. SMITH IDAHO STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOISE 1983 History of the Boise National Forest, 1905-1976, is published under a co- operative agreement between the Idaho State Historical Society and the Boise National Forest. DEDICATION This history is dedicated to the memory of Guy B. Mains, who served as supervisor of the former Payette National Forest from 1908 to 1920 and 1924 to 1925 and was supervisor of the former Boise National Forest from 1925 to 1940. He spent a total of twenty-eight years in the development of the present Boise National Forest, serving as a supervisor for over one-third of the total history of the forest from its beginning in 1905 to the present. kJ TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Boise National Forest Data ix PART I: BEFORE THE NATIONAL FOREST Indians 3 Fur Trade, Exploration, and Emigration 7 Mining 11 Chinese 18 Settlement 20 Place Names 25 7. Early Transportation 29 PART II: CREATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND ADMINISTRATION Creation of the Boise National Forest 39 Administering the Forest 44 Civilian Conservation Corps 55 Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station 61 The Lucky Peak Nursery 66 Youth Conservation Corps 68 PART III: RESOURCES AND FUNCTIONS Geology 71 Watershed, Soils, and Minerals 73 Timber Management 82 Range Management 91 Wildlife Management 99 Recreation and Land Use 105 Fire Management 111 Improvements and Engineering 127 Conclusion 135 APPENDICES Supervisors and Headquarters Locations 139 Early Mining Methods and Terms 140 Towns and Mining Camps 143 Changes in Management Through Legislation 148 Dams and Reservoirs 153 Graves in the Boise National Forest 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY 161 Illustrations Map of the Boise National Forest Photographs following page 78 . i U ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is a brief record of the monumental task that has been per- formed by a long line of dedicated foresters. In the larger sense, this history has been "written" by those whose lives have been spent caring for, managing, and improving the Boise National Forest. Many past and present Forest Service personnel and numerous other people have contributed facts, ideas, and reminiscences. Some have read, cor- rected and added to portions of this work. I am indebted to the person- nel of the Boise National Forest at the time the study was written for their gracious cooperation and helpfulness, and particularly to the district rangers who dug deep into their files; Wally Shiverdecker and Don Hansen, then the public relations officers, who kept pushing the work; and Edward C. Maw, then the forest supervisor. I am grateful to Dr. Merle Wells, state historian and archivist, Idaho State Historical Society, for taking time to read critically Part I of this manuscript. Other Historical Society staff who gave assistance are Judith Austin and Robert Romig. Robert Brown of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Boise; William Harvey, of the Idaho Department of Transportation; personnel of the Idaho De- partment of Fish and Game; and Joanne Thompson, Boise Cascade Corpora- tion also provided valuable assistance. Elizabeth M. Smith ) BOISE NATIONAL FOREST Location: Southwestern part of the state of Idaho. Derivation of name: The forest was named for the Boise River, which flows through much of it. The word Boise is from the French, meaning "wooded." The river was called Boise as early as 1812. Principal drainage: Boise River, Payette River, Middle and South forks of the Salmon River. All of the river drainages are part of the Snake River system. Predominating timber species: Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir. The Boise National Forest is one of the largest of the nation's national forests. The gross area within its boundaries is 2,958,356 acres, in- cluding 2,642,453 acres of national-forest lands and 315,903 acres in other ownership. PART I BEFORE THE NATIONAL FOREST INDIANS There is evidence that intelligent, highly skilled people have lived in Idaho for at least the past twelve to fifteen thousand years. Near the end of the Ice Age or Pleistocene geological epoch, some 13,000 years ago, people living a semi-nomadic life apparently entered Idaho. 1 Anthropologists have found two Indian cultural groups in Idaho, known as Plateau and Great Basin. Though Plateau cultures are found north of the Salmon River, evidence suggests that Plateau people occupied areas of southwestern and west-central Idaho some time between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. The Great Basin cultures found south and east of the Salmon River include such groups as the Northern and Western Shoshoni, the Bannock, 2 and the Northern Paiute. These groups were known generally in the nineteenth century as Snake Indians. The Northern Shoshoni left evidence in central Idaho of having held to a way of life for 8,000 years or more. Eight to ten thousand years ago, their patterns of existence in southern Idaho were similar to those found over a large part of the Great Basin in Utah and Nevada. However, a change of climate about 7,000 years ago dried up much of the Great Basin and changed the way of life of people in that low-lying geo- graphic area. The ancestors of the Northern Shoshoni slowly moved to high mountain country in central Idaho, where they could continue their big-game-hunting way of life. As a result, they survived into the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries and provide likely evidence of a much older way of life. Their relatives the Western Shoshoni and Northern Paiute changed their way of life to fit their changing environment and became dependent upon seed gathering and hunting of small mammals.3 Unchallenged by other Indians, the Mountain Shoshoni--a branch of the Northern Shoshoni often called Sheepeaters or Tukudeka--used most of the area that is now the Payette, Salmon, Boise, Challis, Sawtooth, and Beaverhead national forests. 4 The Sheepeaters never used horses in great numbers, though other Shoshoni acquired them as early as 1700. The area inhabited by the Sheepeaters was too rough to support horses and allow them to be used to advantage in hunting and travel. Sheep- eaters who did acquire horses tended to leave the extremely rough areas of central Idaho and join their relatives the Lemhi Indians, who were largely Mountain Shoshoni living in more open country where they could support horses and use them to advantage in hunting buffalo. The Sheepeaters' diet included a variety of roots, seeds, and ber- ries. They constructed weirs and dams to catch salmon. They were the most skilled hunters on foot of all Idaho Indians, using excellent bows of laminated horn of the bighorn mountain sheep, light snowshoes in win- ter, and dogs trained for the chase. They were excellent furriers, and their skin products were highly prized by other Indians and by white fur traders.5 Most of the Boise National Forest has been sparsely inhabited by Indians. Archaeological sites, including several rock shelters, camp- 4 sites, and burial grounds, have been located on various rivers in the area. Pictographs have been discovered near rock shelters and artifacts have been found along the rivers.6 Within historic times the area of the Boise National Forest was primarily Northern Shoshoni country, including both Mountain (Sheep- eater) Shoshoni and, in the southern part, Boise Shoshoni. Other Indian groups ventured into the area for hunting and for trade. The old fur- trade Fort Boise trading post, built in 1834, was located near the mouth of the Boise River because this was an area where Indians gathered for fishing and trade. The area was common ground for Shoshoni and Bannock; the Nez Perce came regularly for annual trading fairs. Other groups that occasionally ventured into this area included Northern Paiute, Cayuse, and Plains Indians. During the years of the fur trade, the Indians of Idaho had no ma- jor wars with the white newcomers, although there were some minor skir- mishes. The fur trade did not seriously disrupt the Indian way of life. But when gold seekers in the 1860's moved into the mountains where the Sheepeaters fished and hunted, many of the Sheepeaters moved out and joined their relatives among the Lemhi Indians.7 Permanent white settlement and ranching, which followed the rush for gold, made life difficult for the Indians. As more country was set- tled, serious trouble arose. In 1878, a year after the Nez Perce War began in north Idaho, the Bannock War broke out in south Idaho. A ser- ies of irritations and grievances had built up, including poor manage- ment of the Fort Hall Reservation, friction between Bannock and Shoshoni groups, and trouble over the white man's pasturing pigs and other live- stock on Camas Prairie. The summer of 1878 was a restless time for residents of the Boise Valley as Buffalo Horn led his Bannock warriors westward, sinking Glenn's ferryboat on the Snake and battling the whites at South Mountain in the Owyhees. After the death of Buffalo Horn, the Bannocks joined Chief Egan's Oregon band of Northern Paiutes. As the war dissipated in eastern Oregon, Bannock warriors filtered back into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, raising trouble along the way. Some of these Indians, who were pursued by the military, sought refuge among the Sheepeaters; this may have given the Sheepeaters their undeserved repu- tation as a band of outcasts. During the Bannock War, an ambush of four whites in Long Valley near Cascade was attributed by some to the Sheepeaters, as was the kill- ing of five Chinese miners on Loon Creek Challis National Forest) on February 12, 1879.