"The town of Elba is really a village, a cluster of houses near the schoolhouse, church, old store, and the post office. The town snuggles up to the broad base of 10,000 ft. Mt. Independence which rises in solitary splendor from the valley floor. Spring thaws melt the cap of snow on the mountain top sending rivulets of icy water down creeks to thirsty farms below, flowing into Cassia Creek on its way to join Raft River, then on into the Snake.
Three theories account for the name Cassia, on whose headwaters Elba is situated. Some say the name came from a plant found along the stream banks by Hudson Bay trappers. Another is that it may be a French peasant word, Cajeaux, a synonym for raft. Others say it was named for an early explorer. In any case, Cassia is the name Elba has become synonymous with and the name of the county which separated from Owyhee county in 1879.
Elba extends about ten miles East and West and about five miles North and South in length. It is 5,000 feet above sea level and Mt. Harrison forms the Northwest boundary. The valley is lush and green in the springtime and spreads from thick scrub mahogany trees at the base of the mountains. Gray-green sagebrush dots rocky hillsides above the farms and coyotes yip as shadows begin on the East hills. The air is clean and fresh and deer, rabbits, rockchucks, and grouse abound. There are also rattlesnakes, mosquitoes, and woodticks..... Lombardy poplars, box elders, elms, and pine tress grow around houses and along lanes. The town is semi-secluded, not located on a main highway and manages a sense of time standing still as if one hand stepped back into another era.
First known as Beecherville in honor of the large number of Beechers who settled here, the town officially became Elba at the suggestion of Charles Cobb of Albion, named for the town in the Mediterranean Sea where Napoleon resided for a time. The first comers to Cassia Creek were ranchers who grazed large herds of cattle in the summertime, feeling that winters were much too harsh for living year round. In 1871 John Shirley and Andrew Sweetzer from California grazed as many as 5,000 head of cattle, but by 1873, settlers began to arrive and the ranchers moved out leaving them free access. Ransome Beecher was the first local dentist, doctor, carpenter, and shoemaker. His wife, Sophia Wheeler was the first school teacher. Beechers were followed by the Rices and the Drakes, all of whom built log houses, cleared land, planted grain, and put up hay from wild meadow grass. Oats were the first crop harvested by hand.
In 1883, a post office was operating in Elba with Charles Brewerton as the first Postmaster and Thomas Taylor mail carrier. By 1875, many settlers had found their way to Elba, taking up homesites along the streams and cultivating the land in earnest. Many were Mormon pioneers from Utah. The first schoolhouse was erected in 1875 and church meetings were also held here. This was the second school built in Cassia County. The first was in Albion. On one occasion the local citizenry had been warned to expect an Indian attack. Women and children were placed in the school for safety and men, holding guns ready, watched all night. Later, they learned that the scare was the mischief of a group of cowboys at Oakley playing a trick on another cowboy.
Indians were occasionally a nuisance, but for the most part were peaceful, interested in trading pinenuts for food. Peter Henry Ottley wrote in a letter to his brother in England that they (the Indians) were camped above his place and had "some nerve" because they would walk into the house without knocking, looking for something to eat.
With settlers moving into the valley now numbering nearly fifty families, another school was built to accommodate the increase in children. This structure was built on the East side of the lot where the present school (now unused) stands, the latter built of brick."
More tomorrow........
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