Small mining town west of Driggs rose and fell in 50 years, and now it’s a nearly forgotten piece of Idaho history
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Editor’s note: This is the tenth in a series highlighting the stories behind local museum artifacts.
DRIGGS – About eight miles west of Driggs at the end of Horseshoe Canyon was once the home of a thriving coal mining town.
Sam, named for Henry Floyd Samuels — one of multiple investors of the Brown Bear Mine — was home to about 200 mine workers throughout the 1920s and 30s. They brought their families and built homes. There was a school, a post office and a store.
For about 30 years, the mine played a significant role in the area’s economy before it went bankrupt and the town folded.
Today, the path the mine cars followed has been replaced by a paved road leading through the canyon. At the end of the road is a trail head with campsites, but there are no visible signs that the mine or the town ever existed.
The Teton Valley Historical Museum off ID Highway 33 in Driggs contains the only surviving remnants — a mine car, some tools and a written history of what happened.
Despite the museum’s efforts to document this piece of history, knowledge of Sam and the Brown Bear Mine seems to have faded from memory. Here’s the story of this now forgotten town in a secluded area of eastern Idaho.
The early days of the Brown Bear Mine
When the first settlers of Teton Valley arrived in 1880, it was the last unsettled place in Idaho. Those who came to carve out a life in the desert landscape discovered an abundance of coal deposits along the creek beds. It wasn’t long before attempts were made to open a mining operation.
Henry Flamm opened the first coal mine in 1882, according to The Post Register.
William Hillman filed the original claim on the Brown Bear Mine. He dug the initial 500-foot tunnel into Horseshoe Canyon in 1901. Eventually, a track leading up to the mine was completed. The mine opened in 1904.
Investors got involved once the mine was operational. St. Anthony banker G.E. Bowerman, and his partner, Don Driggs, one of the people for whom the city of Driggs is named, formed Teton Valley Coal Company, which managed the mine.
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In those early days, the scope of the operation was limited.
“Boys were often hired as trammers, slate or rock pickers or for other jobs. The trammer pushed the empty cars up the track in the water-grade tunnel, and returned to the opening with a full car,” a written history says.
When World War I broke out in 1914, many of the area’s young men had been drafted. Finding employees was challenging.
J.W. McDewell and R.S. Talbot, who owned Idaho Coal Mines Company, bought the mine from the previous investors and took over.
The railroad had come to Driggs in 1913 and Talbot negotiated with Union Pacific to have a rail line put in that led from the train station in Tetonia to the mine.
“Over $340,000 of government funds were used to build the line,” historical records say. “It was completed by 1918.”
Much of the coal that was extracted during this time aided the war effort. In the fall of 1917, fuel was scarce in Teton Valley and residents began importing coal from elsewhere.
McDewell and Talbot dug another 400-foot shaft and soon, the beginnings of what became Sam started to pop up. It attracted workers. A boarding house and barn were built. In time, people started coming with their families and that led to additional cabins, a sawmill and other amenities.
The burgeoning community was officially named Talbot at that point.
By 1920, problems started to arise. About 30,000 tons of coal had been mined and sold to people throughout eastern Idaho. Coal was harder to find, due to the constant digging. Production slowed down.
The Idaho Coal Mine Company went into foreclosure that year due to some legal challenges. Gem State Coal Company took over the operation and built a new tunnel near Horseshoe Creek at the base of the canyon. The 650-foot-long tunnel revived the mine. Two years later, coal was being shipped to “wholesale outlets from Dillon, Montana to Pocatello.”
“They continued efforts to mine and by 1923 were supplying the local wagon trade with coal,” according to historical records.
Life in Sam
Henry Floyd Samuels, who’d recently lost a gubernatorial bid, had become a multi-millionaire as a miner in northern Idaho. He took notice of the Brown Bear Mine and came on board as an investor.
He bought one-quarter interest in the mine in 1924.
“Samuels was a tall, gray-haired, distinguished-looking man,” Virginia Paris, who grew up on a farm in Horseshoe Canyon, told the Post Register years ago. “When he first bought the mine, the community had a dance that lasted all night and festivities that lasted for days.”
Under Samuels’ leadership, the value of the mine skyrocketed.
It was now 1927 and there were at least 200 people working in the mine. A school, post office and other businesses came along and the town was renamed Sam.
Samuels even had a cabin there, which he rarely lived in.
Locals recall dances frequently being held at the school.
Historical records show Evan Floyd delivered mail and freight to Sam six days a week. Edna Mikesell, the postmaster, also taught school.
Evans’ daughter, DeEtta Floyd Driggs, shares in her personal history that Mikesell was “a big … ornery woman” who ran a grocery store with another lady.
“She sold candy that looked like a No. 2 pencil, yellow with a black center. We loved it,” Driggs wrote.
Driggs also shares her memories of riding along to deliver the mail.
“In the summers, dad would go to work for farmers and mother would drive the route in a Model A Ford … with us four kids fighting and crying,” Driggs recalled. “It was always stuck in the mud or (had) a flat tire to fix.”
During the winter, Driggs said her dad would deliver the mail in a horse-drawn sleigh and would cover the floor with straw to keep their feet warm. He also had a jump stove in the back that he kept lit for heat.
There are also reports of whiskey bootlegging. This was the era of Prohibition, but somehow alcohol was smuggled in. Dove Piquet says her grandfather had a whiskey still up the canyon.
Piquet also remembers helping to cook food for the miners.
Though the Brown Bear Mine thrived and people enjoyed living there, working in the mine was dangerous. Several accidents occurred in Sam and one man was killed.
“Eugene Eddington lost his life by a falling rock,” the written history says. “Denny Dennison fell down a mine shaft and broke his neck, but survived. Ray Raymond and Jack Umphrey were rendered unconscious when a pocket of gas was released in the mine and they were brought out on the coal car.”
Sam’s final years
Though Samuels poured much of his personal fortune into the mine’s development, his success was short-lived. There were several reasons for this.
The Post Register reported the mine went broke in 1929 “when another railroad drove the price of coal down.” Samuels couldn’t pay his miners and they gradually left to find other work.
Additionally, coal was difficult to mine because there was muck and dirt in the seams of the coal beds.
“Water had to be drained out of the tunnels constantly and air had to be pumped in,” the newspaper reported.
The museum’s history says the tipple, the car that hauled the extracted coal to the railroad cars, burned down. The train quit coming to the mine after that and the track was eventually removed.
By 1934, there were only a few miners left.
Over the next decade, Samuels’ sons and others continued to mine coal for the locals. Samuels ended up selling the mine to R.H. Russell of Spokane, Washington in 1946. The price was $55,000, a tenth of what he’d bought it for.
By the early 1960s, the mine was no longer in operation.
In the span of about 50 years, Sam, Idaho rose to prominence and became a thriving community before ultimately dying out and fading into history.
Though most of the coal is still in the Teton Basin, the tunnels have since caved in. The buildings and all that was left of the town have been demolished.
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