Looking back: Burglars knock sheriff unconscious, steal police car, and rescued moose dies at zoo
Published at | Updated at
IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Sept. 11 to Sept. 17 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
ANNIS — A man was hauling grain with his two sons when they discovered a black bear in Annis, The Rigby Star reported on Sept. 11, 1919.
Frank Hall and his sons found the bear eating apples in the Hall orchard. The bear was “busily engaged in standing on his hind legs reaching for the fruit” when he was seen.
Hall killed the bear and said it weighed 200 pounds.
1926-1950
ASHTON — A Fremont County Sheriff was hit and knocked unconscious by burglars, The Rigby Star reported in its Sept. 13, 1934, newspaper.
“Two men on a motorcycle had burglarized a business house at Ashton early that morning and then headed south,” the article explains. “Sheriff Frederickson, at St. Anthony, was notified and stopped the men north of St. Anthony.”
While Frederickson was searching for the men, one of them hit him over the head with a gun. While Frederickson was unconscious, the two men abandoned the motorcycle and took off in the sheriff’s car.
“No trace of them had been noted on the highway in this county up to noon Wednesday,” the paper noted.
1951-1975
RIGBY — The city of Rigby was looking for “hatchet men” who chopped down two ornamental trees in Rigby City Park, The Rigby Star reported on Sept. 13, 1962.
“The trees were completely chopped off, and small chips lay where the flowering crab trees had been planted,” the local paper wrote. “It is believed, due to the small chips, that the chopping was done by youngsters with a hatchet.”
The city said it would “reward anyone” with accurate information on who was responsible for cutting the trees.
“It seems a bit ironic that the playground so close by, built for energetic children, should be bypassed and the trees attacked to work off excess energy,” the article reads. “It is another community black-mark in our lack of civic pride for those things which are always free and accessible.”
1976-2000
POCATELLO — A 500-pound moose, treated for a broken leg after it wandered into a subdivision from the hills, died at the Ross Park Zoo, the Idaho State Journal reported on Sept. 11, 1977.
“The animal, believed to be about a year old, had been taken to a large elk enclosure at the park’s upper level after state troopers, game officials, and zoo personnel set a mangled leg that had been hit by a van about 2 a.m. Friday on the interstate near the Chubbuck interchange,” the paper explained.
The animal was sedated before a crane with a “belly belt” lifted the animal onto a truck bed where its broken leg was set.
Pocatello parks superintendent Leonard Carlson said the van must have hit the animal “pretty hard” and not only caused a broken leg but internal damage too.