Influenza in Idaho

Historical memory is often jogged by anniversaries or by perceptions of shared experience with the past. The influenza pandemic of 1918-1920 grabs our attention now for both reasons. We in 2020 are drawn to the centennial of this massive wave of a novel H1N1 virus that took the lives of an estimated 100 million people worldwide. And we in 2020, engulfed in a destabilizing first wave of a novel coronavirus, eagerly look to a century ago for lessons and parallels. The purpose of this project is to examine the experiences and responses of people in various Idaho communities to the pandemic of "Spanish Influenza." As part of our course on Idaho history, this is an effort to understand the complex interactions between communities of this region and broader influences of a shared global history.

Local and state history has too often been viewed in isolation. Earlier studies of Idaho history dive into details on the personalities and events within the state, paying little attention to the national and global contexts. Scholars focusing on regional history at Idaho State University have long promoted a broader perspective, emphasizing the dynamic and complex interactions that Idaho (or any part of the world) has with powerful, global forces of change. Examining the global helps us to understand the patterns and significance of our local heritage. Equally so, studying the local experiences and responses helps us to put faces to the range of human experiences in the vast sweep of global events.

The following 15 articles examine the local context of the influenza pandemic, each on a different community, each using available digital sources from the time. They were written by students in the HIST 4423/5523 Idaho History course, summer semester 2020. A list of suggested readings follows the last article. Any questions or suggestions may be sent to Professor Kevin Marsh, marskevi@isu.edu.

The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 killed up to 50 million people worldwide (some estimates put total deaths at 70 million). Dr. Nielson, the county health officer of Oakley, Idaho, quarantined the whole valley. According to The Oakley Herald, Dr. Nielson issued the following restrictions:

No visiting, no parties, surprise or other wise are permitted nor socials of any kind. No loafing on streets or in stores. Let the children be kept home on their own premises and let the adults do the shopping. If you have a so-called cold, call a doctor, it may be influenza; you may have a light attack — your neighbor may catch it from you and die. If you don’t call a doctor stay in your home 3 days after you are well so as not to expose your neighbor. Our young people should refrain from joy rides until all danger is over. No public funerals inside or out will be permitted. We ask all good citizens to help us enforce these rules.

Because of Nielson’s restrictions, Oakley suffered fewer cases of influenza of any community in the Magic Valley. [1] 

On October 11, 1918, The Oakley City Council passed measures to enforce the state Board of Health order that all public indoor meetings, except public and private schools, be prohibited during the Spanish influenza epidemic (schools were cancelled shortly thereafter). [2]  There were many local events cancelled that especially affected holiday time. Federal Court, which was held in Pocatello, was cancelled throughout the epidemic. It was an election year and less than 50% of voters came to the polls. In this same October 11, 1918 edition of the local newspaper there was information shared on influenza from the United States Public Health Service. The Surgeon General Rupert Blue gave information concerning where the flu began, the symptoms related to the disease, how it spreads, what actions to take when you start experiencing symptoms, how the sick people in your family are to be cared for, and how one might guard against influenza. He also encouraged people to follow the advice of their doctor and to obey the regulations of the local and state health officers. He ended with a little thematic poem: “Cover up each cough and sneeze, if you don’t you’ll spread disease.”

The weekly publication of The Oakley Herald shared information from the local happenings occurring with the flu epidemic as well as national and global information that kept the public of Oakley informed. There was an article describing the happenings in Challis and about the visit that district judge, F.J. Cowen tried to make to investigate some of the situation there concerning keeping outsiders from entering their town by guarding each of the entrances.[3] On October 25 an article encouraged citizens to use a gauze masks especially while nursing the sick or entering a public business.[4] The article went on to remind people to treat mild cases of the flu in their own homes as the doctors and nurses had been overworked. There was a request for nurses to go to bigger cities and help with the epidemic because of the medical personnel shortage. The local newspaper listed those who had been sick with influenza and those who had died. There was epidemic information about each surrounding city: Burley, Declo, Heyburn, and Rupert. Reports covered local areas around Oakley and how the epidemic was affecting those neighbors, areas such as Vipont, Golden Valley, the Basin, and Marion. The weekly paper also listed who was helping to care for these individuals and families.

The November 29th, 1918 edition of The Oakley Herald front page headlines read: CITY CLOSED AGAINST OUTSIDE WORLD! Because of the cases of influenza in Oakley, no one was permitted to leave the Oakley area at this time and anyone trying to come into Oakley would have to be quarantined for five days at their own expense. There continued to be fewer cases in Oakley than anywhere else, and citizens wanted to protect themselves against having a greater spread.[5] By December 6th, schools were set to re-open in Oakley and students were working hard to make up for the six weeks of school closure. But one week later, December 13, 1918, many new cases of influenza broke out and schools were again closed indefinitely.[6] Schools would not re-open until Monday, February 14, 1919. Students were invited to come back to school and finish the year and they were reminded that, although the school had been used as a hospital it had been thoroughly disinfected and fumigated and was as sanitary as it could be.[7]

As the epidemic began to wind down businesses and schools opened. Students graduated in the spring even though they had missed much of the school year. There were business owners that had been upset about having to close their doors and felt that their rights had been violated. Mr. M.S. Hoover, the proprietor of the Grigg Business College in Twin Falls, filed a suit questioning the validity of the state and county boards of health closing order during the epidemic.[8]

Early in 1920, the news in Oakley listed one more patient who had died of influenza:

Influenza claimed another victim here Saturday morning in the death of Lulu Lake, the 13-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.F. Lake. The funeral was held on the lawn of their home at noon on Sunday. Bishop Severe conducted the services. Mr. and Mrs. Lake have the sincere sympathy of the entire community.[9]

After all the information, quarantines, financial worries, business and school closings, and event cancellations the bottom line is about the people and their lives and how they were affected by this devastating epidemic. The Oakley Herald helped to keep individual people as well as families at the forefront of this crisis. There were more lives lost to the influenza flu epidemic of 1918-1920 than were lost in all of World War I. The loss of this last little daughter brings it all into perspective. The loss of one life changes our lives forever.

Annette Hansen, June 2020

1. Kent Hale, A History of Oakley, Idaho as Chronicled by: The Oakley Herald, Editor Charlie Brown with Reminiscences by Kent Hale.
2. “Additional Locals,” Oakley Herald, October 11, 1918.
3. Leonard J. Arrington, “The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 in Southern Idaho,” Idaho Yesterdays (Fall 1988), 19.
4. “Unnecessary Calls Made on Physicians,” Oakley Herald, October 25, 1918.
5. “City Closed Against Outside World,” Oakley Herald, November 29, 1918.
6.  “Many New Cases of Influenza,” Oakley Herald, December 13, 1918.
7. Oakley Herald, February 14, 1919.
8. Oakley Herald, November 22, 1918.
9. Oakley Herald, February 20, 1920.

In an economy already wrecked and plagued by the Great War, another threat snaked into the world unseen. Known as the Spanish Flu, the influenza pandemic of 1918’s devastating effects echoed on a global scale, giving no heed to race, class, sexual orientation, or age. The virus affected all and took the lives of many, changing the way people, cities, states, and governments functioned and survived. According to author Tara Rowe, the string of influenza started in the United States as a “flu” in military camps and was then taken abroad with soldiers where it evolved into something much deadlier.1 Along with the soldiers, the virus made its way into country after country, allowing it to spread to the pandemic level. The United States was no exception. From the popular bustling cities to the sleepiest rural towns, the deadly virus spread and changed American history forever. Even in the smallest Idaho towns, like American Falls.

News and reporting of World War I dominated the newspapers and media making it especially difficult to find information on the pandemic in American Falls. However, on December 5th 1918, the city of American Falls created a quarantine order, and published it in the American Falls Press the next day. Organized into eight sections, the order outlined stipulations to contain and eliminate the influenza virus. For example, in section one, the order states,

“that there is hereby established in the City of American Falls the right to quarantine all buildings, public and private in which there is housed or in which there are human beings who have the influenza or have been exposed thereto.”[2]

These stipulations and measures taken were to help protect the people and, hopefully, lower the virus spread rate and with it decrease the number of fatalities. Like many cities, this was how the city of American Falls dealt with the pandemic.

As mentioned before, the fatalities that swept through the country did not ignore small cities because of their rural attributes. On February 13, 1920, The American Falls Press headlinereported, “Three Die of ‘Flu’ Others Reported In Critical Condition.”3 The article goes on to mention that the “peak” of the pandemic has supposedly passed and that the numbers should be falling. Even so, individuals and families were suffering and struggling to survive. The article states, “In many cases entire families are prostrate and dependent upon outside help for assistance and nursing.”3 People were bedridden and unable to care for the other sick members in their family and feed and care for themselves.

Although information is scarce and accuracy is not a strength in this Idaho community, research tells that the small community was hit hard, just like the bigger cities. Because of the pandemic, a quarantine order was put into motion, people got sick, and fatalities were common. Not unlike other cities, the people who were stricken with influenza were too sick to care for themselves and depended on others to survive. In these ways, the community dealt and responded to the pandemic.

Tiffany Evans, June 2020

Idaho Reports. Idaho Public Television, May 22, 2020.

American Falls Press, December 6, 1918.

"Three Die of 'Flu'; Others Reported in Critical Condition," American Falls Press, February 13, 1920.

Since early March 2020 most of the states including Idaho has been in a state of lock down due to a pandemic of COVID-19. In all probability, most of the nation hasn’t even reflected on the past epidemics the world has faced. The Spanish Influenza was one that the country faced in the years 1918 to 1920. Historian Leonard Arrington in Idaho Yesterdays wrote about the Spanish Flu and the effects it had on southern Idaho. He stated that other outbreaks with influenza in 1850 and 1857 were not as bad as the Spanish Flu that hit Idaho with its first case in October of 1918. [1]  Most of Idaho was affected by the Spanish Flu, even small communities. Blackfoot Idaho, is located in the southeast corner of the state, between two larger communities, Idaho Falls and Pocatello.

The Idaho Republican was a Blackfoot newspaper that reported information on the pandemic to the local community, as well as to neighboring areas as well. In early October 1918, the Idaho Republican reported on occurrences of the flu happening back east. Entries stating about people going out of state for funerals or the actions that Washington took to help slow the of the flu. One article on October 1, 1918 stated that the General ordered the cancellation of entertainment sent to army camps between October 7 and 11. It also stated that there had been a little over 6,000 new cases reported in army camps. [2]  This is when the small community of Blackfoot begins to have more articles that hit closer to home.

Starting around the end of October 1918 the Idaho Republican started reporting of local deaths from surrounding areas such as Springfield and Shelley. At first the entries for who was sick and who died seemed to include only a few names, but by early November the paper had three or four pages that mentioned deaths from local communities or national news about the pandemic. [3]  In December businessmen met to go over ideas on how to care for patients if the Blackfoot hospital was full. Some of the men suggested using a church or a school. A Dr. Mitchell spoke saying that using either of those building wouldn’t be wise because there is no privacy and patients who have the flu need rest and privacy. Dr. Mitchell also talked about what symptoms a patient would suffer if they were to die from the flu. [4] 

           Most of the articles posted by the Idaho Republican were to inform the community who contracted the virus and those who perished from it. They also had some articles on what to do to keep a person from contracting it. Which was stay away from public events with lots of people; if a person is in public, they need to keep their distance from other people, and to wash their hands. This information is almost verbatim what health officials have stated for our own conronavirus pandemic. This if from the Board of Health in Bingham County.

The Idaho Republican had great articles that kept the community informed on the spread of the Spanish Influenza during the periods of 1918. It seemed to really only keep track of the deaths and those who were infected. The newspaper didn’t really have any statewide or national news about it, unless it was something that addressed the public. The public didn’t have what we have today that helps keep us informed, but the newspaper made it seem like the whole community was as a whole and made it seem more personable and relatable to the people.

Nicole Mitchell, June 2020

 [1] Leonard J. Arrington, “The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 in Southern Idaho,” Idaho Yesterdays 32 (Fall 1988): 19-29.

 [2]  Idaho Republican, October 01, 1918, Page 7.

 [3]  Idaho Republican, November 05, 1918.

 [4]  Idaho Republican, December 06, 1918.

Certainly transnational forces like disease have always been a part of world history, but in the modern era, accelerating into the early-20th century, the speed with which war, disease, and other factors spread was unprecedented. News about these events also spread rapidly through a network of media, including small-town newspapers. Recent digitizing projects by libraries allow us glimpses of communities a century ago to learn more about how they confronted their own transformative pandemic. The result of these student projects provide new perspectives on this era of Idaho history, but they also demonstrate some of the missing elements from the stories told in town papers.

Several of these studies force us to rethink the time frame of the flu pandemic. The most valuable study of influenza in Idaho during this time period is by the noted historian Leonard Arrington. He concluded that the pandemic mostly ended by the summer of 1919 and that afterwards "the cases were mostly light." However, stories from Mountain Home and American Falls in the winter of 1920 demonstrate a severe situation of fear and fatalities. Although some towns, such as Oakley, established their own quarantine--a dramatic act that most communities tried to avoid--the situation in Mountain Home in January 1920 was severe enough that state authorities mandated a quarantine.

The administrative capacity for widespread response was in its infancy. Public health agencies at the state and county levels were new products of progressive era reforms of the prior decade. They responded with limited resources and capacities, and these stories suggest that in many ways the response remained decentralized. However, there is also evidence that emerging government and private health bodies like the American Red Cross offered effective new approaches. And many Idahoans joined in the increasingly coordinated national and global responses.

A clear lesson from these stories is that people in local communities large or small were not merely victims in the pandemic; they actively responded in multiple ways. Some pushed back against health measures to maintain a sense of normalcy. During some of its most difficult stages in January 1919, Shoshone pushed forward with "another dance."

Far more commonly, though, people took action to help neighbors, to protect themselves, and to serve a larger need. Young women responded to the call for nurses and joined relief efforts or enrolled in emerging degree programs, such as the Nursing program at the Idaho Technical Institute, what is now Idaho State University. Men and women responded to the call to join Red Cross units in urban centers and overseas. Even without leaving home, people in places like New Sweden enrolled in new courses by the Red Cross as one way to improve community health in direct response to the pandemic.

Newspapers offer valuable and convenient access to primary-source perspectives, but they have their limits. Newspapers served a selected community of readers, and they ignored or simply caracitured the stories of many communities, most particularly ethnic and racial minorities. The decade before the Spanish flu hit, there was tremendous growth in the numbers of African Americans in Pocatello; Japanese American families expanded into new farmlands from Tyhee to Rexburg; and Mexican immigrants after 1910 became essential to railroad and agricultural work. The Shoshone Journal tells of nameless sheepherders, likely Basque, who died of the flu in isolation, but the papers don't list their names or those of surviving relatives. The flu hit Native American communities especially hard. Federal reports from the time document a mortality rate among Idaho Indians that was far higher than the general population. Newspapers may not mention these people, but disease has a powerful tendency to expose social inequalities. For this, and many other reasons, it's been a valuable experience to examine the pandemic from a century ago.