History Corner

The communities along the upper Weiser River have gone through boom days of three industries that dominated the economy at various times in its history. The first industry was mining, which initiated much of the first settlement of central Idaho. The most recent industry to become a staple of the area was the timber / lumber industry, which still exists but is no longer a main driver of the area’s economy. Between those two booming industries came the fruit industry. The story of the boom and bust of that economic driver will be the subject of my next series of History Corners, with a focus on Mesa Orchards.

Although many early settlers grew a few fruit trees for their own use William and Dora Black, who settled on Hornet Creek about 1888, are generally credited with starting the first commercial orchard in the county. Samples of fruit from the Black’s orchard took a prize at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and some of their fruit was even sent to London and Paris for exhibition.

Even though Council area fruit was of high quality, the market was mostly limited to local sales until after the arrival of the railroad in 1901. By 1904, B.B. Day, who now owned the Black place, was shipping apples to markets as remote as Walla Walla and Nampa. The next year, he was sending apples to Chicago by the railroad car full, and area farmers were beginning realize that there was money to be made in fruit.

By the end of 1905 about 5,000 new fruit trees had been planted in the Council area. About that many more were planted in the spring of 1906.

Other fruit pioneers in the Council area about this time were A.E. Wiffin, Seward Piper, Morgan Gifford, Eliza Sorenson, and Joseph Carr. These orchards were on the slopes just east of Council.

Joseph Carr, who arrived here in 1903, is credited by some as initiating the fruit growing boom in the Council Valley. He had 160 acres east of town and raised apples and peaches. In 1907 he took an exhibit of apples to the National Horticultural congress at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and brought home seven silver cups as prizes, plus a number of medals and ribbons. At least one of these cups, along with others won between 1907 and 1909, are in the Council Valley Museum.

That same year (1907) local fruit men organized the Council Valley Fruit Growers Association. They encouraged the planting and promotion of commercial orchards.

Charles Lappin had an orchard to the north of the Orchard district on Lappin Lane. (Lappin Lane is named after him.) Lappin had one of the first commercial orchards in the valley, about 1907.

By 1908 there were about 175 acres of young fruit trees growing in the Council area. The Growers Association sent an exhibit to the Boise fair, and won 22 first prizes and 8 second prizes on their apples. And apples were again sent to the National Horticultural Congress in Council Bluffs, Iowa where they won 17 prizes.

By 1908 it is said that John J. Allison had been searching for five years to find an ideal place to grow fruit. While attending the State Horticulture meeting at Payette that year, he learned about the growing conditions and orchards in the Council area.

The location Allison decided he was looking for was on rolling hills seven miles south of Council. The area was being dry farmed by a few homesteaders, as there was no water for irrigation, aside from Bacon Creek, which dried up by mid-summer.

Allison, George Weise and Oberlin M. Carter, organized the Weiser Valley Land & Water Company, and using money from investors from all over the country, they purchased several thousand acres from the homesteaders. Their goal was to sell lots on which they would plant fruit trees.

The area was between the Middle Fork of the Weiser River and Indian Valley, and was somewhat elevated from all the land around it, forming a mesa of sorts. For this reason, the fruit growing enterprise took the name “Council Mesa Orchards Company.”

There was a post office somewhere near this location in 1908, under the name “Middle Fork.” The name of the post office wasn’t changed to “Mesa” until 1912.

Continued next week.