On Sunday, June 23, 1929, the Pocatello Tribune ran its column "In Olden Times: What Happened in Pocatello Thirty Years Ago," which reprinted items from thirty years before. Under the date June 24, 1899, it printed a bear story from the high country where Rattlesnake Creek begins, very probably the creek of the basin that later became Crystal.
The story came from "Surveyor Sonnenkalb's camp at the head of the Malad." The surveyor was very probably Oscar Sonnenkalb, a Pocatello civil engineer who by 1913 was advertising as Bannock County surveyor. The item does not say what his party was surveying that summer.
One morning a few days before the item appeared, the men of the camp were riding to work when they came on a big bear in a small stand of aspen at the head of Rattlesnake Creek, about three miles west of Hawkins Basin. The paper called it a "silver-tip," a common Western name for the grizzly, though it gave no other description. The bear ran. According to the Tribune, it had been troubling the stockmen for some time and had killed "hundreds of sheep" in the neighborhood, and the men set out to trail it.
When the bear took cover in another aspen thicket, Martin Boyson Jr., Clarence Bronsard (the item also spells him Brossard) and Joseph Munn surrounded it to keep it there until "young Brossard" went to a nearby sheep camp and borrowed an old gun. The item does not make clear whether this was Clarence himself. Munn took the gun up onto a cliff of rocks to wait for the bear to come out. Boyson with a .38 six-shooter, Clarence Brossard with an axe and a man the item calls only "young Fisher" with a spade went into the brush to drive it out.
The bear broke out on the far side from Munn, and his two shots did not stop it. Boyson and Munn followed on horseback for about half a mile. Boyson fired six shots from his revolver into the bear, which halted and made ready to fight, and Munn came up with the rifle and shot it until it fell dead. The men guessed its weight at 500 to 600 pounds, and the hide was on view at the survey camp.
The item gives no more about the four men, and none of them is known as a valley settler; the site has no family page for any of their surnames. They were probably members of the survey party. There was no Crystal yet. Rattlesnake Creek, fed by springs in the Crystal basin, flows down to Bannock Creek, and Hawkins Basin lies about twelve miles southeast of Crystal, so a point three miles west of the basin fits the high ground at the head of the creek. The Crystal basin was part of the Fort Hall land given up under an agreement signed in 1898 and ratified in 1900, and it opened to homesteaders in 1902; whether the spot where the bear was found lay inside the reservation line in 1899 is not known. By the Bradley family's account, George Willard Bradley built a cabin in the upper Rattlesnake drainage in 1899–1900, though the earliest record of him there is a water right of 1902. In 1899 the country around the creek's head was sheep range, with a sheep camp close enough for a man to go and borrow a gun.
The original 1899 issue has not been found in the archive, so the reprint is the only text we have, and it may have been shortened or retyped. When the bear was killed, beyond "the other morning," is not known. The sheep losses are the paper's claim, and nothing else has been found to check them.
On this site: Crystal, the hidden settlement up Rattlesnake Creek follows the settlement that grew up below the creek's head; When Bannock Valley was cattle range tells of the stockmen's valley of the same years; The reservation next door explains the 1898 cession; and the State's elk at Crystal is a later story of wildlife in the same hills.
The article as printed
Pocatello Tribune, June 23, 1929, page 10, in the column "In Olden Times: What Happened in Pocatello Thirty Years Ago," under the date June 24, 1899. Transcribed from the page scan.
CHASING A BIG BEAR
An exciting bear story comes from Surveyor Sonnenkalb's camp at the head of the Malad. While the men were riding to their work the other morning they suddenly came upon a big silver-tip bear at the head of Rattlesnake Creek about three miles west of Hawkins' basin. They came upon bruin in a little copse of aspen timber. The bear, growling and snapping his teeth over his shoulders, took to his heels. The brute had been making life burdensome to the stock men for some time and had killed hundreds of sheep in the neighborhood and desiring to rid the country of so notorious a monster, the men took after the bear with the intention of trailing him to his lair, but the bear ran into another bunch of aspens and Martin Boyson Jr., Clarence Bronsard and Joseph Munn surrounded the place to keep him in there until young Brossard went to a sheep camp nearby and borrowed an old gun. When he got back Joseph Munn took the gun and went to the top of the cliff of rocks where he thought he would have a good chance at the bear when he left the brush. Then Mart Boyson, with a 38 caliber six-shooter, and Clarence Brossard with an axe, and young Fisher with a spade, started into the brush to chase the bear out. Bruin ran out on the opposite side from where Munn was waiting for him with the gun, and although Munn fired two shots he did not succeed in checking the monster. Then Boyson and Munn started after the bear on horseback, and after a chase of about half a mile overtook the bear and Boyson fired six shots from his revolver into the lumbering body. This halted the bear, which then prepared to fight, but in the meantime Munn came up with the rifle and proceeded to pump the bear full of lead, and finally the brute dropped over dead. As near as they can guess, the bear weighed between 500 and 600 pounds. The hide can be seen at Surveyor Sonnenkalb's camp.