When the World Came to Shoup

The road to Shoup had finally been completed, linking the canyon more firmly to the outer world.

Freight boats still ran the Salmon River, bringing supplies into town and to the mines on Pine Creek. On one such trip Bill Taylor and Johnny Burr brought a boat downriver together. Johnny spent much of the journey horsing around—diving off the scow and climbing back aboard again as it drifted through calm stretches of the canyon.

When they reached Shoup, Johnny dove into the river with the rope, intending to swim it ashore and secure the boat.

He never came up.

They searched the river for days. Johnny’s body was finally found at Cove Creek, ten miles downriver, and he was buried there.[1]

Not long afterward came word by post: the Lusitania had been torpedoed off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915. A passenger ship, no less, with women and children aboard. More than a thousand people were dead.

Just like that, the world tipped closer to madness.

Life in the canyon went on. In early June Arlin rode to Salmon with an extra horse and was waiting at the depot platform when Olive stepped off the train.

After five girls, Ed’s sister Alta gave birth to a boy on July 30, 1915. Of course he was named after his father, Peter, though everyone soon called him Petey.

In the middle of August Bill and Annie decided to sell the ranch. Prospective buyers arrived from Boise, and the couple went to Salmon to finalize the sale.[2]

While they were gone, Arlin and Olive rode off on a horseback trip of their own and came back married. They set off again for a honeymoon in the mountains, sleeping under the stars.

The sale of the ranch fell through. Bill had never filed for a patent on the land, and without clear title the deal could not be completed. Ed and Nora continued to work the place under lease, Ed still hoping one day to buy it himself.

Before long a battle over the homestead rights began between Bill and Annie. It ended only when Bill received the patent to the property.[3]

Beyond the canyon, the world was sliding toward war.

On April 6, 1917, the United States entered what people were already calling the Great War. Young men downriver began signing up for service. On June 5, men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty were required to register under the Selective Service Act.

Ed was twenty-eight, but farmers were often allowed to remain on the land. The government recognized that food was as critical as soldiers, and local draft boards could defer men whose labor kept farms operating.

Herbert Hoover, head of the U.S. Food Administration, put it plainly: “Food will win the war.”

In remote valleys like Pine Creek, raising crops, tending cattle, and keeping families fed was understood as part of the war effort itself.

Europe struggled to feed itself, and millions of soldiers had to be supplied. American farms helped feed both civilians and armies, and demand for wheat, meat, and dairy rose accordingly, lifting prices after years of hardship. Farming did not become easier, but for the first time in years it began to pay.

With the war came new ways of gathering and new reasons to work. Women organized basket socials, packing meals into decorated baskets that were auctioned to raise money for the war effort. The proceeds were usually sent to the American Red Cross, Liberty Loan drives, or local relief committees that supplied soldiers with comforts and medical aid.

The sums raised were modest, but the evenings mattered—music, laughter, and the comfort of company in places where isolation was often the greater hardship.

Mining also saw a lift. With the young men gone to war in Europe, Middle-aged men had no competition for mining jobs. Demand for metals rose sharply as the war expanded. Gold, silver, and base metals were needed for industry, currency, and confidence, and in places like Shoup and Pine Creek the mines offered wages at a time when steady work was never guaranteed.

Then a danger appeared—one no one had expected.

Early in 1918 a deadly strain of influenza began spreading across the United States. It came to be called the Spanish flu, though many historians believe the outbreak began in Kansas. Troop movements carried the disease around the the country and world.

Unlike most influenza, it did not spare the strong. It struck down people in the prime of life, and pregnant women were especially vulnerable, often resulting in maternal death and stillbirth.

By May the outbreak seemed to fade. But when summer ended the flu returned, this time more contagious and far deadlier.

Idaho responded by closing schools, forbidding public gatherings, encouraging personal hygiene, and advising people to cover their faces with scarves. In Salmon, armed guards were posted on the roads leading into town to keep travelers out and prevent the disease from spreading.

The effort only postponed the inevitable.

On November 11, 1918, the guns finally fell silent across Europe.

The end came not through careful negotiation but through collapse—Germany worn down by years of war, hunger, and unrest, its allies defeated and its government falling apart. For most people the reasons mattered less than the simple fact that the war was finally over.

The conflict had raged in Europe for just over four years, and for the United States for only eighteen months.

But the Spanish flu kept marching on.

NOTES

[1] Billy Taylor Interview regarding the Salmon National Forest History; https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/85379-billy-taylor-interview-regarding-salmon-national-forest-history; History of the Salmon National Forest, Part 4 B. https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/4/salmon/history/part4.htm

[2] Idaho Recorder, August 19, 1915. The White Horse Mine was one of the Kirtley Creek mines, located at an elevation of 9,100 feet, norteast of Salmon.

[3] Patent No. 540320, July 28, 1916, 77 1/4 acres.