Looking back: Man tries to burn jail, floods ‘miraculously’ claim no lives and 12-year-old girl goes missing
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Feb. 14 to Feb. 20 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
RIGBY — A man tried to burn down the jail in Rigby in 1914, according to The Rigby Star.
The paper reported on Feb. 19, 1914, that Joe Fitzgibbon had been “taken in hand” by Marshal Coucher and placed in the village jail, “for kicking off a fuss in a pool hall.”
“The quarters were evidently not to his liking, as about 10 o’clock Saturday night, he set the door to the jail on fire with the evident intention of burning himself out,” The Rigby Star wrote. “And but for timely aid, he would have succeeded in burning the building down and also ridding the earth of his presence.”
Fitzgibbon took a “fire shovel” and heated the handle “red hot” before burning a hole in the jail door. Somebody had also broken the jail window and given him a saw to help him make his escape.
The paper said the jail was close enough to the courthouse that it could have also been destroyed in the fire, along with all the records of the county.
“Doors for the vault have not yet arrived and the books and records are all exposed to such danger,” the article mentions.
His trial was set to take place on the afternoon of Feb. 19, 1914.
1926-1950
POCATELLO — A Preston man was beat up by a hitchhiker while on his way to Pocatello, The Rexburg Standard’s Feb. 20, 1930, the newspaper explained.
Gilbert Larson was headed to Pocatello in the early morning hours of February 20. He picked up a stranger in Downey, and when they were about seven miles south of Pocatello, the stranger asked Larson to stop his car.
“The hitchhiker struck Mr. Larson a violent blow on the head, rendering him unconscious,” the paper said. “When Mr. Larson regained consciousness, his money, amounting to $10, was missing and the stranger was also gone.”
1951-1975
CARIBOU — Seven Idaho counties were declared disaster areas by then Idaho Gov. Robert. E. Smylie after a flood ripped through parts of Idaho.
The Caribou County Sun reported on Feb. 15, 1962, that “swelling floodwaters ripped out highways and bridges, railroad rights of way, inundated towns and virtually paralyzed wide areas of southern Idaho, Utah, central Wyoming and northern Nevada over the weekend.”
The flood was triggered by high temperatures and warm rain. It melted heavy snowpacks from the Idaho Falls area to central Utah and from Wyoming’s Wind River Valley west to northern Nevada to Battle Mountain.
“Heaviest damage was concentrated in southern Idaho’s Bannock, Bonneville and Caribou counties,” the paper mentioned. “In Caribou and Bannock counties, the Portneuf River burst from its banks in what residents are calling ‘by far the worst flood on record.’”
Hundreds of families were evacuated, some in boats where the “rapidly rising water trapped residents who were caught unaware by the terrific impact of the storm.”
“Miraculously, the floods claimed no human lives,” The Caribou County Sun wrote.
1976-2000
POCATELLO — A Pocatello girl had been missing for 10 months and there were “few leads” as to what happened to her.
The Idaho State Journal reported on Feb. 20, 1976, that 12-year-old Lynette Culver had been missing since May 6, 1975. She was last seen leaving Alameda Junior High School during a lunch break. Police investigator Al Kuta said the girl was reportedly observed by area residents in Fort Hall on the day of her disappearance hitchhiking towards American Falls.
Culver’s parents, along with several area school teachers, were offering a reward for any information leading to the location or recovery of the girl.
“I know her personally, and I know she was a normal girl with no problems,” Kuta, who was a neighbor and close friend of the Culver family, said. “I don’t think she was originally abducted, but you never can tell about these things.”
In August 2018, the Idaho State Journal wrote that Ted Bundy, one of the nation’s most notorious serial killers, “confessed to her murder in 1989 and revealed to former Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones personal details about her life that only Culver would know.”
The news outlet added the Pocatello Police Department “is now casting doubt on that theory by suggesting it’s possible someone other than Bundy abducted and killed Culver.”
“Culver was the first of the five girls to go missing in Pocatello between 1975 and 1983. She was reported missing in May 1975 — three months before Bundy was arrested by a Utah Highway Patrol officer in Granger, a Salt Lake City suburb,” the Idaho State Journal noted.