How We Got Here

Caroline Filby

After graduating from San Jose State University, my wife Caroline and I both went on for graduate degrees from New Mexico State University. I attained a Ph.D., she a Masters degree – both in chemistry. Then, for about thirty years, we had “day jobs,” I as a research scientist and project manager, while Caroline was a laboratory supervisor.

But, for various reasons, we chose to retire early and indulge our urge to travel. Much of that took us to historical places, mostly in the state of Idaho. As we visited sites and browsed museum book racks, it struck me that none offered anything about the cowboy (specifically, “buckaroo”) heritage of the state. I did eventually find three, all of which focused on just the “Owyhee Country” (the county in Idaho and across the state line into Oregon).

To make a long story short, I decided to write the book I could not find. By the time I had most of the book written, I had also collected a huge amount of research material. I therefore created a web page – the original South Fork Revue – and, in September 2009, the South Fork Companion blog. On those venues, I posted a lot of information that I had gleaned with all that research.

That soon put me in touch with fellow history buff Skip Myers. Back then, Skip and his wife owned a grocery store and café in Idaho City, plus a small grocery outlet in Placerville. The sesquicentennial of the first settlements (gold mining camps) in the Boise Basin was coming up in 2012. But Skip discovered that he had nothing to sell that described the history of the gold camps and what came after.

To compress another long story: While I continued to peddle my buckaroo book to publishers, I – with Skip’s input – wrote and assembled Boise Basin Gold Country. Because of the tight timeline, I went straight into self-publishing through the CreateSpace print-on-demand service. At our first big book event, in Skip’s café, we signed over seventy copies.

Later, we did a book signing in New Centerville, about five miles from Idaho City and a couple miles southwest of the original Centerville. Centerville/New Centerville was once a thriving area with around 4,000 people. Now hardly anyone lives there and New Centerville is basically an old weathered railway station. The book has continued to sell steadily ever since.

Skip and I at the New Centerville Book signing.

The process went so well for Gold Country, I then chose to also publish Before the Spud through CreateSpace. But I still had all this material, and 2013 was the sesquicentennial of the creation of Idaho Territory. So, for that event, I created and self-published Idaho: Year One.

With three books out under my personal imprint, I started this second blog, then titled Sourdough Publishing. As noted earlier, I posted items from Year One on this blog, along with information about the books.

Through all this, I kept adding material to the South Fork Companion. One such item was: America’s Sherlock Holmes – Innovative Forensic Detective Luke May, posted on his birth date, December 2.

During my research for that article, I discovered the significant role May had played in the development of scientific methods of crime investigation. Scans of newspaper from back then also highlighted just how much of a celebrity he was in his day. So… Why was there no biography of this fellow?

An exchange of e-mails and phone calls with his granddaughter, Mindi Reid, revealed that a writer (in Seattle, as I recall) was working on such a project. That fell through, but another writer took up the task. All this time, I was working on my three books.

But finally, with Idaho: Year One out, I called Mindi and asked, “How’s that biography going?” Answer: “It isn’t.” The second writer had also abandoned the project. I won’t speculate on a reason. However, the fact that it took me about three years of research and writing to have a “product” may have something to do with that.

When Rowman & Littlefield agreed to publish the book, I began to gear up ways to reach readers. One thread was to revamp my original South Fork Revue, which I had “put on the back burner.” That’s when I discovered that my ISP had taken it down, as part of a policy of removing a free personal web page from the membership package.

Exploring that event further seems rather pointless, so I won’t go there. But that’s when I decided to re-purpose this blog rather than try to pick a new web host and start a site from scratch. On the main page (which I have made “sticky”), I'm trying to keep you updated on the status of the new book, and other projects I start.

Beyond that, I have (literally) dozens of Luke May cases that I could not fit into the book. Anyone interested in scientific crime investigation or just “true crime” stories, should find plenty to like among those accounts.

Ordering Information

As noted in the individual book descriptions, the three books can be ordered from Amazon.com and other online retailers. Click on the title below to go to the relevant Amazon.com page:
Boise River Gold Country.
Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho.
Idaho: Year One – The Territory's First Year.

American Sherlock can be ordered from several online booksellers as well as from the publisher, Rowman & Littlefield. We (my wife and I) can not make direct sales of American Sherlock due to the terms of my contract with the publisher. (Different arrangements may be possible for personal book signings.)

We do sell individual copies of the other three books, signed if so desired, at $18 per copy (a 10% discount from list), plus shipping. We offer a 40% discount to those who order six or more copies directly from us. We also absorb the shipping cost if twelve or more books are ordered at once (that can include mixed titles). Regrettably, we are unable to handle credit card orders and all sales are final (i. e., no returns allowed).

To place an order with us, send an e-mail to the spelled-out address in the “About Me” block. (The warnings about spammer bots scarfing an actual e-mail are valid, by the way.)

American Sherlock. Scientific Crime Investigation

American ​Sherlock is the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. May played a significant role in the development of scientific methods of crime investigation. Although basically self-taught in scientific matters, May spent over a half century practicing scientific crime detection and built a solid reputation among police agencies and attorneys in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada as a serious and effective scientific investigator.

This reputation as “America’s Sherlock Holmes” also led to his being consulted on the establishment of the first “full service” public American crime laboratory at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and on a crime laboratory for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

When May began, few people, anywhere, used scientific tools to investigate crime. Except for a couple of minimal installations in Europe, there were no crime labs. So to solve his cases – criminal and civil – May improved or invented techniques in every area of forensic science in the era before public crime laboratories. Along the way, he exchanged ideas with many other well-known crime fighting pioneers.

Exemplifying “The American Dream”
Born on a Nebraska farm in 1892, Luke S. May rose from the proverbial “humble beginnings” to become one of the most famous detectives of his day. Hard times forced his ancestors out of Ireland, and then Canada, to seek a better life in the United States. But even that faltered when a severe drought sent his father back to life as an itinerant carpenter.

May, About 18 Years Old

Then, young “Lukie” experienced a pivotal moment: He read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The boy decided that scientific criminology would be his life’s work. Luckily, a building boom in Salt Lake City drew the family there and Luke found the resources needed to pursue his dream. Detective May was not yet eighteen years old when clues he spotted solved his first publicized case, a murder during a daytime burglary. As his reputation grew, he moved his base first to Pocatello, Idaho and then to Seattle, Washington. He remained there for the rest of his life, handling well over two thousand cases.

Between the two World Wars, May logged – as a private criminologist – an average of one death case every month. Around 80 percent of those were murders. Since roughly two-thirds of the death cases involved firearms, he became an expert in firearms and bullet analysis, with a huge gun collection. He had racks holding thousands of test-fired bullets, and could “read” them to identify every commonly-used firearm in the world.

A Few of May's Guns

May’s other cases ran the full gamut: routine background checks, cattle rustling, questioned documents (most often wills), accident investigations, and on and on.

But perhaps his most visible contribution to the field involved “tool marks.” The most telling marks are the microscopic scratches (striations) that can identify a specific implement (knife, screwdriver, etc.) used to commit a crime. One of his cases set the legal precedent for the use of such evidence, an important factor in the later conviction of Bruno Hauptmann for the murder of young Charles Lindbergh, Jr.

Tool Mark Comparison

American Sherlock is based on extensive research in the Luke S. May Papers, archived at the University of Washington, along with material from over two thousand other sources (mostly newspaper articles about May and his cases). For readers with further interest in the topic, the book contains an extensive endnotes section and a considerable bibliography.

[Note: All photos are from the May-Reid papers and are used with permission.]

Reviews
Well researched and engagingly written, American Sherlock rediscovers Luke S. May, a largely forgotten pioneer in early twentieth-century scientific crime fighting. In recounting May’s colorful career and most remarkable cases, Evan E. Filby traces the development of forensic science in the United States and offers a fast-paced narrative that will be particularly interesting to true-crime aficionados.
— Jeffrey S. Adler, professor of history and criminology at the University of Florida, author of Murder in New Orleans: The Creation of Jim Crow Policing (2019) and First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 (2006)

With Evan E. Filby’s American Sherlock we have, for the first time, a detailed assessment of the life and career of Luke S. May. May was a highly influential figure in the development of forensic science and scientific detection in North America in the first half of the twentieth century, yet he is surprisingly hardly remembered. Filby’s book accurately reinstates him in his rightful place in the history of scientific detection. Clearly and accessibly written, with a wealth of detail on May’s life and work, American Sherlock appeals to a wide audience including fans of true crime writing and those with an interest in the development of scientific detection.
— Alison Adam, professor of Science, Technology and Society at Sheffield Hallam University, UK; author of A History of Forensic Science: British Beginnings in the Twentieth Century (2015).

In 1910, a family friend asked 17-year-old Luke S. May, the subject of this admiring biography from first-time author Filby, to help find who fatally shot a 14-year-old boy in Salt Lake City. Thanks to May’s keen observation skills, the killer was caught and punished, and so began a lifetime of detective work for May. By the time he was 18, he had his own private detective agency, and in his heyday, in the 1920s and ’30s, May was known as the American Sherlock Holmes, a pioneer of fingerprint analysis and profiling who designed equipment such as a fingerprint camera, a sound recorder, and a microscope he used for handwriting and hair analysis. As a private criminologist, he was sought after by law enforcement agencies across the nation. In 1933, he was appointed chief of detectives of the Seattle Police Department, which he subsequently reorganized and modernized. During World WWII, May was on active duty with the Navy, though much of his work was classified. After the war, his business wound down as police departments and law enforcement agencies had their own labs and forensic specialists on staff. He died in 1965, but his legacy as an early criminologist lives on. Filby writes with enthusiasm and verve. This is an important addition to the history of forensic science.
— Publishers Weekly

Many readers have thrilled to the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his powers of deduction, but deduction only goes so far. Filby details the life of Luke May, the “American Sherlock” who pioneered the field of forensics. A true scientist, May created case files focused almost solely on evidence, leaving out the context of the crimes. Acting like a detective himself, Filby here uses news accounts to fill in the details of May’s work, piecing together the cases in which the scientist refined methods in criminal investigation, such as using a special camera and film to capture fingerprints that had previously been missed; perfecting a sound recorder; analyzing bullet-trajectory and blood-spatter; and suspect profiling. May’s reputation was cemented in the 1910s, when handgun analysis helped solve a controversial case involving the Wobblies and WWI vets in Washington state. Over more than four decades, May, a man who liked “snappy hats,” logged several thousand cases, until close to his death in 1965. With exhaustive notes and bibliography, this could augment criminal justice curricula or allow true-crime buffs to geek out.
— Booklist

Ordering Information
Released at the end of July 2019, the book can be ordered from the publisher or from major online booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. About 310 pages long in hardcover, the list price is $32.

Or you can order directly from Rowman & Littlefield or by contacting Customer Service and Order Fulfillment:
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     Toll free: (800) 462-6420 ext. 3024
     Local: (717) 794-3800
     Fax: (800) 338-4550
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     Orders: orders@rowman.com
     Queries: customercare@rowman.com

Idaho: Year One, An Idaho Sesquicentennial History

My third book on Idaho history is Idaho: Year One – The Territory's First Year. It is, as usual, available at Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

On March 4, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation that created the Territory of Idaho, a geographical monstrosity roughly the size of Texas and Illinois combined. Newspapers across the East acknowledged the event with a short paragraph, buried among equally-brief items about other Congressional actions.

A week later, the New York Herald had assembled enough material to publish a map (of sorts) and a longer descriptive article about the new political district. More a celebration of Western expansion, the item contained almost as much mis-information as information. Still, one fact stood out: Idaho had Gold! and perhaps a lot of it.

But the Civil War raged and the Territorial birth had to share headlines: Victory in Tennessee? “Piratical Operations” of Rebel privateers at sea. Vicksburg. And More. At first, no one in the West knew even the exact borders. Was Lewiston in or out? A governor and other officials were quickly appointed, but took months to arrive. Who were these men, and what policies would they impose?

But, more importantly: Where, exactly, could one find gold? How do we get there? What do we take with us? Guidebooks say to be alert and have our guns ready: Are the Indians really that dangerous? Why won’t the Army do something about them?

Using contemporary published articles and letters from the gold camps, Idaho: Year One, captures the day-by-day excitement and uncertainty as hopeful prospectors poured into the area. Was the latest reported gold strike real, or was it a “humbug” meant to lure in suckers? You could never be sure.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Prologue

1. March 1863: We’re a Territory. Now what?

2. April 1863: Waiting for the Season

3. May 1863: Mining Booms, and Spreads

4. June 1863: “Gold … Plentiful as Dirt"

5. July 1863: Summer Lull Setting In

6. August 1863: Optimism Despite a Mining Lull

7. September 1863: Harbingers of Settlement

8. October 1863: Winter is Coming

9. November 1863: Weather Slows Mining

10. December 1863: Baby Steps For Law and Order

11. January 1864: Politics at Center Stage

12. February 1864: Busy Politicians and Hopeful Miners

Afterword: Territory Partitioned

Image Sources

Bibliography

Index

Periodically, I posted samples here of the daily "news" that make up the book. These posts will be labeled with the Territorial Sesquicentennial logo created by the Idaho State Historical Society.

Several examples were published as "sesquicentennial" posts on the South  Fork Companion, such as: "Miners Lack Water But Prospectors Still Hopeful, Politicians Meet." In most cases, the comparable item in the book includes more background material, and sometimes additional news.

Idaho Mining History: Boise River Gold Country

Boise River Gold Country is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and other online booksellers, such as Barnes & Noble. (If you prefer not to order online, local "bricks and mortar" bookstores will order it for you, but those stores will generally not stock ready-to-buy copies.)

The book tells the story, in words and pictures, of the settlement of the mountainous regions drained by the Forks of the Boise River. It all began in 1862, so 2012 was the 150th anniversary of the first towns in the area. That looming milestone prompted Idaho City merchant Skip Myers to ask me to write a new history of the region. (The few existing books on the topic were all out of print.) Boise River Gold Country is the result.

On every page, from the Introduction (“Setting the Scene”) through all the chapters, the book contains at least one image – generally historic photographs. Overall, I used over two hundred photos to supplement and illustrate the textual material.

Boise Basin Gold. Found ca 2009

Prospectors first discovered Idaho gold in late 1860, on the tributaries of the Clearwater River in North Idaho. Hordes of miners poured into the region. However, two years later, a party led by Moses Splawn and George Grimes found gold in the Boise Basin, a mountainous area northeast of today’s Boise. These fields proved far more extensive than the earlier finds.

Thus, it was Boise River gold that “gave legs” to the creation of Idaho Territory. The first Territorial census, in September 1863, counted nearly five times as many people in the Basin as in the northern camps and towns. A year later, that imbalance had increased to nearly seven to one. Large-scale gold mining continued in Boise River gold country for almost a century. Also, at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, logging began to increase in importance. Large-scale timber harvesting surpassed mining in value after about 1955, peaking around 1980.

Table of Contents

Setting the Scene

Chapter One: Before the Golden Age

Chapter Two: Gold Rush Creates Idaho

Chapter Three: Cooperative Mining Replaces the Sourdough

Chapter Four: Placer Mining Fades, Lode Mining Grows

Chapter Five: Dredging and Hardrock Mining

Chapter Six: Big Timber Takes an Interest

Chapter Seven: Mining Revisited

Chapter Eight: Recreation and Tourism

Chapter Nine: World War, and Afterwards

Chapter Ten: Identity TBD

Image Sources

Bibliography

Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho

Say "Idaho" to most people, even Idahoans, and they think "potato." Fair enough, considering decades of relentless marketing. What many do not think of are "cowboys" and "cattle." Yet Idaho was, and is, as much a cowboy state as its more-recognized cattle-state neighbors in the Intermountain West.

My book – Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho – seeks to correct that mis-perception. The book is available online from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Any B&N store can order you a copy, although they will not generally carry independently published books on their shelves. (Sigh.)

Before the Spud tells the story of how the Idaho stock raising industry developed. It begins with the "first stockmen of Idaho" – Shoshone and Nez Percés horse raisers – and carries forward to about 1910, followed by a brief survey of the state of affairs today.

Among the pioneer stories is that of French émigré Alexander Toponce. In the 1870's, he ran "as high as 10,000 head of cattle" on leased land at Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Toponce played many roles: freighter, stage line operator, mining investor, sheep raiser, and mayor of Corinne, Utah.
In 1888, George L. Shoup, in one routine transaction, sold a thousand cattle from his Salmon River ranches. Two years later, he became Idaho's first state governor and then one of its first two senators.
In 1897, a jury convicted hired cowboy-gunman "Diamondfield Jack" Davis of murdering two sheepmen south of Twin Falls. Although two other "respectable" cattlemen soon confessed to the killings, Davis twice came within hours of hanging and was not pardoned until 1902.

Table of Contents

Preface: Ground Rules

Chapter One: The First Stockmen of Idaho

Chapter Two: Fur Trade Era – Canadians Dominant

Chapter Three: Competition Heats Up

Chapter Four: Wagons Across Idaho

Chapter Five: Mining Makes a Territory

Chapter Six: Idaho Meat for Hungry Miners

Chapter Seven: Stock Raising Grows

Chapter Eight: Filling in the Gaps

Chapter Nine: The Last Stands

Chapter Ten: Cattle Drives Across and From Idaho

Chapter Eleven: Rails Across Idaho

Chapter Twelve: Livestock Boom

Chapter Thirteen: Nature Delivers a Lesson

Chapter Fourteen: Range Conflict Heats Up

Chapter Fifteen: A New Century

Afterword

Geography Makes Idaho Territory Ungovernable, Should be Split

On February 24, 1864, newspapers all over the East carried “bullets” of information on what happened that day in Congress. The item from the New York Tribune was typical: “Mr. Grimes (Un., Iowa), presented a petition from the citizens of Idaho praying for a division of that territory, one portion being inaccessible to the other, which was referred to the Committee on Territories.”

It’s not clear why James W. Grimes, the Union (Republican) Senator from Iowa, presented the “petition” from Idaho. Born in New Hampshire, Grimes graduated from Hampton Academy in that state, and then studied at Dartmouth College. He moved to Iowa in 1836, when he was just twenty years old. Two years later, he served the first of two terms in the House of Representatives for Iowa Territory. During this period, he studied law and was admitted to the bar.

After Iowa became a state in 1846, Grimes served in its House of Representative, and then as governor (1854-1858). Elected to the U. S. Senate in 1859, he served there for ten years.

Senator Grimes. Library of Congress.

At least two possible connections between Grimes and Idaho Territory exist. First, James Tufts, Speaker of the Idaho Territorial Council, was from New Hampshire, like Grimes, and became a lawyer in Iowa. Before moving on to Nebraska, he would have overlapped with the term of Governor Grimes.

Second, Granville Stuart, a pioneer destined to be known as “Mr. Montana,” had lived in Iowa from 1838 to around 1852, and his family still lived there.

In any case, the Journal of the Senate provided further details on what Grimes submitted. The memorial requested “a division of the Territory of Idaho, by formation of a new Territory embracing the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, with the Rocky Mountains as the dividing line.”

Meanwhile, lobbyists from the east side of Idaho Territory had already been at work. One of them was Idaho Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton, who had been hired to push the idea of a split with his influential contacts in Congress. Edgerton, of course, knew Lincoln personally. Also, being from Ohio himself, he was a friend of Ohio Congressman James M. Ashley, who happened to be chairman of the House Committee on Territories.

These future Montanans had plans that differed a bit from those of the Idaho legislature.

References: Michael P. Malone, Richard B. Roeder, and William L. Lang, Montana: A History of Two Centuries, Revised Edition, University of Washington Press, Seattle (1991).