Rupert - Agricultural Boom Town
The wilderness and the solitary place
shall be glad for them; and the desert
shall regoice, and blossom as the rose...
I will open rivers in high places, and
fountains in the midst of the valleys: I
will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water. Isaiah
35:1, 41:18
In the late 1800s the U.S. was
blessed with a surplus of land, plentiful
water, and many immigrants. Rupert, originally known as Wellfirst, owes its
existence to the establishment of the Minidoka Irrigation Porject by the U.S.
Reclamation Service.
Wellsfirst began in 1904 when Reclamantion drilled a well four miles from the Snake
River along the planned right-of-way of a spur of the Oregon Short Line Railroad. The well
provided water for teams and men building the new irrigation project. The well was pivotal
in developing the town. Settlers flooded onto the dry land around the well with the
promise of homesteading an irrigated farm. As the sole source of clean water, the well
was visited by every household and business regularly. Such a captive market proved
irresistible to businesses.
On May 2, 1905, the first business in Wellfirst, the W.S. Schilling Store, was
established in a tar paper shack west of the well. By November, the town had expanded to
include 64 businesses, and a school with 100 pupils. Mail was delivered, at first, by rail to
the store by a man named John Henry Rupert. The mail was dumped in the corner in an
"Arbuckle Coffee" box. People rummaged through the box for their mail. John delivered
mail for only a short time, but his mailbag, which was labeled "Rupert," continued to be
used for mail deliveries. When the first official ost office was established in 1905, the
town retained the name Rupert.
[Picture Captions]
Well/Pump House and Storage Tank on the Center of the Square
The First Mercantile - W.S. Schilling Store - 1905
Rupert's First Post Office on the West Side of the Square
