Meadow Creek, Idaho

A former community in Boundary County, Idaho

The following stories are taken from the History of Boundary County, Idaho published by the Boundary County Historical Society in 1987.

Meadow Creek was wilderness. They must have had around 200 or 300 population there. They had a store, hotel and dancehall and mill-logging facilities of all kinds, posts, poles, school and stills. They had lots of stills. I can tell you one funny instance about a still. I thought it was funny. This guy had his mash barrel out in the sawdust pile. From the sawmill they had no way of getting rid of the sawdust in those days so they just flumed it out over the flat there. After so many years the sawdust had built up a heat so he dug a hole down in there, build a box and put these two mash barrels in so the heat from the sawdust would make it work good.

Well, he and another guy that was making whiskey got to feudin'. I guess, probably cut rates on their booze. Anyhow, they got to feudin' about it so this guy took two boxes of soda and he went over and dumped one in each mash barrel. Pretty soon in the sawdust there was mash runnin' all over. The soda made the mash boil out all over the sawdust pile.

This woman's husband, Archer, up there ran the sawmill and the hotel then. She had a big old milk cow and that cow got over there and started lappin' up that mash and got drunk. She got down and couldn't get up. She'd just lay there and kick her feet and beller. The cow was all right once she got sobered up.

But this guy that put the soda in there and that other fellow packed guns for about a month. One of 'em drove a truck and the other one drove a team up in the woods and they always had a gun. This guy that was drivin' a truck stopped to pick a guy up on the road and he had his hand gun in the seat. He picked it up to move it and stick it in his waist- band and he shot a hole through his leg. That's all that happened out of that feud. They always settled everything with fights.
by Otis Simon

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This page updated 02-20-2004