New sign for eastern Idaho townsite preserves memory of community’s forgotten history
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IDAHO FALLS – The Mud Lake Historical Society and members of the community are celebrating the completion of a new sign for the townsite of Camas, Idaho.
It’s an unincorporated community in Jefferson County about five miles northwest of Camas National Wildlife Refuge. The historical society officially unveiled and dedicated a sign with a brief ceremony along Interstate 15 last Thursday night.
Mud Lake historian Rob Allen tells EastIdahoNews.com the old sign was nearly 30-years-old and had fallen into disrepair. He’s pleased to see a new landmark for the 144-year-old community.
“It was terrible. It had faded to the point where it couldn’t be read,” Allen says of the old sign. “At one point in time, Camas was a very important place, and I felt like it needed to be remembered.”
If you weren’t aware there was a Camas townsite, you’re not alone. Hardly anyone living in the area even knew about it, Allen says. Though it once had a population of 250 people, it eventually dwindled and died. There is no physical evidence of the town’s existence today, and there are only eight people living there.
Allen is hoping the new sign will raise awareness of its history.
The rise and fall of a mining, farming community
The community was founded in 1879 as a pit stop for the Utah and Northern Railroad Company. Allen says it became a “shipping point for the mines that were springing up along the Birch Creek Valley.”
“Freight for Nicholia (an old mining community in Lemhi County) and those mines was shipped from Camas by horse and wagon. It’s about 70 miles out to Nicholia,” Allen says.
There was a high concentration of ore in the mines, which was used to make lead and silver — highly sought after minerals at the time, though Allen isn’t sure why.
The ore was shipped back to Camas, put on rail cars and sent to Salt Lake City for extraction.
By 1893, the mines ran out of Ore and the railroad moved its crews 13 miles north to Dubois.
“Camas started to die at that point,” Allen explains. “By 1912, there was only one store left.”
A short time later, there was a land boom in the area. Its sandy soil made it good for farming, Allen says, and people started filing claims “like crazy.”
“A newspaper article in 1918 or 1919 quoted an official that said there had been 500 homestead filings the week before,” Allen says.
Sometime in the 1920s, there was a major drought. All the farms dried up and all the homesteaders left, according to Allen.
“Camas dwindled to the point where it was (gone). The post office in Camas finally closed in 1961. Any of the buildings that were there were either torn down or moved away,” says Allen.
Camas was originally called Lava, but was later changed by the postal company to capitalize on the abundance of camas root, a small bulb-like root the Indians harvested for food.
Arvella Case resettled the area with her family in 1971. Allen says a family of six recently moved in, but Case and her son are the only longtime residents of the area.
The only businesses in Camas today are an equipment repair shop owned by Mickelsen Farms, a feed lot and a grain company.
Camas National Wildlife Refuge five and a half miles to the southwest brings hundreds of people through the area every year. The 11,000-acre site was established in 1937. It was once part of a livestock ranch owned by Idaho Livestock Lands, Inc., according to its website. Families who owned smaller parcels sold land to the government to become part of the refuge.
Allen discovered the sign for the townsite about 15 years ago and started looking into getting it replaced. The project started moving forward last year when the Mud Lake Historical Society approved it. Allen and the MLHS worked with students at West Jefferson High School to get the sign built.
Allen is grateful to everyone who donated and contributed to make this project a reality.
“It’s been a labor of love and something that I felt needed to be done,” Allen says. “We don’t want to go back to those days, but it was such an important place. It’s amazing that people who live right around Camas today … don’t know that there was a town there.”