ELK CITY STAGE STITES IDA. JAN. 1909.

Date: January 1909 Source Type: Postcard Publisher, Printer, Photographer: Unknown (#81) Postmark: June 11, 19??, Stites, Idaho Collection: Steven R. Shook Remark: Stites, Idaho County, Idaho, served as a outfitting point for the mines located along the Old Nez Perce Trail.

Two businesses are visible in this postcard image. On the left is Hotel Tremont. This hotel served as a "stepping off point" for miners headed east and southeast of Stites into various mining districts of the area. Lisle Hopkins and Joseph S. Wilson were the proprietors of Hotel Tremont.

At the right in this image is the N. B. Pettibone Livery, owned and operated by Nathaniel Belcher Pettibone. Pettibone was born July 10, 1869, at Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois. Orphaned at age four, Nat was taken in by Thomas Head of McDonough County, Illinois, and Thomas treated Nat as a son. After moving to various locations in North Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, and southern Idaho, Pettibone arrived in Idaho County, Idaho, in June 1890 where he labored in the gold mines of the area and harvested hay.

It is suspected that this postcard was created by or for Nat Pettibone. Pettibone also served as a mail contractor and carried the mail by stage coach from Stites to Elk City, Idaho, which at that time was an active mining community. The route took Pettibone over two mountain ranges and fifteen percent grades. He was paid $15 dollars a day to transport ore, cast iron stoves, kegs of nails, fruit boxes, and other bulky and heavy items between Stites and Elk City. Pettibone's purported expenses were $40 per day and the delivery of mail was bankrupting him; he thus exited the mail contracting services in either 1913 or early 1914.

Pettibone would move to Grangeville, Idaho, with his wife, Mary Eliza (Shissler) Pettibone, in 1914 and operate a 400 acre grain and stock ranch. He died on March 12, 1955, at Grangeville and is interred in the Prairie View Cemetery in that community.

The recipient of this postcard was Miss Lizzie Lawyer of Spalding, Nez Perce County, Idaho. Lizzie was born circa 1892 at Spalding, the daughter of Archie Lawyer and Amy Emma Raboin. Lizzie died on March 24, 1970, at Yakima, Yakima County, Washington, and was buried at Reservation Community Memorial Park at Wapato in Yakima County.

Lizzie father, Archie Lawyer, was a noted member of the Nez Perce Tribe. At the time of his death in 1893, he was the wealthiest and most influential member of his tribe, assisting in the establishment of the Nez Perce Reservation. Archie was an ordained Presbyterian minister and a student of sister's Kate and Sue McBeth's mission school at Lapwai, Nez Perce County, Idaho.

Lizzie's grandfather was Chief Lawyer (Hallalhotsoot), among the most famous of Nez Perce Tribe's chiefs. He was given the name Lawyer for his eloquence of speech, possibly by Marcus Whitman whom he had met as early as 1836.

Lizzie's great-grandfather, and father of Chief Lawyer, was Twisted Hair. It was Twisted Hair that welcomed the exhausted Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805 to his tribal area after they had crossed the Bitterroot Mountain Range on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

Lizzie married three times to the following individuals: Gilbert Edward Conner (1897-1967), Albert Moses (1881-1960), and Herbert B. Courville (1896-1967)

Information Sources: Bailey, Robert G. 1935. River of No Return. Lewiston, Idaho: Bailey-Blake Printing Company. 515 p. [see pp. 55, 59-62]

Idaho County Free Press, Grangeville, Idaho County, Idaho; June 11, 1903; Volume 18, Number 2, Page 3, Column 2. Column titled "Stites Will Celebrate."

Idaho County Free Press, Grangeville, Idaho County, Idaho; June 7, 1906; Volume 21, Number 2, Page 4, Column 3. Column titled "Personal Mention: Items of Interest to Grangeville and Vicinity."

Find A Grave, Memorial No. 96023703

The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. 1920. History of Idaho: The Gem of the Mountains. Volume IV. Chicago, Illinois: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. 594 p. [see pp. 86-89]

The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Spokane County, Washington; April 19, 1910; Volume 27, Number 308, Page 2, Column 3. Column titled "Miners Stream to Ten Mile District."

Woehlke, Walter V. 1914. The Pulse of the West: Current Comment on Western Affairs. Sunset Magazine March: 639-640.