Council Valley Museum

02/21/2026

I have put my Feb. 19 presentation on the life of Elizabeth Osborn - Clay and here descendants on Youtube. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/PUr_JKf6_l0
Dale

Born in 1845, Elizabeth Klein emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1863. Her first husband, Wm. Osborn was murdered, along with more than a dozen of her nei...

02/16/2026

11/09/2025

I just posted my Seven Devils Mining District presentation on Youtube here:
https://youtu.be/sppYEJnR8vQ
It's basically a remake of the presentation I gave at the New Meadows depot on October 22. It's an hour and a half long, so be prepared to settle in if you watch it. Let me know if you find it interesting.

This is a remake of a presentation I did at the New Meadows, Idaho railroad depot on Oct. 22, 2025. It is the story of the Seven Devils Mining District in we...

10/19/2025

Ya'll come! It's gonna be a good one.

06/27/2025

I just put my Mesa Orchards presentation on YouTube! It's an hour and a half video that tells the story of the orchards from start to end, including movie footage from 1929 of raising the Lost Valley Reservoir dam and scenes from Mesa in the 1930s (including the tramway in operation!) This is a slightly edited and corrected version of the live presentation I did at the New Meadows depot on June 24, 2025.
Here's the link:

This 1 1/2-hour video tells the story of what was one of the biggest orchards in the U.S. at one time near Council, Idaho. To learn more about the orchards, ...

06/25/2025

My presentation about Mesa Orchards went well last night at the New Meadows depot and had a capacity crowd. Governor Brad Little's wife, Teresa (nee Soulen), was there with some of her relatives and was delighted that I talked about the Soulen family connection to Mesa. I did not manage to video the presentation, but I'm starting on making a video of it today. It's 1 1/2 hours long; I'll see if I can upload it to YouTube at some point.

06/22/2025

From Dale Fisk: I will be giving a major presentation about Mesa Orchards this Tuesday evening (June 24) starting at 7:00 p.m. at the New Meadows depot. The event is free. It will feature over 100 photographs, including several that were only recently discovered. My talk will cover the story of the orchards – planting the trees, construction of the 7-mile flume, the deaths of several key people and the eventual removal of almost all the fruit trees. I will be showing rare movie footage of raising the Lost Valley Reservoir dam in 1929, the Mesa tramway in operation, picking crews and more.

03/28/2025

My presentation on Mesa at the New Meadows depot has been postponed until the highway in the canyon is repaired, so probably in May. It was scheduled for April 3, and then for the 5th, and now the highway seems to be closed for quite a while.

03/08/2025

I will be giving another presentation at the New Meadows Depot on April 3at 7:00b PM. It will include nearly 100 photos of Mesa Orchards, some of which have only recently been “discovered.” My talk will include stories ranging from founding of the orchards to its eventual demise.

07/04/2024

New video as of July 4, 2024: Mesa Orchards in the 1930s. Find it here:

Movie footage of Mesa Orchards in the 1930s and early '40s, taken by Dr. Alvin Thurston and the Van Hoesen family. There are a number of people who are unide...