Blast from the Past - Big Lost River Irrigation Project 1908

Double click to enlarge.

Blast from the Past - The Pacific Railroad Was Completed May 10 1869

The railroad was competed May 10 1869. Here is the map from the1925 Union Pacific Railroad routes. (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/rrmap.jpg)

It was really easy to get around Idaho and Utah via train routes back them - too bad they torn the tracks out in Mackay.

Blast from the Past - Mackay High School Field Trip - March 30 1940

Blast from the Past - Wayne D Smith at U.S. Naval Academy - Mackay Miner May 13 1948

Wayne D. Smith, Scout in Mackay, Idaho circa early 1940's. Wayne's father was the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line Depot Agent in Mackay.

Blast from the Past - Mackay's Union Pacific Short Line Engine at Blackfoot January 27 1929

Mackay's Union Pacific Short Line Engine - Train at Blackfoot January 27 1929. From the Dorothy Ewing Collection

Remembering - Dan W. Miller Obituary Mackay Miner 1954

Mt. McCaleb Cemetery, Mackay, Idaho

Blast from the Past - Ray Phillips Ice House and Blacksmith Shop

Circa 1930's to 1950's, Ray Phillips had an ice house and blacksmith shop (buildings on the left) on the corner of Elm and Salmon next to their family home (the red roofed structure in the middle of the photo below). Photo taken Feb 17 2013.

Former Ray Phillips Garage and later a laundromat on the corner of Elm and Salmon April 3 2010.

The Phillips home was just across the street from the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line Railroad in Mackay, Idaho. Pictured Mildred, Della, Virgil, Veron, Ray, Roy Phillips on Salmon in Mackay across from the water tower for the railroad.

Unidentified Phillips family members standing in front of their house on Salmon at Elm across from the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line Railroad in Mackay, Idaho.

 Grandmother Emma Eliza Street Phillips  (below).

Historical photos of the same location on Elm and Salmon.

Wooden building is Phillips Ice House circa 1930's. From the Sharon Phillips Huff Collection. Ray also had a blacksmith shop.

Wooden building is Phillips Ice House circa 1930's. Pictured children: Posey, Lawrence, Glenn, Vernal Phillips (Veron's), Lorraine Singer, Lorraine Ivie, Betty Ivie, Lois Singer, Corky Ivie (the Ivie's were Mildred's) Lois and Lorraine were twins of Minnie, the oldest daughter of Ed and Emma From the Sharon Phillips Huff Collection.

Children: Posey, Lawrence, Glenn, Vernal Phillips (Veron's), Lorraine Singer, Lorraine Ivie, Betty Ivie, Lois Singer, Corky Ivie (the Ivie's were Mildred Phillips Ivie) Lois and Lorraine were twins of Minnie, the oldest daughter of Ed and Emma

After World War II, Ray Phillips took his Dad's old blacksmith shop and rebuilt it into a garage and then added a cinder block addition for a show room. He secured a Jeep Dealership at Phillips Motor in Mackay and sold Jeep vehicles and made repairs on all makes of cars until August 1951. Ray also did lots of acetylene and electric welding. Pictured: Ray Phillips.

Blast from the Past - Wayne Smith Honored - Mackay Miner May 13 1948

Blast From the Past - Oregon Short Line Railroad to be Extended to Salmon, Idaho May 10 1910

The Union Pacific Short Line Railroad was NEVER extended beyond Mackay, Idaho north.

Blast from the Past - Union Pacific Short Line Railroad in Mackay Idaho circa 1930

Blast from the Past - Union Pacific Short Line Railroad in Mackay Idaho Winter 1916

Blast from the Past - Mackay Idaho Depot Agent to Leave Mackay Miner April 25 1935

Mackay's Union Pacific Oregon Short Line Depot was purchased by former Depot Agent, Derrald Waters in 1968 and moved to Blackfoot, Idaho where Derrald opened  Riverside Boot and Saddle in the depot building in 1973.

Story about Chinese family in Mackay Idaho in the news

Check this article out about Y. Henry Gim and family.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52149131-78/chinese-kurumada-gim-family.html.csp

Living History: Chinese immigrants persevered on Plum Alley

BY EILEEN HALLET STONE THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

PUBLISHED JULY 9, 2011 9:59 AM

In early 1903, 12-year-old Chinese immigrant Y. Henry Gim hid under a sack of mail and rode the rails from Oregon's mining camps to the small town of Mackay, Idaho. At 15, he borrowed $115 to buy into an eight-chair lunch counter consignment in the Union Pacific Railroad depot.

Business was brisk. Within two years, Gim repaid his loan and soon married his wife, Louise. After opening a restaurant, he bought a ranch with several hundred acres of land.

"He was hoping to raise beef to use in his restaurant," said his daughter, Helen Gim Kurumada, in interviews archived at University of Utah's Marriott Library.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, he lost it all.

A harbinger of the Great Depression, the crash cruelly emphasized the economic struggle experienced by farmers throughout the '20s. Crop, beef and pork prices plummeted. Debts were high. Most farmers were mortgaged to the hilt, and few banks offered relief.

Moreover, companies that controlled irrigation water profited from land grabs and rate hikes.

"They ruined farmers like my father," said Kurumada, who was 12 at the time.

Forced to leave their home and possessions behind, the Gim family traveled to Salt Lake City. The train ride "was like a funeral train. Everyone was crying and worried," she said.

The Gim family was helped by "Chinese clan obligations," but their Plum Alley apartment in downtown's Chinatown was far from home and in poor shape.

"My mother grew depressed," said Kurumada. "She worried we would starve."

Reassuring her otherwise, Henry quickly found a business partner. He opened the Bon Ton Café on 100 South and the family settled into a new life.

In the late 1860s, some 12,000 Chinese immigrants helped build the Central Pacific railway from Sacramento, Calif., to Promontory, Utah. They garnered little recognition. Instead, the international Panic of 1873 fueled anti-Chinese sentiment among labor unionists, unemployed whites and politicians. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was followed by more restrictive laws, and none were repealed until 1945. By 1930, Utah's Chinese population dipped below 500. Few jobs were offered other than those associated with restaurants, laundries and groceries. Inequity was public.

"Our parents paid taxes, but we couldn't go to city swimming pools," Kurumada said. "We would have to sit in movie theater balconies."

During a school trip to Wasatch Springs, it was only after a teacher intervened that Kurumada was allowed in with the manager's warning: "Don't you ever try this again."

One evening after work, Gim sat in his rocking chair. He asked Kurumada to boil water for tea, remarked he was tired and died. Shortly after, his widow suffered a fatal nervous breakdown. The children were sent to live in a blue-collar, non-Asian home in which Kurumada said her foster parents "tried their best, but their three boys felt it was a disgrace to have 'Chinks' living with them."

Appalled, Kurumada knew something had to be done and espoused her father's "can-do" philosophy.

After graduating high school at 16, she found employment through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program, rented a small house on the west side and took charge of her three siblings.

"I was definitely underaged," she said, "and in hindsight I marvel that Judge Reuben Clark allowed me to take care of my brothers and sister."

Cautioned about monthly visits from Children's Services, Kurumada made certain "every thing" and everyone was in its place and tidy.

"My younger sister Betty was always spotless," she said. "I thought if I took her down to Neighborhood House and she seemed unkempt, they'd say, 'This girl looks terrible. Her sister brings her down, but heaven knows how they live.' "

Betty was 6. The boys were in college and home on weekends. And Helen fell in love, marrying Dr. Jun Kurumada. The kind man married "the whole dang family."

Y. Henry Gim would have been proud. Against all odds, his children did just fine.

Eileen Hallet Stone is an oral historian. She can be reached at ehswriter@aol.com.