Blaine Stubblefield
Encyclopedia
Blaine Stubblefield was the founder of the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest
held annually in Weiser, Idaho
, an archiver of American folk songs
, the originator of regular passenger boat tours down the Hells Canyon
of the Snake River
, a writer, and a magazine editor.
Blaine was born in Enterprise, Oregon
. and was the eldest of ten children born to Mickle and Edith Stubblefield.
Blaine’s father Mickle was the eldest of seven children born to William Kirkham Stubblefield and his fifth wife Josephine Loomis Stubblefield. Mickle’s wife, the former Edith Belle Davis, had come to Wallowa County, Oregon
with her family from Iowa
.
Mickle Stubblefield was a passionate historian who shared his family history with his children and expanded his use of the written word through an avid letter-writing campaign to explain the true burial site of Chief Joseph
.
Blaine attended and graduated from the University of Idaho
, and obtained an advanced degree in Journalism from the University of Washington
.
In the later part of his life, Blaine lived in Weiser; documents on folk music often refer to him as "Blaine Stubblefield of Weiser, Idaho".
, Blaine joined the United States Army Air Service
(forerunner of the United States Air Force
) in 1917 and was a Flying Cadet at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas
. Graduates of the Army flight school at Kelly Field include Charles Lindbergh
and Curtis E. LeMay. Major General Claire Chennault of World War II "Flying Tiger" fame taught at the school.
Completing Flying School, Blaine was commissioned as a Lieutenant
, was recommended for pursuit pilot (single hand combat), and was sent to Brooks Field
(also in San Antonio) to take the flying instructors' course. He then served as a flying instructor at Brooks Field for the remainder of his military service.
Three letters written by Blaine during this period were printed by the Enterprise Record Chieftain
newspaper (Enterprise, Oregon
).
in Western Highways Builder magazine, full of historical references and colorful descriptions of the landscapes.
Blaine took an advanced degree in Journalism at the University of Washington
in 1927. He later moved to the east coast
and worked as an editor of McGraw-Hill
aviation magazines in New York and Washington, DC.
In his life as a writer, Blaine wrote several short stories and unpublished novels and radio scripts.
Blaine Stubblefield attended President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's Inaugural Ball as a press corps member.
On July 17, 1946, President Harry S. Truman
met with Stubblefield and other editors and executives of the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company
in Washington DC for a two-day meeting.
. In his youth in the Snake River country, Blaine learned to play guitar
and fiddle and took an interest in folksongs, which he picked up from miners, cattlemen, pioneers, sheepherders, and traveling medicine men. Blaine also got songs from his father. Mickle typed some songs out on his typewriter. Blaine became an enthusiastic folksong collector and singer. While editor of McGraw-Hill's Aviation
magazine in Washington, DC, Blaine was asked by a local radio station to run a weekly program of folk music. In this way he attracted the interest of ethnomusicologist
Alan Lomax
at the Library of Congress
.
Blaine worked with Alan Lomax to record folk songs at the Archive of Folk Culture
of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The songs were recorded on 12-inch phonograph records
or reel-to-reel magnetic tape
and are available in the Idaho Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress. Fourteen songs sung by Blaine were recorded in 1938. In 1939 and 1942, five songs sung by Blaine were recorded and five songs sung by Blaine and Frank A. Melton were recorded. Blaine accompanied himself on guitar.
The words and music of four songs sung by Blaine in 1938, Way Out in Idaho, If He'd Be a Buckaroo, The Low-Down, Lonesome Low, and Brennan on the Moor, (see also Willy Brennan
) were printed in Our Singing Country and are available online. Other folksongs sung by Blaine in the Library of Congress recordings include Bryan O'Lynn, Poor Miner, The Farmer's Curst Wife, and The Golden Vanity.
Folk songs recorded by Stubblefield for the Library of Congress are designated in some places as “by Blaine Stubblefield” but were not authored by him.
Several of the folk songs contributed by Stubblefield to the Library of Congress had been gotten by Blaine from his father Mickle.
recordings predate the Stubblefield recording). Way Out in Idaho lightheartedly tells of the trials and tribulations of laborers building the Oregon Short Line Railroad
from Pocatello, Idaho
to Ontario, Oregon
in 1882. Stubblefield's track originally was released in the series "Folk Music of the United States", Library of Congress Recording Laboratory, AFS L6, 1968. The track also is found on the 1997 Rounder CD 1508, Railroad Songs and Ballads, The Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture.
A 30-second snippet of this recording of Way Out in Idaho (the complete song is 3 minutes 13 seconds in length) is available for free listening on a number of webpages, including this one
Both Blaine and his father Mickle were fiddlers. Blaine's interest in country fiddling music led him to ask the Weiser Chamber of Commerce Directors to allocate $175 for a fiddle contest. Nothing happened until January, 1953, when the idea was proposed to hold the contest during intermissions of the Fifth Annual Weiser Square Dance Festival. Prize money was underwritten by two individuals and the first official fiddling event came to life on April 18, 1953. It was billed as the Northwest Mountain Fiddlers' Contest and was a huge success. The name was changed to the Northwest Oldtime Fiddling Championships in 1956 when a regional division was added for out-of-area fiddlers. Today, the contest is known as the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest & Festival
and is held in June of each year, attracting musicians from throughout the nation, especially the West and Midwest. The event lasts a full seven days (it's also called "Fiddle Week") and is packed with activities, especially each night. On Saturday, there is a parade.
During "Fiddle Week" during the 1950's, Elnora Ford and Blaine Stubblefield would set up their pianos on separate corners in downtown Weiser and lead shoppers in song as the shoppers went from store to store. Elnora wrote many songs, including "It's Wiser to Live in Weiser" and "I'm a Farm Wife and I've Got Ants in My Pants".
. From 1949 to 1953, Stubblefield ran short boat trips for tourists on the Snake River in Hells Canyon
from Homestead, Oregon
downstream to the Kinney Creek rapids and back again. It was a 32-mile round trip.
In 1953, Stubblefield instituted an operation running passenger boats downstream through Hells Canyon. He used a 31-foot, twin-propeller boat called Chief Joseph at first, then upgraded to several 33-foot converted Army bridge pontoon boats with 25-horsepower outboard engines. The boat trips began at Homestead and ended at Lewiston, Idaho
-- a trip of 150 miles. This was the first operation to regularly provide passenger tours through Hells Canyon, and operated six months each year. The trip took from three days to a week. Passengers brought along camping equipment and set up camp on shore each night. Upon reaching Lewiston, the boats were trucked back to their starting point. It was impossible to go all the way back upstream on the river. The asking price was a $500 minimum (equivalent to $4000 in 2010 dollars) for one or two passengers with $200 for each additional passenger. This was for a full week's cruise—side trips were possible—and included food, refreshments, and a trip back to Weiser by car or airplane. Stubblefield's operation provided some cargo service for prospectors, ranchers and miners at remote spots along the way, but the tourist trade was the major part of Stubblefield's business.
Blaine Stubblefield died in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Boise, Idaho on December 18, 1960, of cancer. He is buried in Weiser, Idaho
. After his death, his widow Helen remarried, becoming Helen Stubblefield Elliott. In 2010, Helen donated Blaine's papers to the Idaho State Historical Society
.
A "Memorial to Blaine Stubblefield" is recorded on a reel-to-reel magnetic tape in Folk Collection 35b of the Barre Toelken Sound Recording Collection at Utah State University
. The same tape contains recordings of several folk songs sung by Blaine, a Chamber of Commerce Commercial, a poem about Blaine Stubblefield; and Blaine tells a story. The tape was given to Barre Toelken by Helen Stubblefield Elliott and/or the Weiser Chamber of Commerce.
National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest
The National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest is a competition, festival and musical gathering held annually during the third full week in June, in Weiser, Idaho. It is often referred to as 'Weiser'. The contest draws musicians from across the country. Nearly 7000 people come for the week and almost 350...
held annually in Weiser, Idaho
Weiser, Idaho
Weiser is a city in the rural western part of the U.S. state of Idaho and the county seat of Washington County. With its mild climate, the city supports farm, orchard, and livestock endeavors in the vicinity. The city sits at the confluence of the Weiser River with the great Snake River, which...
, an archiver of American folk songs
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, the originator of regular passenger boat tours down the Hells Canyon
Hells Canyon
Hells Canyon is a wide canyon located along the border of eastern Oregon and western Idaho in the United States. It is North America's deepest river gorge at and part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area....
of the Snake River
Snake River
The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...
, a writer, and a magazine editor.
Blaine was born in Enterprise, Oregon
Enterprise, Oregon
Enterprise is a city in and the county seat of Wallowa County, Oregon, United States. The population was 1,895 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 1,940 in 2007.- History :...
. and was the eldest of ten children born to Mickle and Edith Stubblefield.
Blaine’s father Mickle was the eldest of seven children born to William Kirkham Stubblefield and his fifth wife Josephine Loomis Stubblefield. Mickle’s wife, the former Edith Belle Davis, had come to Wallowa County, Oregon
Wallowa County, Oregon
Wallowa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is included in the 8 county definition of Eastern Oregon. According to Oregon Geographic Names, the origins of the county's name are uncertain, with the most likely explanation being that it is derived from the Nez Perce term for a...
with her family from Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
.
Mickle Stubblefield was a passionate historian who shared his family history with his children and expanded his use of the written word through an avid letter-writing campaign to explain the true burial site of Chief Joseph
Chief Joseph
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, popularly known as Chief Joseph, or Young Joseph was the leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain band of Nez Perce during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Nez Perce to a reservation in Idaho...
.
Blaine attended and graduated from the University of Idaho
University of Idaho
The University of Idaho is the State of Idaho's flagship and oldest public university, located in the rural city of Moscow in Latah County in the northern portion of the state...
, and obtained an advanced degree in Journalism from the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
.
In the later part of his life, Blaine lived in Weiser; documents on folk music often refer to him as "Blaine Stubblefield of Weiser, Idaho".
Army aviator during World War I
During World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Blaine joined the United States Army Air Service
United States Army Air Service
The Air Service, United States Army was a forerunner of the United States Air Force during and after World War I. It was established as an independent but temporary wartime branch of the War Department by two executive orders of President Woodrow Wilson: on May 24, 1918, replacing the Aviation...
(forerunner of the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
) in 1917 and was a Flying Cadet at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
. Graduates of the Army flight school at Kelly Field include Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
and Curtis E. LeMay. Major General Claire Chennault of World War II "Flying Tiger" fame taught at the school.
Completing Flying School, Blaine was commissioned as a Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
, was recommended for pursuit pilot (single hand combat), and was sent to Brooks Field
Brooks City-Base
Brooks City-Base was a United States Air Force facility located in San Antonio, Texas, southeast of Downtown San Antonio.In 2002 Brooks Air Force Base was renamed Brooks City-Base when the property was conveyed to the Brooks Development Authority as part of a unique project between local, state,...
(also in San Antonio) to take the flying instructors' course. He then served as a flying instructor at Brooks Field for the remainder of his military service.
Three letters written by Blaine during this period were printed by the Enterprise Record Chieftain
East Oregonian
The East Oregonian is a daily newspaper published in Pendleton, Oregon, United States and covering Umatilla and Morrow counties. The newspaper was established in 1875 as a weekly by M. P. Bull. In 1882, C. S. "Sam" Jackson purchased the EO. Within a year it had become a semiweekly, and in 1888,...
newspaper (Enterprise, Oregon
Enterprise, Oregon
Enterprise is a city in and the county seat of Wallowa County, Oregon, United States. The population was 1,895 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 1,940 in 2007.- History :...
).
Middle years
In October 1925, Blaine Stubblefield wrote about a trip through Idaho along the new U.S. Highway 95U.S. Route 95 in Idaho
In the U.S. state of Idaho, U.S. Route 95 is a north–south highway near the western border of the state, stretching from Oregon to British Columbia for over .-Route description:...
in Western Highways Builder magazine, full of historical references and colorful descriptions of the landscapes.
Blaine took an advanced degree in Journalism at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
in 1927. He later moved to the east coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
and worked as an editor of McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
aviation magazines in New York and Washington, DC.
In his life as a writer, Blaine wrote several short stories and unpublished novels and radio scripts.
Blaine Stubblefield attended President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's Inaugural Ball as a press corps member.
On July 17, 1946, President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
met with Stubblefield and other editors and executives of the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company
McGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
in Washington DC for a two-day meeting.
Recording folk songs for the Library of Congress
Blaine's father Mickle played the fiddleFiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
. In his youth in the Snake River country, Blaine learned to play guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and fiddle and took an interest in folksongs, which he picked up from miners, cattlemen, pioneers, sheepherders, and traveling medicine men. Blaine also got songs from his father. Mickle typed some songs out on his typewriter. Blaine became an enthusiastic folksong collector and singer. While editor of McGraw-Hill's Aviation
Aviation Week & Space Technology
Aviation Week & Space Technology, often abbreviated Aviation Week or AW&ST, is a weekly magazine owned and published by McGraw-Hill...
magazine in Washington, DC, Blaine was asked by a local radio station to run a weekly program of folk music. In this way he attracted the interest of ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Blaine worked with Alan Lomax to record folk songs at the Archive of Folk Culture
Archive of Folk Culture
The Archive of Folk Culture was founded at the U.S. Library of Congress in 1928 as a repository for American folk music. The Archive of Folk Culture became part of the American Folklife Center in 1978...
of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The songs were recorded on 12-inch phonograph records
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
or reel-to-reel magnetic tape
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording
Reel-to-reel, open reel tape recording is the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than being securely contained within a cassette....
and are available in the Idaho Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress. Fourteen songs sung by Blaine were recorded in 1938. In 1939 and 1942, five songs sung by Blaine were recorded and five songs sung by Blaine and Frank A. Melton were recorded. Blaine accompanied himself on guitar.
The words and music of four songs sung by Blaine in 1938, Way Out in Idaho, If He'd Be a Buckaroo, The Low-Down, Lonesome Low, and Brennan on the Moor, (see also Willy Brennan
Willy Brennan
William "Willy" Brennan was an Irish Highwayman caught and hanged in County Cork in 1804 whose story was immortalised in the ballad Brennan on the Moor.-Brennan on the Moor:...
) were printed in Our Singing Country and are available online. Other folksongs sung by Blaine in the Library of Congress recordings include Bryan O'Lynn, Poor Miner, The Farmer's Curst Wife, and The Golden Vanity.
Folk songs recorded by Stubblefield for the Library of Congress are designated in some places as “by Blaine Stubblefield” but were not authored by him.
Several of the folk songs contributed by Stubblefield to the Library of Congress had been gotten by Blaine from his father Mickle.
Way Out in Idaho
The well-known song Way Out in Idaho (songwriter unknown, early 1880s) -- arguably Idaho's greatest folk song—is notable in many regards. In 1938, Alan Lomax at the U. S. Library of Congress recorded eight verses sung by Blaine Stubblefield accompanied by his guitar (AFS 1634 B1). This is the earliest known English-language recording of Idaho songs (some Nez PerceNez Perce language
Nez Perce , also spelled Nez Percé, is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin . The Sahaptian sub-family is one of the branches of the Plateau Penutian family...
recordings predate the Stubblefield recording). Way Out in Idaho lightheartedly tells of the trials and tribulations of laborers building the Oregon Short Line Railroad
Oregon Short Line Railroad
The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon. The line was as organized the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railway. Union Pacific intended the line to be the shortest route from Wyoming to Oregon...
from Pocatello, Idaho
Pocatello, Idaho
Pocatello is the county seat and largest city of Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock...
to Ontario, Oregon
Ontario, Oregon
Ontario is the largest city in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. It lies along the Snake River at the Idaho border. The population was 10,985 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 11,245 in 2006...
in 1882. Stubblefield's track originally was released in the series "Folk Music of the United States", Library of Congress Recording Laboratory, AFS L6, 1968. The track also is found on the 1997 Rounder CD 1508, Railroad Songs and Ballads, The Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture.
A 30-second snippet of this recording of Way Out in Idaho (the complete song is 3 minutes 13 seconds in length) is available for free listening on a number of webpages, including this one
National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest
Newspaper files report fiddling contests that were held in Weiser, Idaho from 1914 to World War I. The resurrection of fiddling in Weiser was due to efforts led by Blaine Stubblefield, Chamber of Commerce Secretary from 1948 until his death in December, 1960.Both Blaine and his father Mickle were fiddlers. Blaine's interest in country fiddling music led him to ask the Weiser Chamber of Commerce Directors to allocate $175 for a fiddle contest. Nothing happened until January, 1953, when the idea was proposed to hold the contest during intermissions of the Fifth Annual Weiser Square Dance Festival. Prize money was underwritten by two individuals and the first official fiddling event came to life on April 18, 1953. It was billed as the Northwest Mountain Fiddlers' Contest and was a huge success. The name was changed to the Northwest Oldtime Fiddling Championships in 1956 when a regional division was added for out-of-area fiddlers. Today, the contest is known as the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest & Festival
National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest
The National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest is a competition, festival and musical gathering held annually during the third full week in June, in Weiser, Idaho. It is often referred to as 'Weiser'. The contest draws musicians from across the country. Nearly 7000 people come for the week and almost 350...
and is held in June of each year, attracting musicians from throughout the nation, especially the West and Midwest. The event lasts a full seven days (it's also called "Fiddle Week") and is packed with activities, especially each night. On Saturday, there is a parade.
During "Fiddle Week" during the 1950's, Elnora Ford and Blaine Stubblefield would set up their pianos on separate corners in downtown Weiser and lead shoppers in song as the shoppers went from store to store. Elnora wrote many songs, including "It's Wiser to Live in Weiser" and "I'm a Farm Wife and I've Got Ants in My Pants".
Passenger boat trips in Hells Canyon
As a boy, Stubblefield used to ride mail boats on the Snake RiverSnake River
The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...
. From 1949 to 1953, Stubblefield ran short boat trips for tourists on the Snake River in Hells Canyon
Hells Canyon
Hells Canyon is a wide canyon located along the border of eastern Oregon and western Idaho in the United States. It is North America's deepest river gorge at and part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area....
from Homestead, Oregon
Homestead, Oregon
Homestead is an unincorporated community in Baker County, Oregon, United States. Homestead lies on the Snake River south of Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and four miles north of Oxbow. Its ZIP code is 97840, and its area codes are 458 and 541....
downstream to the Kinney Creek rapids and back again. It was a 32-mile round trip.
In 1953, Stubblefield instituted an operation running passenger boats downstream through Hells Canyon. He used a 31-foot, twin-propeller boat called Chief Joseph at first, then upgraded to several 33-foot converted Army bridge pontoon boats with 25-horsepower outboard engines. The boat trips began at Homestead and ended at Lewiston, Idaho
Lewiston, Idaho
Lewiston is a city in and also the county seat of Nez Perce County in the Pacific Northwest state of Idaho. It is the second-largest city in the northern Idaho region, behind Coeur d'Alene and ninth-largest in the state. Lewiston is the principal city of the Lewiston, ID - Clarkston, WA...
-- a trip of 150 miles. This was the first operation to regularly provide passenger tours through Hells Canyon, and operated six months each year. The trip took from three days to a week. Passengers brought along camping equipment and set up camp on shore each night. Upon reaching Lewiston, the boats were trucked back to their starting point. It was impossible to go all the way back upstream on the river. The asking price was a $500 minimum (equivalent to $4000 in 2010 dollars) for one or two passengers with $200 for each additional passenger. This was for a full week's cruise—side trips were possible—and included food, refreshments, and a trip back to Weiser by car or airplane. Stubblefield's operation provided some cargo service for prospectors, ranchers and miners at remote spots along the way, but the tourist trade was the major part of Stubblefield's business.
Family
After Blaine Stubblefield's wife Verna Alice Henning Stubblefield died, he married Helen Buie. Stubblefield has a stepson, Bill Buie, a son of Helen from her earlier marriage. Bill, his wife Leona Jean Buie, and their three children and grandchildren live in Idaho and New Mexico. Leona Jean Buie is a daughter of Blaine's brother Seth William ("Bill") Stubblefield.Blaine Stubblefield died in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Boise, Idaho on December 18, 1960, of cancer. He is buried in Weiser, Idaho
Weiser, Idaho
Weiser is a city in the rural western part of the U.S. state of Idaho and the county seat of Washington County. With its mild climate, the city supports farm, orchard, and livestock endeavors in the vicinity. The city sits at the confluence of the Weiser River with the great Snake River, which...
. After his death, his widow Helen remarried, becoming Helen Stubblefield Elliott. In 2010, Helen donated Blaine's papers to the Idaho State Historical Society
Idaho State Historical Society
The Idaho State Historical Society is a historical society located in the U.S. state of Idaho that preserves and promotes Idaho’s cultural heritage. The society's vision is to inspire, enrich, and reach out to all Idahoans by providing leadership in the areas of preservation and dissemination of...
.
A "Memorial to Blaine Stubblefield" is recorded on a reel-to-reel magnetic tape in Folk Collection 35b of the Barre Toelken Sound Recording Collection at Utah State University
Utah State University
Utah State University is a public university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities....
. The same tape contains recordings of several folk songs sung by Blaine, a Chamber of Commerce Commercial, a poem about Blaine Stubblefield; and Blaine tells a story. The tape was given to Barre Toelken by Helen Stubblefield Elliott and/or the Weiser Chamber of Commerce.
External links
- Three letters written by Blaine as an Army aviator during World War I
- Discussion of song Way Out in Idaho from the book Long Steel Rail: the Railroad in American Folksong
- History of Fiddling, Fiddle Contests and the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest
- Snake River Trips To Give Tourists Thrill-Packed Ride - newspaper article of February 1, 1953
- Hells Canyon -- Snake River picks crooked path through some of the wildest country in America - newspaper article of May 16, 1954