This prompt is a week late, and there is a substantial gap since the last post. Although this quarantine theoretically provides more time, it has been hard to establish a routine. (It’s hard even to remember which day of the week it is.) In addition to that—or perhaps because of that—I have been finding most of the prompts uninspiring. An idea may spring to mind, but then I realize either that it has already been written about, or that there is a lack of information to support my ideas. However, this theme of “Travel” brings definite ideas to mind, and ones on which it is currently quite pleasant to dwell. Aren’t we all longing to travel?
Last summer my parents and I took a road trip to eastern Washington state and into the Idaho panhandle, and the previous year we took a similar trip farther south. In the summer of 1911 my great-grandfather, John S. Brosius, also took a trip to Idaho, and saw some of the same country that we would see over a hundred years later. His impressions were reported in the Sedan Times-Star upon his return to Kansas.
Reading that article, it is clear that he and I were looking through very different eyes. I was looking for beauty in the landscape and novelty in the sights. John S. Brosius was looking through the eyes of a farmer, judging the possibilities of planting, plowing, and harvesting. “The farms are mere hilltops… and a team must be driven corkscrew fashion around the hills. No team could begin to pull a load straight up the hill or hold it back going down,” he says of the land around Weiser, where he visited John Walker, Ben Steinweden, “and other Chautauquans,” relocated there from John Brosius’ own home of Chautauqua county, Kansas.
My memories of the Weiser area are of a cute Old Town containing a decent music store and an offbeat furniture store, among other things, in the midst of picturesque velvety hills. To me, the rounded hills contributed to the charm of the place, and their steepness entered my mind only as adding a gratifying briskness to a jaunt, had I been given the opportunity to climb them. To me they appeared quite gentle.
John S. Brosius lamented that “he does not believe the Snake river country, where many are taking claims, will be irrigated for years and years if it ever is.” I cannot speak to whether it has been irrigated in the last 110 years, although I suspect it has, because we drove over a dam, but the Hell’s Canyon area must have looked much like it looked to Great-Grandpa. While I admired the landscape, my mom’s comments were more reminiscent of John’s, if expressed in different terms. “It’s too dry,” she complained.
“Mr. Brosius says the Blackfoot country looked better to him than any other part of Idaho,” offered the Sedan Times-Star, but “He would not live there, he says, on account of the dust. It is something awful.” My family’s road trips did not extend quite so far to the east. I will be curious to one day compare my impressions of that area to my great-grandfather’s.
Here is a transcription of the entire article of John S. Brosius’ unflattering description of Idaho:
BACK TO SUNNY KANSAS
IDAHO’S LURE TOO WEAK TO TO HOLD JOHN BROSIUS.
SEES MANY DEFECTS THERE
“Corkscrew Farming” on Western Idaho’s Hills Has No Attraction for Him—Back Here to Stay.
John Brosius returned this week from a trip to Idaho and the northwest and that he very much prefers Kansas to that country is very evident from his conversation. He saw most of the Chautauqua colony in Idaho and says that nearly all of them, if not all, are satisfied and happy. But as for him, he will stay right here at Sedan. The lure of the west is not strong enough to pull him away.
Mr. Brosius visited John Walker, Ben Steinweden and other Chautauquans over near Weiser, iin the west part of Idaho. He found them happy and well although he says he would not like to farm such land. The farms are mere hilltops, he says and a team must be driven corkscrew fashion around the hills. No team could begin to pull a load straight up the hill or hold it back going down. The land is so steep that the grain is hard to harvest. Yet it produces good crops. Mr. Steinweden says he “cussed” his farm when he first went there but now he admits he “would not trade it for half of Chautauqua county.” Mr. Walker raised quite a lot of fruit last year but had difficulty in selling it as under the Idaho law fruit that is damaged cannot be sold at anything like a full price.
Mr. Brosius says the Blackfoot country looked better to him than any other part of Idaho. He would not live there, he says, on account of the dust. It is something awful. He found Chautauquans there doing well for the most part, although some of them are still hunting work.
As a whole, however, Mr. Brosius saw many drawbacks to the Idaho country. For instance, he does not believe the Snake river country, where many are taking claims, will be irrigated for years and years if it ever is. He says the farmers over at the other side of the state are likewise crying for water right now and can hardly get enough for any purpose. The whole country, he says, has a man for every job and in most cases, several men for every job. Some of the last delegation to Blackfoot are still out of work while others are in the beet sugar plant which will run only until Dec. 1. Mr. Brosius saw many men on the trains coming out of Idaho and most of them had, like himself, concluded that other countries were just as good if indeed not much better.