IDAHO: Homesteaders of ’54

On the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail, traveled by so many wagons that their rutted tracks remained imprinted on the wilderness for decades, the pioneers fared worst along the fearsome Snake River valley.

No game lived there; no food could be found in the cheat grass and grotesque lava beds. In places the river gorge cut so deep that voyagers could not get down to the water. At times Indians pounced; in 1862 they ambushed a caravan of 25 Iowa families, killing nine settlers and scalping six.

Last week, an hour’s drive from the site of the massacre of ’62, homesteaders of 1954 crowded into Rupert. Idaho, for a land drawing. At stake: 100-acre homesteads in the valley of the Snake, worth upwards of $10,000 each—when soaked with irrigation water and sweat.

Land & Water. The valley of the Snake has become one of Idaho’s richest farm areas; along a 200-mile stretch of the river, business is brisk, and crops (beets, potatoes, alfalfa, produce) grow green. Water made the difference. Teddy Roosevelt’s 1902 Reclamation Act brought the water; since then, the U.S. Reclamation Bureau has built a $25 million complex of dams and canals (repayable from water and power revenue) to irrigate a million acres. Another homesteading project developed when, in 1947, a well digger struck a great underground river.

Several Idaho streams, e.g., the Lost River, sink into the lava wastelands but, about 200 ft. down, flow in a steady surge. Pumps are tapping the water, enough for 648 new homesteads. At last week’s drawing, 85 were to be parceled out.

For the drawing, some 6,000 people-ranchers, townsfolk, Indians—crowded into the bright, flag-draped town square of Rupert (pop. 4,000). Under trees and ten-gallon hats, they watched a parade, listened to political speeches and waited for the winning names to be drawn. Tired of waiting and hoping, lean young (30) Leslie Clair Powers fell asleep on the grass. Next thing he knew, his wife Elizabeth was shaking him awake in wild excitement: the loudspeaker had blared his name.

Work & Hope. When Homesteader Powers drove out to see the land, he found only sagebrush and stones in the desert vastness. “Just looking at it scared me,” he said. He was tempted to stay on his father’s farm in Utah. But he talked it over with Elizabeth and decided: “We’re going to tackle it.” The Bureau of Reclamation supplies the water, but Powers must repay the cost (up to $830 yearly); he must settle on the land, clear it and make it grow.

In the fall, he plans to move to his land, build a five-room house for Elizabeth and their three young children (Monty, Randy and Michael). “I’ve done carpenter work, and I think I can get my house up.” he said quietly. “Besides, many of the veterans who got farms up there last year came and offered to help. One fellow, a bachelor, is living in a tent, but you should see the crops he’s got . . .” By spring, with his family in, Powers hopes to clear the rocks, uproot the brush and plow the land for his first crop, probably grain. For years to come, he hopes for very little—no telephone, no paved road, no nearby school, nothing much but a chance to make a living on his own land. “We’ll plant trees,” he told Elizabeth as they stared across the bare, baking soil they had won. “If you like, we’ll plant some roses, too.”