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. Cray,
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 sever, 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. 0.
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, stock raising 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
truehearted 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.
The History of Bannock County
Idaho, By Arthur C. Saunders, Pocatello, Idaho. U. S.
A., The Tribune Company. Limited, 1915
History of
Bannock County, Idaho
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