File #282: "Frank Kibler Recording 2"

Frank Kibler Recording 2

Frank Kibler Nampa’s People_2

FRANK: -- party and was an active Republican. And when the Republican Commissioners were in power, we would get the North Side Grocery business for the poor people. And when the Democrats were in power, we would get the North Side Grocery business to the Democrats, to the Democratic Commissioners. But in those days, I had the business more than he did.

DICK: You were a good Democrat, and he was a good Republican.

FRANK: Right.

DICK: That’s what you call both sides of the fence.

FRANK: We had both sides of the fence. I inherited my Democratic political beliefs from my grandfather, who was a prominent Boise man who was one time editor of the Idaho Statesman under Calvin Cobb. He was a Democrat, and he was also, at one time, the minister of the Methodist Church in Boise, where the [00:01:00] old Motel Boise building was built. That was the original Methodist Church in Boise. And he came out from Ohio as an educator. He was also the living exponent of James Whitcomb Riley and all of his poetry. He used to give recitals in the theaters. And speaking of theaters in Nampa, I can remember on Main Street where they had four silent movie houses. I can’t name them all. I think one of them was called the Orpheum, one was called the Unique, and sometime or other, we had the Old Majestic Theatre reopened, which was originally an opera house. [00:02:00] That one burned down years later, across the street from the fire station. And then there was another one operated by Bob Taylor down on 12th Avenue, between First and Front, and I can’t think of the name of that one. I remember the old Unique Theatre very well, because as I was growing up, my mother insisted that I have piano lessons. So, I had a teacher by the name of Moffitt. At one time his brother was a city clerk in Nampa and got in some serious embezzlement trouble with the city clerk. But when my piano teacher died, I was put under the direction of a lady who played the piano in the Unique Theatre for the silent pictures. When the lady would [00:03:00] get sick, she would call my mother and say, “I just can’t play tonight, send Frank.” So, I played for a few of the silent movies. And it wasn’t very good, but we got by. And that Unique Theatre, incidentally, was located on Main Street where the CC Anderson’s Shoe Store used to be.

DICK: Speaking of CC Anderson’s, when did we start going from local businesses, like your father, to CC Anderson’s and Montgomery Ward? What period of time did these large chains start moving in?

FRANK: First, when I remember was Albertsons, which was on where the [00:04:00] Checker auto store is, in an old building. And I think that was Albertsons second store. Before that, when my father and I had our grocery store on the north side, we had what we called the Piggly Wiggly store, which was in the building where the First National Bank parking lot and so forth is. And there was a Partridge Store, and I think owned by the Skaggs people at that time. And I remember a very prominent insurance man in Caldwell by the name of Charlie Shaffer was the manager. Over in our store, on the north side, we had charge accounts. When the people had money, they went to the Piggly Wiggly store. When they didn’t have money, they came to our store.[00:05:00] And our store was a little higher. In those days, we actually marked up our goods 20 percent. Then, about that time we had a man move over from Boise by the name of S. T. Honstead. He started the Consumers Grocery. He had a 10 percent markup, all cash, no charge. And you picked it up yourself. And that’s the first store of that kind that I can remember.

DICK: So, in other words, Consumers was maybe the forerunner of the present supermarkets, and they just went out of business.

FRANK: Yeah.

DICK: When would they have been started?

FRANK: I don’t remember the exact date, Dave, no.

DICK: Let’s get back here. Now when did the fire take place downtown in the house of Bond [00:06:00]

FRANK: Nineteen forty-four or ’47.

DICK: That was the second great fire in Nampa, wasn’t it?

FRANK: Before that, we had the -- or was it after, we had the Drake Drugstore fire.

DICK: That’s the one started by the fireworks; this was.

FRANK: Yes.

DICK: You were in Nampa when that happened?

FRANK: Yeah.

DICK: About how old would you have been there?

FRANK: The Drake Drug fire?

DICK: Yes.

FRANK: I was an attorney then. I defended Mr. Drake successfully.

DICK: Give us a recount of that fire, and what the charges were, and you defending him and won.

FRANK: In that fire, they had a beauty parlor in the drugstore on the mezzanine floor. And in the beauty parlor, they used a permanent wave machine that, when ladies got connected up to it, they were practically [00:07:00] in the electric chair. And they had no way to get out of it. A number of those people died, some very good friends of mine that died in that fire. And most of them died in the beauty parlor, and some were seriously injured trying to jump out the windows in the back on the mezzanine floor. So, there was quite a number of suits filed. And Mr. Drake, who is deceased now, did not have any kind of liability insurance. So, he was facing what we would really call extermination of the business. So, he and I went to Portland to a drug company. We consulted with their attorney and came back, [00:08:00] and we incorporated. And the drug store started out again as Drake Drug Incorporated. And I still have one share of stock in it, but I don’t know where it is. But the store did not do well after that explosion, and eventually, I think it turned into Pennywise Drug, if I’m right, but at a different location on Main Street, not at the original location on Second Street, where the explosion occurred. When that fire took place, nobody knew how it started. But when I got to dig into the facts of it, I found there [00:09:00] was an old blacksmith here, shoeing horses, and he lived in San Francisco. And both sides of the case, the other side had contacted him first. He told them one story. Well, I got a hold of him and sent him some money to come up from San Francisco and he told a different story about seeing a little boy run in there with a lighted (inaudible). And all at once, the explosion and the little kid running out with the lighted (inaudible) in his hand. And that’s what started it off. I think at that time we had a man by the name of L. T. Lessinger who was a fire chief here, very good man, from Boise. And the gas of that thing, of course, all went to the top and hit this mezzanine [00:10:00] floor and the people just suffocated that were up there in the beauty parlor. And there was one little girl that was killed down by soda fountain that Mr. Drake had in his store. So, I used that man as a witness. I put him up in the Dewey Palace Hotel. I can remember very well, and there was a man by the name of Charlie Brogden who was managing that hotel, called me up one day and he said, “Frank, when are you going to get that guy out of here?” I said, “What’s the matter with him?” He said, “Oh, he comes into the dining room, and he orders funny things. And the way he eats disturbed all of our guests. He's a rough character.” I said, “Well, he living better than he ever did in his life. You can stand it a few more days.” So, he did. [00:11:00] And that man actually won the case for us. We didn’t lose any of it. I think we tried three or four others.

DICK: Well, in other words in your investigation in that revealed apparently the whole thing was started by some young boy.

FRANK: Some young boy, that’s right.

DICK: And how many buildings did that burn?

FRANK: I think just the Drake building. There was a two-story building that Mr. Olmstead had built next to it, I think it housed Montgomery Ward at that time. I don’t think there was any damage to that. There was pretty good firewalls back there. But what happened, there was this sudden explosion in the formation of this gas, and the fire from it was not bad. That was extinguished very rapidly. It was this gas going up and getting into the mezzanine floor where the beauty parlor was, [00:12:00] which was run by one of the old-time boys that I grew up with, by the name of Barnardough, and a lady by the name of Mrs. Brown. Of course, they got sued, too. And all of them escaped all right, with various problems. There wasn’t any negligence on their part, it was caused by some kid running in deciding to cause a fire.

DICK: The fire in 1909, was that attributed to fireworks also?

FRANK: Yes, that was also fireworks.

DICK: And that was a similar thing.

FRANK: That was down on Front Street. But that fire, as I saw ruins, I played in those ruins afterward, when my folks opened up this restaurant on Front Street, that fire was a devastating thing. It cleaned out Front Street pretty well. And [00:13:00] also came around part of Main Street down 12th Avenue. And some of the buildings there now were destroyed and were rebuilt.

DICK: What year was this Drake drugstore fire?

FRANK: I don’t remember, Dave.

DICK: I don’t remember anybody...

FRANK: I remember I was admitted to the bar on 12-19-29, and it was after that.

DICK: So, it’d be somewhere in the mid-30s, then.

FRANK: Yeah. But it was a devastating thing. There was one girl that never filed suit. She was Ray Lukenga’s wife, the sheriff. And she was terribly burned, [00:14:00] except her face wasn’t. But she got out all right, as far as I know. But they never filed any suit. And then, several people didn’t file suits. There were a lot of then filed. Mr. Drake had insurance. There wasn’t any.

DICK: You mentioned you started practice in 1929. That was just kind of the start of the Depression. What was it like in Nampa in 1929, 1930?

FRANK: In 1929 and 1930, we were going through things that, in my opinion, we’re coming to now, unless something’s done about it. When I was admitted to the bar in 1929, it was largely through the efforts of some local lawyers that helped me, and some schools in the East that helped. [00:15:00] And I went down to this same banker that I took the money to as a Boy Scout. My folks had banked there for years. And I said to him, “I want to borrow 250 dollars.” He said, “What for?” I said, “I’ve been admitted to the bar.” He said, “Oh, you’re a lawyer?” I said, “Yes, I get to 250 to pay the fees.” And he gave me a very encouraging word, and here’s what it was. He said, “Frank, I’m going to loan you the money, but I predict you’ll starve to death.” And the first few months I thought he was right, because the first month I took in nine dollars and 47 [00:16:00] cents. But I paid the 250 back. But my first office, Dave, was in the Dewey Palace Hotel building. And I shared it with a fine old attorney who’d helped me a lot by the name of George Lampson. And I had the help of man the name of D. L. Rhoades, one of the finest trial lawyers, I’d say not only in Idaho, but in the Northwest. And his partner, Frank Westerberg, and we had a lawyer here by the name of F. A. Higgins who’s been probate judge. And all of those three men, and Mr. Lampson were great help to me. And they called me one day and said, “Now, you’re turned loose on the public. If we have a criminal case, or you have a criminal case, [00:17:00] Mr. Rhoades is going to help you. If you need papers drawn, Mr. Westerberg is going to help you. If you have probate work, Judge Haglund is going to help you. We want you to start right.” Now, I owe a lot to those men. I’ll forget them. They were marvelous. But up in the Dewey Palace, when I was with Mr. Lampson, he just lasted a year and we found him dead one day in his home. He was an old man and wife predeceased him. And my first probate was his estate. And Jacob Lockman, who ran the brewery, was administrator. I thought that was great stuff. And let’s [00:18:00] see, the three glass bookcases over there were Mr. Lampson’s. I bought them from the estate. They’re now antiques. They’re over 100 years old. And the room rent of that room in that law office was 10 dollars a month.

DICK: Was the Dewey Palace a prestige office area?

FRANK: They had remodeled a portion of it, it had its own stairway on the 12th Avenue side. And they called it the Dewey-Davis Building. And it was part of the hotel, and they’d taken the old ballroom of the Dewey Palace Hotel and made offices out of it. I can remember the Dewey-Davis Estate had their offices, of course, the best ones. We had a Dr. Vandegriff come to town about that time, an osteopath, [00:19:00] he was there. We had a fine old dentist by the name of Dr. McCabe. He was there. And there was Mr. Lampson and myself. And we never had any heating problems, any water problem, or anything, while in the Dewey Palace. Well, later on, we had a city election and the real estate man, a marshal, by the name of George Meffan, his name was rising and was elected mayor. And he wanted me to be city attorney. So, I got Mr. Esterbroth’s job. And he didn’t begrudge it. The mayor at that time got 50 dollars [00:20:00] a month. A city councilman got 25 dollars a month, 26 dollars a month. And the city attorney got the same salary as the mayor, 50 dollars a month. And if you were lucky enough to be attorney for the school board, you got another 25 dollars a month in those days. So, you can see that thing, you were in a difficult position. Before I was admitted to the bar, this Depression started. And there were farm foreclosures, forfeitures of contracts and things by the hundreds. And I remember some of these old lawyers telling me, “Well, too bad you weren’t in business two or three years ago, you’d have made some money. Now you just have to suffer until things get better.” [00:21:00] So, it finally did. But I remember when I had the confidence of these three fellows, I remember Mr. Rhodes saying to me, “Well, Frank, I’ve got a murder case in the morning. You meet me down in Caldwell about 9:30.” And I went down there, expecting to sit through a murder case. Mr. Rhodes was a man that had a bad heart. During the process, he had one, I don't know what type of heart trouble it was, but whatever it was, he had to go home, and I was left there alone for a day. And to say the least I was scared to death, but I made it.

DICK: Baptism under fire.

FRANK: Baptism under fire.

DICK: Frank, during the Depression, I’ve heard comments made of tent city, or a box city, out somewhere where at present, Fred Meyers is, [00:22:00] the people that couldn’t find jobs or something. Is that what...

FRANK: Well, that area out by Fred Myers and Nampa city acreage, in those days, was just, and as I remember as a kid, Indian Creek used to run along there, and there was nothing there at all. As a matter of fact, up further on Phyllis Ditch when I was a kid, there were no houses out in that area, no business buildings, only the streetcar line. The old high school hadn’t been built there yet. And we had a swimming hole out there, we called it the shovel. And it’s called the shovel because the railroad man gets a shovel with a broken handle, they put a point on it, stuck in the bank on the Phyllis Canal, and that was our [00:23:00] diving board, and no swimming suits were worn, because there was nobody to see us.

DICK: Now, where was this?

FRANK: That was out on the Phyllis Ditch, below the pipe plant. I’d like to find it, sometime.

DICK: You don’t remember where it was, now?

FRANK: It wasn’t too far away. But we used to get in that ditch and some kid would take our clothes on a bicycle. And you could go with the current and follow the ditch. You’d go under what there was a highway at that time, which was just a dirt road. You’d end up at a place called Patterson’s Water Mill. And another thing I remember about Nampa, Dave, which particularly impressed me was the fact Saturday night was the night people came out. The streets were full of people. [00:24:00] And they’d parked their own cars early so they’d have a choice place. Everybody would be up town, down on 12th Avenue and First Street. I was in a boy’s band. We would march down from Kenwood School and play on one corner. The Nazarene church would be over on another corner. The Salvation Army would be on another corner. And we just had a rousing time down there.

DICK: This must have been the highlight of the whole week

FRANK: It was a lot of fun. Then, as a kid, I can remember what they used to call the Nampa harvest festival. My dad had the restaurant at that time. And what they used to do, they built stands from Front street down to the corner of [00:25:00] Main and they started again at 12th and went another block. And they had two blocks for stands, and people brought in their agricultural products. Then, on Main Street, they would bring in carnival. And it would set up the merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel, the concession, the games, the whole business right on Main Street. And that went on for years. And the first rodeo in Nampa that I remember was where the post office building is built. There was quite an area, there. They put some ropes around it. The admission was free, and they had the bucking horses and the whole business. And if they got through the ropes, you better run. But everybody had a good time at those things. [00:26:00]

DICK: And you say this is where the present post opera is?

FRANK: At the present post office.

DICK: 11th and Second, then?

FRANK: Yes. That was the first rodeo that I remember. And eventually, it went out where it is now, only the construction of it was entirely different. It was started as a football field for the high school, and they had a different setup. On one end of it was the ballpark, and we used that, they had the stands on the corner of it so you could see the ball game. They used to have a lot of fine ball games there. Intense rivalries between Boise and Nampa.

DICK: When did the harvest festival die out? How long did that last?

FRANK: Oh, it went on for a number of years, [00:27:00] Dick, but exactly how many I don’t remember. But eventually they used the old grounds before they built the new stadium that they have now, and they used that old ballpark, and then they built stands along this way, and they had the rodeo there. It was an entirely different set up than the arena, like it is now. It was on one side. And this man that ran the laundry, LL Gray, he used to be one of the principle promotors. He was always out there on a horse with his big hat.

DICK: Was the rodeo always volunteer labor like it is today?

FRANK: As far as I know, yes.

DICK: It’s remarkable how long that has continued.

FRANK: Yes, it really is.

DICK: Well, we kind of skipped over that on the tent city situation there in [00:28:00] the early ‘30s. Was there a lot of people there? I mean, you see it all over the country. Did Nampa have much of an unemployment problem, or no place to live?

FRANK: Well, when I delivered groceries for my father’s store, Dave, a lot of people won’t believe this, the county commissioners would come down and order things for people. They didn’t get very much, but they got some staple food and things. I had taken those groceries into houses where they had a big packing box for a table and nail kegs for chairs, and they slept on the floor. That’s on the north side of Nampa.

DICK: Well, that’s [00:29:00] just the area’s poor and I just wondered about the people that came through, the Okies out of the Dust Bowl, and so forth. I’d heard there was something about by where Fred Meyer lives, a tent city.

FRANK: I don’t remember it.

DICK: It must not have been sore; it must have been very good.

FRANK: All that area there just used to be willows and magpies, and fishing on Indian Creek. And they had some open spots they used for cleansing pools for the sewers, about three big lagoons or something out there. That’s where the sewer ran.

DICK: What about the Depression? Did Nampa really get down in the throes of the Depression?

FRANK: Along towards the last, yes. The [00:30:00] first part, Idaho has always been lucky in those things, it kind of hits us last. By the time it hits us last, it’s just starting to get over other places. I don’t think we fair as bad as other places do. But we might now, because we have more industry here. I was very surprised the other day that one of the chip companies opened up, Micron, employed a lot of new people, all of them right here in Nampa.

DICK: Well yeah, we’re getting some of that started in here like that. So, the Depression wasn’t as bad, we didn’t have all the unemployment, soup lines and so forth. We were kind of insulated from it. Was Nampa pretty patriotic? Were they...

FRANK: I always thought so, yes.

DICK: It [00:31:00] seems to be a conservative town.

FRANK: After our firecracker explosions caused two fires, the fire of 1909, they banned fireworks. After the Drake Drug, they banned fireworks. And I don’t know, I think once in a while they’ve had professional displays. But the fireworks have been a taboo here for many years.

DICK: Nampa at one time hired a rainmaker. That might have been before your time.

FRANK: Don’t remember him. But I’ve heard of such a thing happening. You know, in the old days, Dave, out in Kurtz’s addition, where there’s now beautiful homes, [00:32:00] they used to have jackrabbit drives.

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