History Corner

The winter of 1888-89 was a mild one, with little snow. The population of communities along the Weiser River continued to grow rapidly. In Long Valley, settlement was just getting started (there were 150 to 200 residents), and the easy winter attracted a rush of new homesteaders in the summer of 1889. People were so optimistic that they even planted fruit trees.

Albert Kleinschmidt’s goal for 1889 was to ship two train car loads of copper ore from Weiser to his smelter every day. Part of that plan depended on whether he could find enough mules or horses to pack the ore to the wagon road and then procure enough wagons, teams and teamsters to haul it to Weiser. How much ore he managed to ship that summer is hard to tell, but the difficulties of packing the ore to the nearest wagon road, plus the distance to Weiser, must have been what motivated him to come up with an entirely different transportation plan the next year.

Meanwhile, the Weiser Leader reported: “J.H. Rodgers came in late last Tuesday from the Seven Devils. (This had to have been “J.C. Rogers” often called Johnny Rogers.) Mr. Rodgers reports that he is still hauling ore to Weiser, and shall continue to do so, during the summer, having three to four thousand sacks of fine ore on hand, sacked during the winter. Mr. Rodgers reports the camp in good shape, and notwithstanding the stagnation of the copper market, he has the fullest confidence in its future. He still has a force employed developing the mines. Transportation is all that keeps this camp from being one of the most famous anywhere.”

Later that summer the Leader printed a long report of activities in the Seven Devils Mining District and said “The ore now being shipped will go all the way to Swansea, England for processing.” Swansea, (often called “Copperopolis”) was the most efficient copper processing hub in Europe and dominated the world’s copper industry in the 19th century. At one time it smelted over half of the world’s copper. Swansea imported ore from Chile, Cuba, and Australia, then exported refined copper worldwide. Swansea’s expertise influenced copper ventures abroad—including smelters in the U.S. like those tied to Belleville, Illinois, and to Montana investors. During the late 1800s and early 1900s more and better smelters were built in the U.S., and Swansea’s importance to American copper producers saw a decline.

Exactly why Kleinschmidt shipped ore to Swansea instead of his own smelter is not clear. Maybe the Swansea smelters were more efficient and/or got a better yield. One factor may well have been that Seven Devils copper ore was often in the form of Bornite, a colorful sulphide of copper often called “peacock ore.” Smelting sulfide ores requires additional milling and smelting steps because it is difficult to break the sulfide bonds and recover the full value of the metals (in this case, copper). This likely contributed to the later failure of every copper smelter in the Seven Devils Mining District.

The spring and summer of 1889 saw almost no rain. A severe drought hit the entire region. That fall the Snake River was so low at Weiser that someone drove a wagon across it, and the water barely came up past the axles. The Weiser river was lower than anyone could remember, and the water was warm.

Because of the drought, the settlers, especially in Long Valley, were not able to put up much hay for the coming winter, but if winters were as short and mild as the one before, they weren’t worried.

That summer a group Council Valley farmers started surveying an ambitious ditch to draw water from the East Fork of the Weiser River. It would not be started for another 9 years.

Fires erupted in the tinder-dry forests that fall. In September the Weiser Leader said Frank Harris reported a big forest fire on the east side of Galena mountain (Cuddy Mt.) near the headwaters of Hornet and Wildhorse Creeks. So far, the fire was ten miles long and five to seven miles wide.

A traveler out of Long Valley wrote to the Idaho World newspaper, “Following an old Indian trail up Big Creek from Long Valley, we struck the South Salmon. The forest fires have been almost everywhere, and I have seen thousands of millions of trees killed by the fires of this summer.” A week later, the same paper said that it had rained around Long Valley and hopefully put out some of the fires. But it also said that 200 tons of hay had been destroyed by fires there. Both the rain and the lack of hay was an ominous sign of things to come.

That year the Weiser Leader newspaper started featuring poems written by Hannibal “Seven Devils” Johnson. His poems were probably brought to the Leader’s attention by Robert Lockwood who had mining claims in the Seven Devils Mining District. Lockwood Saddle is named after him. Lockwood moved to Weiser about 1889 and soon founded the Weiser Signal newspaper, which later published a book of Johnson’s poems.

One of Johnson’s first published poems in the Leader was titled “Cuddy Flour.” It was 24 verses long and derided the coarse quality of Cuddy’s flour before Cuddy obtained better grinding equipment. The Leader editor said, “We publish the same by request, believing it to be written in a good spirit toward Mr. Cuddy and that it is aimed as a farewell to his burr mill flour.” Cuddy had only recently replaced his old burr mill with a new roller mill that yielded finer flour.

About a month later, the Leader featured another of Johnson’s poems called “Farewell to Idaho,” but only named the author as “A Seven Devil Miner.”

All summer area residents had been praying for rain that never made much of an appearance. But in December it started snowing. And it kept snowing. Everyone was delighted. Until they weren’t. The winter of 1889 - 1890 would be legendary. That story next week.