I have not written a good blog for a long time, well not since the days of myspace blogging. I cant sleep so I thought I would read, then I was reading some pretty interesting stuff and thought I still cant sleep so why not blog about it.
So here is a story that an old indian told of how Blackfoot became Blackfoot, the name that is, we all know it was once "Grov City" but then got changed.
The Pegan indians were enemies of the Bannock and Shoshone tribes. They came on the land to hunt, trap, and to get wahtever other gains they could. The Pegans came from Montana to the Gray's Lake country in the winter when the lake was frozen over. There were many tule (bulrushes) growing on the edges of the lake and someone had set fire to them. As the Pegans crossed the lake they left black foot prints in the snow. When the trappers saw these footprints they called the Pegan "Blackfeet" and the river, so the town was named Blackfoot, after the Blackfoot river.
This was a story that Ralph Dixey told, it is something that could have been passed down through story telling of the indians.
I havae a few other stories that were more orally told and not written down, this is a written story, and where it came from I do not know who got it from him. But I will pull some other out just because I really like some of the things the natives talked about. Their religion and such...
Well I guess that is all for now.
3 comments:
That's a cool story. I have never heard that before.
Pretty cool.
Here's a cutNpaste from wikipedia about the origins of Blackfoot:
"Blackfoot" is a name applied to several places in the area, including a mountain range and a small river. The name for the area can be traced back to the summer of 1818 when a group of trappers and traders from the Hudson's Bay Company passed through. Earlier, in 1812, there had been some wildfires, and people who walked through the burned areas got their moccasins all black. While there were no actual Blackfoot people in the area, the traders referred to the people they met in the area as the Indians with the black feet, or the "Blackfoot Crowd", because of the blackened footwear. They went on to call the nearby stream the Blackfoot River and so forth.
Early settlers plow the road for Main Street
The first general store was built in 1874 by Fredrick S. Stevens and Major Danilson after learning that a railroad was to be built in the area. They were hoping that a station would be built there because it was just outside the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, which speculation paid off four years later. October 10, 1878 a post office was established with Theo T. Danilson as Postmaster. November 10, 1878 track was laid through town, with the track running right up behind the Stevens Store to take advantage of the store's loading platform (which was originally used to unload freight wagons). The name of the town was changed to Blackfoot March 20, 1879.
On January 13, 1885 Bingham County was established with Blackfoot as its county seat. Originally the county seat was to be Eagle Rock (now called Idaho Falls). However, the night before its final passage men from Blackfoot bribed a clerk to erase Eagle Rock and write in Blackfoot. The measure went through without opposition and was signed by the governor.[3]
Blackfoot was incorporated as a town in 1907.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfoot,_Idaho
Pretty much the same story, but mine is told from the Indian point of view. But none the less, a awesome story!
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