through OTHER eyes: Idaho History Lessons

UI Extension workshops encourage Idahoans to

live beyond the stereotypes
by Bill Loftus

From the purity of divine love symbolized by the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the racial hatred of neo-Nazis, and from the militant activism of miners seeking fair pay to a suffragist’s quest to win women the right to vote, northern Idaho’s history reflects the power of small groups to influence image and deed.

The past and present of the region and the state as a whole present a legacy of victories for the different peoples who have lived here, and a few setbacks for an evolving culture that increasingly honors diversity and human rights.
University of Idaho Extension launched an effort in July to help Idahoans understand their heritage and to promote respect for diversity by organizing a northern Idaho tour. The tour grew from a team of UI Extension educators who aim to encourage a more civil society in the state.

“Idaho’s Journey for Diversity and Human Rights,” a 3-day tour designed for community leaders and educators, but open to anyone, took participants to the places that history has marked as pivot points in the state’s judgments on collective values and their effects on the state’s original peoples, workers, women, and communities.

From Coeur d’Alene to Wallace and Worley to DeSmet, participants toured historic homes and the now vacant DeSmet boarding school, met tribal leaders in the Coeur d’Alene Casino, and heard stories from UI professors and even eyewitnesses who lived through historic northern Idaho dramas.

In October, a second tour examined the cultural landscape of southwestern Idaho’s Chinese miners during the gold rush years in the late 1800s, the state’s Basque and Spanish influences, and the rapidly growing Hispanic community.

Every Idaho county faces issues
Every county in Idaho, and so every UI Extension employee, faces issues related to the state’s changing populations and its history. Philosopher George Santayana struck a chord that continues to resonate with his 1905 observation, “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness … Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“We have people in counties throughout Idaho who must adapt to changes that are happening in their communities,” said Harriet Shaklee, a leader in UI Extension’s diversity initiative. “We have growing Hispanic populations, a loss of young people in many communities, a surge in retiree populations, and tribal issues. Every community faces change.”

The best way to understand those changes and to help communities prepare for and adapt to them is to encourage partnerships among community leaders, UI Extension staff, and other involved residents. The goal is to encourage understanding and connect communities with resources. Sue Traver, UI Extension educator in Sandpoint also led organization efforts for the summer tours. “I hope those on the tour brought home a broader understanding of Idaho history that is more than the traditional image. This is just a small sample of what happened that shaped our region,” she said.

Annie Samuels at age 105 is the
Coeur d'Alene tribe's senior elder.
Her son Valentino Samuels (top)
looks after her.

Importance of community activism in Coeur d’Alene
Community activism to promote diversity and human rights by Coeur d’Alene residents stopped a growing stain of racial hatred that marred the region’s reputation for a decade. North Idaho College political scientist Tony Stewart and Coeur d’Alene attorney Norm Gissel recounted to the 30-person diversity tour the efforts of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Rights. The task force, led by the late Bill Wassmuth, outflanked the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations and its founder, the Rev. Richard Butler, by counteracting the hate group’s cross burnings and provocational marches with community events founded on love and unity, Stewart said.

The community organization’s positive images counterbalanced, and then overwhelmed the hate group. “We’re all cultural warriors in this room,” Gissel said. “Tony and I have been cultural warriors for 20 years. Our victory is that the Nazis moved away.”

The neo-Nazis of Coeur d’Alene were only able to establish a toehold when the majority of community members tried to ignore the hate group’s presence. When the community made its values clear, the hate group crumbled.

Cataldo Mission, now an Idaho State Park,
was guilt on this grassy knll from 1846
to 1853 by natives working with Father Ravalli,
an Italian-born Jesuit. Coeur d'alene Indians still
return here each August 15 for the Feast of the Assumption

.
Tensions over tribal sovereignty issues
Some tensions are natural to all communities. New tensions in the region focus on the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s legal battle to reclaim control of its lands and waters. The tribe is exerting the sovereignty it retained when its leaders signed treaties more than a century ago that ceded some of its territory to settlers and the United States. The deal promised the Coeur d’Alenes the benefits of the onrushing culture while guaranteeing tribal control of those places and resources most important to its members.

Within the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, members’ strong ties to Catholicism still provide a lasting link to the earliest contacts with advancing settlement. Tribal members still return each August 15 to the Cataldo Mission to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The Mission of the Sacred Heart, Idaho’s oldest building, dates back to 1848 and is still in use as a state park.

The influence of the Catholic Church Society of Jesus in modern tribal life and its legacy of operating a tribal school at DeSmet, however, still create a schism among Coeur d’Alenes today.

May Hutton—cook, miner, advocate; Silver Valley’s turbulent past still felt
May Arkwright Hutton rose from working as a cook for miners to become a prominent mine owner and philanthropist after the Hercules Mine, which she and her husband Levi W. (Al) Hutton owned in early-day Wallace, struck it rich.

An early suffragist devoted to women’s rights, May Hutton helped make Idaho the fourth state in the union to recognize women’s right to vote in 1896. That was long before the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment did the same nationally. The Huttons also became enmeshed in one of the nation’s most storied labor struggles when a train, with Al at the controls as engineer, was commandeered by miners over low wages for dangerous jobs.

Wallace itself produced a roiling tide of labor activism fueled by miners set on sharing the fabulous wealth of the Silver Valley. Most was directed against mine owners and led to the dynamiting of the Bunker Hill ore concentrator in 1899. Martial law enforced by federal troops rounded hundreds of men into a stockade known as the bull-pen.

The true origin of the dynamiting could rest with forces other than the rebellious miners, speculates Katherine Aiken, former chair of UI’s history department and now associate dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, who recounted the Silver Valley’s turbulent labor history to tour participants in Wallace.

Ultimately the dispute led to big trouble in 1905, the assassination of former Gov. Frank Steunenberg, who led the state during the labor unrest. As Steunenberg returned home that Dec. 30, he suffered fatal injuries when a bomb detonated that had been attached to the gate at his Caldwell home.

The governor’s assassination drew worldwide attention as state officials tried Western Federation of Miners leader “Big Bill” Haywood on murder charges. Attorney Clarence Darrow defended the labor leader against the prosecution team that included future Idaho Governor James Hawley and U.S. Senator William E. Borah. The 1907 trial in Boise became a national drama as the most famous detective, mass murderer, and attorneys of the day battled it out.

Boise area farmers decide what is just, acquit Haywood
Haywood had been taken into custody in Colorado and put aboard a special train that sped north to Idaho without allowing him or two fellow officers of the union to fight extradition or even contact their families.

The state’s case relied on the testimony of Harry Orchard, who confessed to killing Steunenberg and 17 others, all, he said, at the order of miners’ union officials.

In the end, state’s reputation rested on the jury. The jury box in the Ada County Courthouse was occupied by “farmers and other men of common sense. The jurors saw past the political dimensions to acquit Haywood,” Aiken contended. “We have a long record that when the chips are down, we do the right thing. The citizens of Idaho have a strong sense of social justice,” she added.

Arlinda Nauman, UI Extension’s state 4-H director, took the northern Idaho tour and found the three days of discussion and visiting different locations “very insightful in helping me to develop an understanding of the state and what happened before I came to live here.”

Hearing so many different voices also gave her insight into the personal side of diversity from different viewpoints. “It made me realize I couldn’t possibly understand what their challenges had been. Until you at least become aware of how different our experiences can be, you don’t know that you don’t understand.”