Looking back: Farmer struck by stray bullet, missing girl and Rexburg begins to ‘dig out’ Teton Dam victims
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of June 5 to June 11 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
REXBURG — A farmer and horse were struck by a stray bullet, The Teton Peak said in an article shared from the Capital News on June 11, 1903.
Fred Wieland was plowing on his farm about six miles north of Rexburg when he heard a rifle go off. He looked around but couldn’t see anybody shooting.
“At the same time, he felt a peculiar sensation about his person,” the paper said. “He continued plowing on down the furrow, when he saw blood was running down his hand onto the plow handle.”
He look at his arm and discovered that a bullet had entered the fleshy part of it “just below the elbow and came out at the wrist.” The bullet then went on to strike one of his horses in the hind foot.
He wrapped up his arm with his coat and “hitched up his team to the wagon” and headed for home.
“He was so weak from the loss of blood that when he entered the house he fainted and fell on the floor,” the article reads.
A doctor came and treated the wound. He said it was the “worst case of the kind he had ever treated.”
“From the way the bullet struck Mr. Wieland as he held his hand on the plow handle, one would think the bullet had been fired into the air and that its force was about spent when it struck him in its downward course,” the paper explained.
1926-1950
SHELLEY — A local sheriff issued a kidnap warrant after a 11-year-old girl went missing, according to an article in the Idaho Falls Post Register dated June 9, 1941.
Bingham County Sheriff William A. Clough filed the kidnapping warrant in the disappearance of Mary Carmona, daughter of Pedro Carmona, of Shelley.
“A thorough investigation of the case revealed no possible motive for the girl’s disappearance,” the sheriff said. “No demands hand been made, no notes had been left, (and) not a single clue has been found.”
Carmona’s father, who was employed on the Rayo Humphreys farm in Shelley for over two years, offered a sleeping room in his home to a young Mexican man and woman who were working on the farm, the father told officers.
He said he slept in one room with his two young sons and daughter and the couple slept in an adjoining room. When he woke up in the morning, the couple and his daughter weren’t there.
“(The father) has been separated from his wife for sometime,” the paper stated. “The warrant issued by Sheriff Clough was signed by the girl’s father.”
1951-1975
PAUL — A man from Paul, Idaho, was admitted to the Pocatello Hospital after his plane crashed, the Caribou County Sun reported on June 6, 1963.
He was crop spraying for the Wilson Farm Service of Bancroft when his plane hit a power line.
“His plane was practically demolished by the impact,” the paper mentioned.
He was taken to the Caribou County Hospital and was then transferred to the hospital in Pocatello.
It’s unclear how severe the man’s injuries were.
1976-2000
REXBURG — Rexburg was beginning to “dig out” bodies from the aftermath of the Teton Dam floodwaters, the Idaho State Journal wrote on June 7, 1976.
Mayor John C. Porter said five bodies had been found in the Rexburg area so far – “presumably flood victims.”
“Thousands of Rexburg residents fled to the college campus about noon Saturday, after receiving word the Teton Dam, 40 miles northeast had broken,” the paper said. “They watched as a wall of dirty brown water, six to eight feet deep, rushed into their city about 2 p.m., destroying homes and stores and carrying away cars, trucks and mobile homes.”
About 65% of Rexburg was severely damaged in the flood, according to Porter. He said much of the city “is beyond repair and thousands are homeless.”
“A refugee center was set up on the Ricks College campus Saturday, in the foothills above Rexburg,” the article explained. “Over 9,000 persons spent Saturday night in dormitories and other facilities at the school, vacated for the summer.”
Porter said, “We are lucky the school is not in session. Otherwise, I don’t know what we would have done.”
Thousands of homeless people were on the campus receiving emergency rations of food, clothing and medical treatment. A missing persons center was set up on campus too. About 100 people were still unaccounted for at the time the article was published.
“The water was coming in waves, just like the ocean,” Richard Lewis, co-owner of the Rexburg Hide and Fur Shop on Main St. told the paper. “At one point, it looked like the Snake River was running right down Main Street.”
Porter estimated the damage to downtown Rexburg at a minimum of $75 million but declined to speculate on residential losses.