QUINCY WYOMING FULL

Many of the Saints who could not find the shelter of a home set up camp the best they could at the site now known as Washington Park in downtown Quincy. Photo (2015) by Kenneth Mays Sign in Washington Park noting the plight of Latter-day Saint refugees. Washington Park, Quincy, IL with statue of John Wood, city founder, in the foreground. Under the leadership of city founder and leading citizen, John Wood, the citizenry opened their hearts, homes, and pursestrings to help in every way possible. There were many more struggling Saints than there were citizens of Quincy to offer assistance. The Latter-day Saint exiles traveled across Missouri under extremely harsh circumstances and crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois at Quincy. A monument to the 1838-39 citizens of Quincy is seen in the foreground. The Mississippi River at Quincy, IL looking toward Missouri. While Joseph Smith and others of the First Presidency were incarcerated in Liberty Jail, Latter-day Saints who had been living in Missouri were driven from the state as a result of the Extermination Order issued by Governor Lilburn W. Sources: Bill Scott, Pioneers of the Big Horn Bighorn Canyon Historic Resource Study Information, on-site historic markers and maps from Friends of Bighorn Lake in cooperation with Northwest College and Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.One of the most heartwarming stories in early Latter-day Saint history is that of the kindness shown by the citizens of Quincy, Illinois to these religious refugees during the winter of 1838-1839. The town of Kane is gone, but definitely not forgotten. Although you cannot see the buildings or even the pattern of the city streets, the stories of the community can still be heard. Today the Kane/Iona Cemetery, a Kane railroad marker and old bridge abutments are all that remain of this small community. In 1967 the rising lake waters silenced the hum of Kane forever. Unlike many towns destroyed by construction of dams, no effort was made to re-establish Kane at a new site. They condemned the land and bought it from the community.

QUINCY WYOMING FULL

In 1965 with the Yellowtail Dam nearing completion, the Bureau of Reclamation knew that a full capacity Bighorn Lake would flood Kane. No one knew that in thirty years this growing town would be slated for destruction. To take advantage of the tourist trade several service stations and a motel were opened. A highway bridge was erected and the Kane Ferry went out of business. During that same decade, the Dayton-Kane Road was built across the Bighorns. On these nights, the store stayed open late just in case some young woman might need a pair of shoes for the occasion.īy the 1930s, Kane grew to include a bank, two general stores, two hotels, a motel, a dance and pool hall and a school. On Saturday nights, ranchers and farmers came from all over the Northern Basin to attend dances and hear D.E. John Smith and his sons ran the Kane Ferry.Rhodes ran the First State Bank built in 1918. Miss Edith Scott taught first through eighth grade in the schoolhouse built in 1906.

Croft would come by horse and buggy from Cowley. Neely, was around to provide basic medical services, but for emergencies Dr. Grandma Neely who ran the hotel and boarding house where you could get a bed and three small but delicious meals per day.Like any small town Kane had people that made it a community. It also became the trading center for farmers and ranchers of the Dryhead and Crooked Creek country. This ferry was used by sheepherders to move sheep from Cowley, Byron and Garland to the Bighorn Mountains. The Kane Ferry was the only crossing of the Bighorn River north of Greybull. There was no depot, but there was a (railroad) car body sitting beside the track where freight could be stored out of the weather.” When Scott got off the train in 1912, the town consisted of “four log houses, a frame section house, and a small gypsum block building that was the Kane Store. The town was located on the Chicago, Quincy and Burlington Railroad. It began as a railroad shipping point for lumber, cattle and sheep. The small town established in 1912, was plagued by winds that caused dust storms in the summer and blowing snow in the winter. Kane grew up on a sagebrush-covered flat, about two miles south of the mouth of the Shoshone River. “Dust to mud and gone but not forgotten” is how Bill Scott describes Kane in his book Pioneers of the Bighorn.

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