Stories about fishing abound in the pages of 1890s Idaho newspapers. A Statesman item published Jan. 15, 1890, described Sawtell’s Ranch on the west side of Henrys Lake near Yellowstone National Park as a “Hunter’s Paradise,” where game of all kind was plentiful, and where it was “not uncommon for one person to bring with hook and line from three to six hundred trout, fishing through the ice.”
A historical marker on Idaho 87 reads: “Sawtell’s Ranch. In 1868 Gilman Sawtell started a dude ranch and Henrys Lake fishery that did much to develop this natural resort area. Sawtell did everything from supplying swans for New York’s Central Park zoo to building a network of roads for tourist access to Yellowstone National Park. His commercial fishery served Montana mining markets. His pioneer Henrs Lake ranch was a major attraction here for a decade before rail service brought more settlers to the area.”
The Statesman story quoted earlier tells us that in 1890, Sawtell and his partner owned “a large trout pond where thousands of fish are annually hatched. On the eastern shore live two old timers whose ranch is devoted exclusively to the accommodation of tourists and sportsman.” The owners of this ranch were Vic Smith and Dick Rock, both described as “old hunters, scouts, and guides.”
Smith enjoyed telling people that he once had killed 107 buffalo in less than an hour in one stand between Red Water and Dry Fork on the Upper Missouri in the old days. How much of Smith’s story was true we can only guess, but it explains why the buffalo were hunted nearly to extinction.
Prodigious catches of Idaho fish, reported regularly in the 1890s, further reveal the common attitude that the supply was unlimited. There was, however, enough growing concern in the country for conservation of our natural resources, that Congress established a U.S. Fish Commission in 1871, and some of its scientists had investigated salmon spawning conditions in Idaho streams in the 1890s.
The Salmon City Recorder reported in March 1890 that Native American Indians were catching lots of salmon and selling them around town.
In April, two men from Rocky Bar went up to Trinity Lakes and “brought in over 100 pounds of fine mountain trout, which they readily sold at fifty cents per pound. After shoveling ten or twelve feet of snow and cutting through several feet of ice, they were kept busy hooking the speckled beauties until they had secured all they wished to pack on their backs.”
Meanwhile, people at Challis were catching fish “as fast as they can pull them out: Whitefish, trout, and salmon trout. Many are caught by snagging they are so thick.”
In June 1890, “As Mr. Heughan was returning to town he found Cottonwood Creek full of Salmon. He did not make a count, but says he honestly believes he saw a thousand at one sight.”
When the U.S. Fish Commission stocked Bear Lake with Whitefish in March 1896, Sen. George Shoup tried to persuade the agency to stock north Idaho lakes. This was eventually done.
Meanwhile, the assault on Idaho’s trout continued. Two prominent Boise businessmen proudly told the Statesman in August 1897 that they had gone a short distance up Camas Creek and caught 354 trout. Since it was mid-summer, and there was no means of preserving them, it seems likely that most of this catch was wasted.
Native American Indians, it should be noted, dried and smoked the salmon they caught for use in the winter. The ill-fated Wilson Price Hunt party of 1811 was able to trade for some of these fish, along with other preserved meat, to stay alive as they struggled across Idaho in mid-winter.
Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. E-mail histnart@mindspring.com.
