Dixie Slough

The William Hartley family, who arrived in this area in 1863, built their cabin that winter in Dixie Slough. After four months on the trail, the presence of the Boise River offered reason to stop and proceed no further.

The bottom lands adjacent to the river were subirrigated with natural sloughs and showed promise for cultivating crops. Additionally, wild hay was in abundance for the stock animals. This meant clearing the greasewood and erecting a shelter along with starting a garden before winter were necessary for survival.

Dixie Slough, one of the earliest settlements in the Boise Valley, was on the south side of the Boise River, extending several miles west of the present Caldwell city limits (see the left side of the image--slightly cut off). Numerous springs of pure, cold water supplied the area with additional moisture. 

Cattle ranged on the desert highland in the spring and fall. The area of present day Caldwell was sagebrush, greasewood, and salt grass on the arid high ground and wild hay in the low areas.

Ora Mumford Crammer, whose grandparents were early settlers, tells of Dixie Slough: Back in the fall of 1864, a small group of weary emigrants ended their long journey across the plains. Impressed by the abundance of water, wood, and wild game which they found in the vicinity, they staked their claims on the flats just West of where 19 years later the then-undreamed-of Caldwell would be laid out.

These dauntless emigrant pioneers were from war-torn Missouri and so energetically did they transplant their political convictions and their generally pro-Southern ideas into their new homes that the community came to be called Dixie.

In spirit, at least, this particular group represented a bit of the Confederacy transplanted to new and virgin soil. There were a dozen or more of these Dixie families and about half as many bachelors. Many of them remained throughout their lives in this section, helping to develop this part of Idaho.