Looking back: ‘Charred letter’ returned to Rigby after mail plane crashes and man hit in face by snowball while driving
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Feb. 5 to Feb. 11 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
LORENZO — A “quarantine flag” was removed from the home of a family living in Lorenzo, The Teton Peak reported on Feb. 5, 1903.
“(The flag) was taken down at Alma Olson’s last week,” the paper stated. “On Sunday, it was removed from Mr. Hillebrant’s and on Tuesday from E.N. Gilson’s, leaving only George Johnson’s family quarantined for small pox at the present time.”
The article continued, “If no new cases make their appearance, we have good prospects of being entirely free from the disease in the near future.”
The school in Lorenzo had also recently opened after having been closed since the middle of December due to small pox.
1926-1950
RIGBY — A “charred letter” burned in a plane crash was returned to Rigby, The Rigby Star reported on Feb. 6, 1930.
The letter was was on board the “ill-fated mail plane” flown by Charles Kenwood, who was killed Jan. 10, 1930. Kenwood, was forced down by storms near Sidney, Nebraska. In his attempt to make an emergency landing, the plane crashed and he was burned to death.
“All the mail was practically destroyed,” the local paper explained. “All that remained of the letter received here was charred bits of paper with enough of the envelope preserved to show the address and postmark.”
The letter showed it was mailed on Jan. 8, 1930, from a teacher at Rigby High School to the school department of L.C. Smith.
“It was turned over to Mrs. Myrtle Keller, director of the school department, who will communicate with Rigby High School,” the article reads.
With the “bits of paper” was a notice from V.C. Batie and W.M. Coble, post office inspectors of Omaha, Nebraska.
The notice reads, “The enclosed piece of mail addressed to or sent by you was damaged in an airplane wreck near Sidney, Nebraska, on night of Jan. 10, 1930.”
1951-1975
POCATELLO — A man was hit in the face with a snowball while driving near his home in Pocatello, the Idaho State Journal reported on Feb. 10, 1975.
“(George) Thompson was hit in the face and his $110 pair of glasses broken by a snowball thrown through the open window of his car as he drove past a group of youth,” the Journal wrote.
1976-2000
POCATELLO — The Idaho State Journal announced the death of a Pocatello Zoo buffalo but later reported the buffalo was in fact, alive, the Journal reported on Feb. 5, 1976.
Boris, the buffalo, was pictured in the Journal on Feb. 4, 1976, in the back of a pickup truck. The paper said it “mistakenly identified a ‘stuffed’ taxidermy shop buffalo on his way to Fort Hall as ‘Boris’ from the city zoo and stated that Boris had recently died.”
“Well, it isn’t true,” the article said.
Robert Perry, A BIA range technician at Fort Hall, said the buffalo in the photo was one taken from a tribal herd and butchered last spring. He was stuffed at Powder Horn Taxidermy Shop in Pocatello and when photographed, was on his way back to Fort Hall for display in the new tribal building.
Tom Knapp, director of Pocatello’s Parks and Recreation Department, told the Journal “the real Boris is still alive and kicking in his compound at the city zoo.”
