Editing Blackfoot, Idaho (section)

==History==
[[Image:Plowing Main Street of Blackfoot.JPG|thumb|left|Early settlers plow the road for Main Street]]
The city of Blackfoot is located near the center of [[Bingham County, Idaho|Bingham County]], on the south side of the Snake River. It was designated the county seat by the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature on January 13, 1885.<ref>{{Cite book|title=History of Idaho the Gem of the Mountains |last=Hawley |first=James H. |publisher=S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago |year=1920 |pages=719}}</ref> Originally, the county seat was to be [[Idaho Falls, Idaho|Eagle Rock]] (the original name for Idaho Falls). However, supposedly, on the night before the legislation was to be signed, men from Blackfoot bribed a clerk to erase Eagle Rock and write in Blackfoot. The measure went through without opposition and was signed by the governor.<ref>"Bingham County History, Written and Compiled by the People of Bingham County". Taylor Publishing Company. 1985. Library of Congress number 85072293</ref> The origin of this accusation, written many years after the event, was a Blackfoot newspaper editor named Byrd Trego. The battle for county seat between Eagle Rock and Blackfoot was a political tug-of-war involving sectional and anti-Mormon factions in the Idaho Legislature. The leader of the southeastern Idaho anti-Mormons was a Yale graduate named [[Fred Dubois]], who settled in Blackfoot in 1880. The legislative maneuvering to overturn Eagle Rock as the county seat naturally left "disparaging rumors intimating some skullduggery on Blackfoot’s part."<ref>Davis Bitton, "The Making of a Community," ''Idaho Yesterdays'', Vol. 19 Issue 1, 1974, 10.</ref>

Frederick S. Stevens and Joe Warren were the first permanent white settlers of record in Bingham County.<ref>Thomas H. Williams, ''Miracle of the Desert, p.22.'' Blackfoot, Idaho: published by author, 1957), BYU Harold B. Lee Library, BX 8677.96.255.</ref> In 1866, Stevens and Warren filed claims in the Snake River Valley near the present-day location of Blackfoot, where they started farming and ranching.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Idaho Encyclopedia|last = Works Progress Administration|first = Federal Writers' Project|publisher = Caxton Printers, Ltd. Caldwell, Idaho|year = 1938|pages = 227}}</ref> The area was a flat, expansive plain of sagebrush frequented by Indians. To create a place of safety for the scattered settlers when they feared Indian trouble, Mr. Warren outfitted his cabin with holes between the logs where men could stand guard, day or night, until the natives left the neighborhood.<ref>{{Cite book|title = History of Idaho|last = Hawley|first = James H.|publisher = Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company|year = 1920|pages = 719}}</ref> When the [[Utah and Northern Railway]] signed contracts to expand north into Idaho in the 1870s, some of the settlers laid out a town on the Shilling and Lewis homesteads.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Idaho Encyclopedia|last = Works Progres Administration|first = Federal Writers' Project|publisher = Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, Ltd.|year = 1938|pages = 227}}</ref> The planned town, named Blackfoot, which was what the area had been called by fur traders, was near the Corbett stage station, about a mile from the Snake River, and two miles from the Blackfoot River.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = The Making of a Community|last = Bitton|first = Davis|date = 1974|journal = Idaho Yesterdays|issue = 1|location = BYU Harold B. Lee Library Special Collections|volume = 19|pages = 2, 4}}</ref>

Civil War veteran William Edward Wheeler, from Vermont, was an early settler. On July 1, 1880, Wheeler began publishing a newspaper called the ''Blackfoot Register.''<ref>{{Cite journal|title = The Making of a Community|last = Bitton|first = Davis|date = 1974|journal = Idaho Yesterdays|issue = 1|location = BYU Harold B. Lee Library Special Collections|volume = 19|pages = 3}}</ref> The first issue described the businesses in operation in Blackfoot on the publication date: "four general merchandise stores, one jewelry store, a livery stable, four saloons, a hotel, one meat market, two blacksmith shops, one barber shop and one lumber yard."<ref name="Bitton_4"/> Henry W. Curtis opened the first hardware store in 1885.<ref>{{Cite book|title = History of Idaho, the Gem of the Mountains|last = Hawley|first = James H.|publisher = Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company|year = 1920|pages = 614}}</ref>

The first issue of the ''Blackfoot Register'' also described "a ditch being dug from the [[Blackfoot River (Idaho)|Blackfoot River]] that would irrigate several thousand acres."<ref name="Bitton_4">{{Cite journal|title = The Making of a Community|last = Bitton|first = Davis|date = 1974|journal = Idaho Yesterdays|issue = 1|location = BYU Harold B. Lee Library Special Collections|volume = 19|pages = 4}}</ref> It was their plan to bring the water into town so residents could grow gardens and plant trees.<ref name="Bitton_4"/> The goal was finally realized in 1886 when Alfred Moyes planted the first shade trees in the Upper [[Snake River Plain]] around the Blackfoot Courthouse.<ref name="Hawley">James H. Hawley, Editor, ''History of Idaho, the Gem of the Mountains,'' (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1920), 719.</ref> Others in town followed suit and within a few years Blackfoot's tree-lined streets had a reputation that earned the nickname "Grove City." Sightseeing excursions from the surrounding area were reportedly organized so they could "feast their eyes on this verdure," which stood in pleasant, stark contrast with the endless acres of dry, gray sagebrush.<ref name="Hawley"/>