City of Rocks Historic Resources Study

Their house was built of logs,
The ground they had for floors,
Of sod they built their chimneys
And sacks they had for doors. [227]

Proving Up

Upon first making the momentous decision to stay and to stake a claim, nineteenth century settlers most often resided in wagon boxes or tents, reserving their first frantic construction efforts for the agricultural infrastructure central to economic survival. The most easily prepared cultivable land was quickly grubbed of sage, occasionally lined with a shallow ditch, plowed, seeded in a first crop, and protected from stock by one of three common fence styles: "buck"; three-strand wire; or single strand wire with a pole on top and "dancers" between aspen or juniper posts (Figure 17).

Figure 17. Juniper-post, barbed-wire fence at City of Rocks National Reserve (HRA 1995).

By mid-June, the first garden plot could safely be planted; that of Frederick Ottley was "fenced" in dry sage. All required artificial irrigation, most often supplied from the developed springs that also provided domestic water.

Winter sustenance for themselves and their stock thus tenuously assured, residents ventured to the timbered reaches of the Albion Mountains, along the north and east slopes of the narrow valleys draining Mount Independence and Graham Peak. Here they harvested full logs of white and yellow pine, for use in construction of homes and outbuildings. Aspen poles and contorted juniper logs served as fence posts and supports for the dirt roofs that most often covered pioneers' first homes. (The "road to timber" noted by GLO surveyors in the late 1880s remains visible through the City of Rocks. Those who arrived in the 1870s remembered that "there was no road into the hills at all, they had to drag their timber out to make their buildings and fences.") [228]

Long-time resident Etta Taylor described homes as generally consisting of only one room, "close built, daubed up with mud or clay, . . . [with] few windows ... and usually but one door." [229] John Lind's first cabin in Junction Valley was built of dovetailed hewn logs, chinked with clay and grass mortar. Small poles "fitted close together on top of heavy logs, and the tall grass and fine grasses to keep the dirt from falling through, completed a good dirt roof." [230]

The first windows of oiled paper were replaced with glass "when the first trip was made to Utah." The Thomas King family carefully fattened a litter of pigs all summer, loaded them in the wagon in the fall and proceeded south along the Kelton Stage Road to Salt Lake City. Here they attended the semi-annual gathering of the Mormon faithful, traded the pigs for window glass, and returned home. [231]

As the size of the community increased, neighbors would hold "house-raisings," and a home could be constructed in a matter of days. [232] Skilled carpenters were rare, occasionally called on for the more technical tasks of setting windows and doors "but outside of that, we built the rest of the house of our own initiative and know how. We built our barns and corrals. There wasn't much." [233]

The seasonal habitation practiced by many of the area's dryland farmers affected the built environment. In striking contrast to the tight-fitted, closely daubed winter residences described by Lind and Taylor, the seasonal home of Mrs. Angie Holley (widow of original claimant John Holley) was a

small 14' x 18' rough hewed log cabin of one room with windows east and west and door to the east. The roof is of lumber, covered with dirt. The floor is laid with dressed 12 inch boards with some wide cracks between boards which permit drafts from the exterior. The base of the cabin, which is built upon logs set as posts in the ground, is not sealed with dirt or by other means." [234]

The "single boarded, 2 room, 14' x 22' box" inhabited by Thomas Fairchild, his wife, and their seven children was similarly unsuitable for winter use. [235]

A few of the dryland farmers did attempt to stay year-round on their upland claims. Walter Mooso spent three winters at his homestead at the southern base of the Twin Sisters. He lived in a "two-story," log house with a little room upstairs. This log dwelling replaced his first 10 x 12' board shack that had a [box] "car" roof.

Within the larger City of Rocks region, a progression of housing styles evidenced economic stability and Mormon adherence to Brigham Young's directive to build with brick and stone in symbolic testimony to the Saints' difference from and resilience to, the Gentile community. In Almo, brick and stone replaced the log and frame buildings initially constructed by area settlers. In many cases locally manufactured brick was simply applied as a veneer to the log and frame buildings — thus achieving the desired appearance without incurring the expense of constructing a new building. Within the reserve, only the Tracys' Circle Creek Ranch achieved this level of stability with the completion of their stone ranch house. [236]

Interior furnishings were similarly sparse. In 1888, City of Rocks resident George Lunsford furnished his 16' x 18' log house with "1 stove, two beds, 1 table and culinary utensils, [and a] sewing machine." In the "very early days" prior to the 1883 arrival of the Oregon Short Line to Burley, residents constructed their own "crude" furniture; freight charges for furniture were high, and rocking chairs and bureaus "were almost forbidden luxuries." "Pewter and tin dishes" furnished the tables. In the absence of electricity (brought to the Raft River Valley in 1940), residents relied upon oil lamps, pitcher pumps, coal or wood stoves, and ice boxes. Those without ice boxes hung perishables on long ridge poles running along the north side of the house. [237]

Patent files for claims within the boundaries of the City of Rocks National Reserve are primarily for small-scale dryland claims and reveal a remarkable similarity in agricultural infrastructure. Residents consistently constructed hen houses/chicken coops, pig pens, "carrels (corrals [?])," "hay carrels," miscellaneous sheds, cellars, developed springs, miles of fencing, and an occasional barn. The more prosperous irrigated and stock claims of George David, Mary Ann and William Tracy, George Lunsford (sold to William Tracy), Margaret and John Hansen, and Eugene Durfee also boasted stables, granaries, hay yards, and stockyards (see Appendix A). Like the homes, ranch infrastructure evolved as money, time, and manpower were made available: John Lind constructed his barn in 1894, ten years after initial settlement. A rock floor and piped water "came a little later." [238]

Rough-milled lumber needed for residential and agricultural development was supplied locally. As early as 1890 saw mills operated at various times on Howell Creek, Howell Canyon (later moved to Bennett Spring), Stines Canyon, Almo Canyon, Mill Creek, Cassia Creek, Pole Canyon, Rock Creek, Johnson Creek, and George Creek. These mills provided roughsawn lumber for siding and door and window frames, poles for fences, and shingles for roofs. All Minidoka timber products were "used locally for the development and maintenance of agriculture"; the vast majority of the 2,000 special-use permits issued on the Minidoka National Forest in 1917 — "the height of the dryfarm era" — were for small-scale timber harvests of posts and poles. Similarly, at least two brickyards existed in the vicinity of Almo, producing brick from local clay. [239]

Irrigation Systems

The Desert Land Act testimonies of Mary Ann Tracy (who owned Circle Creek Ranch with her husband William), of Margaret Hansen (whose land adjoined the holdings of her husband John Hansen), and of Joseph Moon provide limited descriptions of irrigation networks constructed within the boundaries of the City of Rocks National Reserve. The Circle Creek Ranch main ditches, drawing from reservoirs on Dry Canyon, North Circle, and South Circle creeks, averaged 1 foot deep and 1.5 feet wide. (The dimensions for two "smaller" lateral ditches are not provided.) (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Ditch network associated with Circle Creek Ranch, Circle Creek Basin, City of Rocks, 1903 (Mary Mary Ann Tracy, "Final Proof," Desert Land Entry #567, National Archives, Suitland, Maryland).

In 1909, Margaret Hansen proposed to construct a reservoir on the South Fork of Circle Creek, "300 feet long, 10 feet high, and backing water up about 150 feet." Main ditches from this water source were to be 1.5 feet deep and 2.5 feet wide, with a capacity of "about 200 inches." No evidence of either the reservoir or the ditches was found in the field, suggesting that the system was never constructed.

In 1925, Joseph Moon patented land encircling the Emigrant Canyon spring and containing the abandoned City of Rocks stagecoach station; his requisite irrigation network consisted of a stone dam below the spring, and a "trench" running from the reservoir out of a steep gully to a main ditch and two laterals.

Most often, limited irrigation water within the City of Rocks was drawn from the developed springs that also provided domestic water. At the Samuel and Emma Mikesell homestead, for example, a windmill powered the pump that fed not only the large garden, but the trees and roses that shaded the porch of the sheepherder wagon that had been converted to their home. [240]

The Transportation Network

The transportation network also reflected the evolving economic orientation of the area. Prior to passage of the Enlarged Homestead Act, roads within the City of Rocks generally followed the historic alignments of the overland trails and the various routes of the Kelton Road. Insubstantial secondary routes led "to timber" or served as cattle and sheep trails. [241]

E.B. Dayley, who pioneered the Basin community, near the northwest corner of the City of Rocks National Reserve, informed forest ranger C.E. Jensen that, in 1881,

there were no roads at all, his job was to get ahead of the expedition with shovel and pick and locate crossings and start work on them until the rest caught up, then they would finish and he [would] proceed on ahead. . . . In this way the first routes of travel [to Albion and Rock Creek] were established.... Before that they had to go to Utah to get flour and the necessities they could not make." [242]

The condition of the California Trail between Almo and Junction Valley was so poor in the 1880s that custom threshing crews from Almo were unable to travel to John Lind's Junction Valley homestead. Improvements to this first road network were made by community road associations. In Almo, ca. 1880, "each man in the community was assessed three dollars, to be paid in cash or labor." [243]

With the ca. 1910 settlement of Junction Valley and of the City of Rocks, these routes were improved, fenced, and reconstructed to follow section/claim lines. The intensive operation of Utah's Vipont Mine, 1918 to 1922, also resulted in significant improvements to the Birch Creek road, the primary haul road for Vipont ore. [244] By 1920, the regional road network had achieved roughly its current configuration:

Oakley is joined to Burley . . . by a graded and graveled highway. From Oakley a secondary road in fair condition leads southeastward across the Cassia City of Rocks. Another road extends directly east and across the Albion Range and descends to Elba.... From Albion a secondary road passes southward through Elba and Almo to the Cassia City of Rocks . . . . The basins and foothills of the ranges are nearly everywhere accessible, mostly on roads which are not maintained and seldom used except by sheep wagons. [245]

These were the days of the "9-foot standards" when the grades necessitated "supplemental pushing or leaving the car at the bottom of the hill." [246] Not surprisingly, much of this road system was unusable during the winter months, including the road "across the Albion Range," and the Emery Canyon road connecting Oakley with the City of Rocks; Oakley residents were thus effectively isolated from the Raft River Valley for much of the year and those who resided on the "easterly side" of Goose Creek "transact[ed] all or the greater part of their business" in those communities east of the City of Rocks, primarily Burley and Albion, but including Almo, Elba, and Malta. (This reliance upon local trading centers was historically blunted, in part, by Mormon residents' semi-annual pilgrimages to Salt Lake City, in April and November, for the meetings of the faithful. Here they made their major purchases, and reinforced southern Idaho's cultural, religious, and economic ties to Utah. In modern times, the reliance upon local merchants for even day-to-day necessities and incidental purchases was lessened by "extensive use of the automobile" and improvements in the county road system, both of which facilitated buying trips to Burley, Twin Falls, and Boise.) [247]

Local residents, through the road associations, maintained as well as constructed these gravel roads. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps also assumed responsibility for the construction and reconstruction of approximately 50 miles of road within the boundaries of the Minidoka National Forest, including the Birch Creek road to the City of Rocks. Despite these improvements, as late as the 1950s, residents put their cars away in November, choosing the more "sure" conveyance of team and sleigh. [248]