Ghosts of Idaho's Magic Valley by Andy Weeks

Author:Andy Weeks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

THREE GHOSTS AND A MAN NAMED GOODING

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

—Edgar Allan Poe

An old hospital office building, now used as a bed-and-breakfast, has the eternal occupants of at least three ghosts, according to the owner: the spirit of a little girl, the spirit of a little boy and the shade of a much older man. But before we meet the ghosts, here’s a little bit of history about the area.

Throughout the ages—in biblical times and early Americana—it was common practice to name places after their founders or a group’s leader, usually someone who had great impact on the area. That name-making practice is still alive and well in the United States today and is easily recognized in the Magic Valley, where towns, cities and streets are named after influential people in their history. Buhl, Burley, Filer and Oakley are just a few such places in the valley. And so is Gooding—both the city and county—forty-five minutes north of Twin Falls.

Frank R. Gooding was a Republican senator perhaps best known as Idaho’s seventh governor. He served in that position from 1905, just a year after he joined the state legislature, until 1909. What was impressive about his zeal for state politics was that when he was elected to the legislature he wasn’t yet a U.S. citizen.

Gooding was born on September 16, 1859, in England and eight years later immigrated to the United States with his family. They first settled in Paw Paw, Michigan, but that was only the beginning of American life for young Frank. Fulfilling his wanderlust, he eventually moved to the warmer climate of Southern California. But his stay in the Golden State also was short-lived. In 1881, he moved to Idaho Territory, first settling near Ketchum and then, in 1888, venturing farther south to the place he made famous by his name. One of the hallmarks of his administration was that he saw the completion of the Idaho state capitol building in Boise.

Something else he is revered for: the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind. When the school that opened in Boise in 1906 burned down two years later, he set to work on finding it a permanent home. When the legislature passed an act on March 16, 1909, for the measure, Gooding donated land for the school. It started accepting students in September 1910. (The school is still in use today.)

Like Gooding the man, the city and county named after him had big ambition, as attested by another school, this one a college, founded there in 1917. The school, which sat on 110 acres, was run by the Methodist Episcopal Church and served as a place of learning until 1938. Only two people graduated from the institution that year. Low enrollment rates were something the school struggled with over its twenty-one-year history. Peak enrollment came in 1928, with 209 students, and only 56 students graduated from the college in its first ten years. When the college closed

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.