Bannock Creek runs north out of the valley the settlers then called Bannock Valley, past the mouth of the West Fork and on into the Fort Hall Reservation. By 1904 settlers upstream had been taking its water for more than a decade, under rights later dated to 1892, and the Indian farms on the reservation lay downstream on the same creek. That fall the case over who could use it was argued before a federal judge. On Tuesday evening, October 4, 1904, the Pocatello Tribune reported the hearing on its front page under the heading "The Red Men and the Waters of Bannock Creek."
The hearing
The case had been brought by Caldwell, the Indian agent, on behalf of the Indians on Bannock Creek. Two days later the same paper described him as "Indian agent at Fort Hall." The suit asked the court to restrain Dave Daniels and other settlers on the creek from using its water "to the detriment of the Indians."
On Monday afternoon, October 3, the case took up most of Judge Beatty's time in the United States district court. The settlers' side had filed a demurrer, a formal objection that the complaint was insufficient in its particulars. It was argued on Monday, and on Tuesday morning the judge overruled it, so the suit would go on. The settlers' attorneys then asked leave to bring in the names of every user of water on the creek, "so that their rights might be finally settled."
The case was not new. The paper said it had been filed "some time ago," and that at the start of the 1904 irrigation season the judge had made an order governing how the parties used the water through the summer. What that order said was not reported. The judge told the attorneys he wanted the case finished before another irrigating season came on.
The court cleared its docket and adjourned on Thursday, October 6. In its report the Tribune said a new complaint would be filed in the Bannock Creek water suit, naming several more ranchers on the creek, at the next term of court. Part of that sentence was lost in printing: a line from a ball notice elsewhere on the page was set in place of one of its lines, so the words between "among the" and "at the next term of court" are missing.
Dave Daniels
The paper did not say which Dave Daniels it meant. He was probably David Moroni Daniels, the West Fork cattleman whose story is told on the Daniels family page. By the family account his ranch stood above the mouth of the West Fork, and when the county surveyed a new road from American Falls over Moonshine in 1911, the line ran to the Daniels ranch. His second son, David Albert Daniels, was born in 1883 according to the family page, though the 1915 notice of his death gave his age as about 28. That made him somewhere between about 17 and 21 in 1904, and he is not known as a cattleman then, so he is the less likely target of the suit. On April 16, 1906, the Tribune noted that "Dave Daniels, the stock king of Bannock creek," was in Pocatello on business.
What came of it
The papers read for this post do not follow the case after October 1904. As this site's Stories page on United States v. Daniels tells, a federal decree of April 9, 1907, settled the water rights of Bannock Creek and its branches. It kept the Tribes' earliest right and fixed the settlers' shares, with the Daniels, Lusk and Bolingbroke rights on Rattlesnake Creek dated April 1, 1892, and it still governs the creek. The 1904 suit was probably the start of that case. Both were federal suits brought for the Indians, over the same creek, against a lead defendant of the same surname, and the 1904 motion to bring in every user on the creek fits a decree that set the rights of many settlers. The Stories entry says it is not known which Daniels was the lead defendant. These reports name Dave Daniels as the settler the suit asked the court to restrain.
Much is still unknown. No report found gives the date the suit was filed or the names of the other settlers and their attorneys. None tells what the judge's order for the summer of 1904 allowed, how the case went between 1904 and the 1907 decree, or what the Indian farmers on the lower creek said about it.
On this site: United States v. Daniels, the decree and the dry-year warning of 1935; David Moroni Daniels; Pauline and West Fork; the road over Moonshine, surveyed to the Daniels ranch; when Bannock Valley was cattle range; and the Bannock Creek allotments.
The article as printed
Pocatello Tribune, October 4, 1904, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan. The paper reprinted it unchanged in its semi-weekly edition the next day.
THE RED MEN AND THE WATERS OF BANNOCK CREEK
The case brought by Indian Agent Caldwell in behalf of the Indians on Bannock Creek, to restrain Dave Daniels and other settlers on the same creek from using the waters of the creek to the detriment of the Indians, occupied the principal attention of Judge Beatty in the United States district court yesterday afternoon. A demurrer to the complaint specifying insufficiency in particulars was argued yesterday and Judge Beatty this morning overruled the demurrer. The attorneys for the white settlers on the creek then filed a motion for leave to include the names of all users of water on the creek so that their rights might be finally settled. The case was filed some time ago and the judge made an order at the beginning of the present irrigation season for the government of the various litigants in the use of the water this past summer. The judge today in his advice to the attorneys, evinced a desire to push the case to completion before another irrigating season came on and instructed the attorneys to work to that end.
This morning a motion was argued in the Bancroft water suit in which two of the affected parties are endeavoring to reopen a decree rendered by stipulation some years ago.
The trial jury was called this morning and the jurors were excused until 2 o'clock. The grand jury was laboring yesterday afternoon and this morning and it is understood have made some indictments, but the same have not yet been given to the court.
Some Chinese deportation cases are being heard by the court this afternoon, and the Blackfoot Indian whiskey cases will follow.