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Towns don’t pop up by accident. There is always something there that makes that particular spot attractive. Often, it’s related to transportation. Firth came into being because the railroad found it difficult for engines to stop at the water tank at Basalt and get going again up the slight rise. They moved the water tank downhill a mile or so, and Firth popped up around it.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the origins and history of Idaho Falls. It’s on my mind because one of my novel’s characters, Emma Thompson Bennett, ran the stage station there with her husband George the winter of 1866-1867. It wasn’t called Idaho Falls then. The naming story follows the transportation story.
A little upstream from the falls that Idaho Falls was eventually named for was an outcropping of rock called Eagle Rock. It was named thus around the time the Eagle Rock Ferry began hauling miners to mines in what is now Montana. That was in 1863.
At some point, Matt Taylor took over the operation of the ferry. Lucrative as the operation was, he thought a better bet would be a bridge across the Snake River, just downstream from the falls. There, the river narrowed to 83 feet, squeezing through Black Rock Canyon.
Taylor had measured that distance by tossing a rock tethered to a rope across the canyon. The depth of the river there was still a mystery, since plumbing the hole had not yet found the bottom of the river.
The bridge would be a money machine. The Idaho Legislature had set the toll for the Eagle Rock Ferry and those prices would also be applied to the bridge.
The toll-taker would collect 50 cents from every man on horseback, $3 for a horse and carriage, $4 for a wagon and two horses or oxen, and $1 for each additional pair of horses or cattle. Each animal with a pack cost 50 cents while loose animals, other than sheep or hogs, ran 25 cents. Sheep and hogs received a special price of 15 cents each.
Taylor built his first bridge across the canyon during the winter of 1864-1865, erecting scaffolding first across the ice on which to place the bridge timbers. The timbers had been hauled from Beaver Canyon, 80 miles to the north. Iron bolts and truss rods were salvaged from freight wagon parts, while the decking for the bridge was salvaged from the wreck of a steamboat that had sunk in the Missouri River near Great Falls.
That first Taylor Bridge washed out in the spring because it was set too close to the water. Fortunately, most of the bridge could be salvaged because cables kept it from being lost downstream.
Taylor rebuilt the bridge higher the next winter, getting it in place quickly to serve the stage stop on the west bank of the river. Taylor owned the stage stop and the bridge. Ben Halliday owned the stage line.
Even the stagecoaches had to pay a toll despite Taylor’s franchise agreement with Halliday to operate the stage stop.
Collecting the toll was crucial to Taylor’s operation, so there was likely a crude toll booth and pole arm on the west side, though no description of either survived the years. It was also likely that there was a bell near the toll arm to alert toll takers that someone wanted to cross.
Stagecoaches typically ran day and night the passengers tolerating the travel as best they could. That 24-hour schedule and the ability to swap for fresh horses every ten to 15 miles made coaches the quickest way to travel until trains came along.
The stage station at Taylor Bridge did offer some refreshments for weary travelers. They could order a meal of bread, beans, and bacon, and maybe pick up a dried apple cobbler or a piece of gingerbread to take with them on the next leg of the journey.
The operation at the bridge was called simply Taylor Bridge, though the settlement that grew up around it was known as Eagle Rock from the time of the ferry. For a few years, most people referred to the community by the name of the bridge, since it was the focal point of everything. Eagle Rock became Idaho Falls in 1891.
The canyon was a choke point for the river, and the bridge was a choke point for travelers. The Anderson Brothers, who soon bought a stake in the bridge, built their store near the stage station around 1870, further cementing the location of the town.
Stages had a set, tri-weekly schedule, though which days and times of arrival from Corbett Station to the south or Menan Station to the north are lost to history. A thousand things could delay the coaches, from sick or injured horses to broken wheels. The most common delay in the winter was weather. They might be hours late, or a day late, or not show up at all if the drifts were deep.
During the 1866-1867 winter, the snow at Taylor Bridge drifted up between the station and a woodpile to form a tunnel through which the residents traveled from building to building until March.
My protagonist, my great-grandmother, Emma, spent that winter cooking and cleaning and trying to stay warm, the only woman for miles around.
An early photo of Taylor Bridge.
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