100 Years Later. . . Fulton Family Members Return to the Homestead!

It's been a century since members of the Fulton family began homesteading in Idaho. . . who would ever have guessed that descendants of the clan would return years later to this state, let alone visit the actual site of the land grant?

In 1909, Varion and Viola Fulton (Rita Fulton Vogel's grandparents; Glenn's mom) and their two boys moved from the Cunningham, WA area to western Idaho. They attempted to homestead a 160-acre parcel of land near the then-thriving community of Mesa.

Through a little bit of online detective work and the assistance of three very friendly and helpful volunteers from the Council, ID museum, Linda was able to pinpoint the exact location of the property on which Rita's grandparents and father lived for four years . . . 100 years ago!

Although no trace of the actual home remains on the property, a small black-and-white snapshot that has been handed down to Rita provided a bit of perspective. Using that, we're pretty confident that we know the location of the small cabin in which they lived.

Rita arrived on Saturday, May 23 and we whisked her off the next day. We made several stops along the way . . . Register Rock, Oregon Trail Ruts near Milner Dam and Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls. We spent the night in Boise.

Monday morning we drove up US95 to the area of Mesa, Idaho. Along Goodrich Road, using old maps scanned and emailed to me by the volunteers, as well as GPS points, we found the location of the old Fulton homestead. The photo shown here has Rita and Glenn standing on the property.

Glenn remembers stories his grandpa told him of being a young boy and spending approximately four years growing up on this site. The family returned to Michigan in late 1914; Viola Fulton died in February, 1915 -- only 39 years old.

Family history is unclear. Did the Fultons give up their homestead because of economics (the land is beautiful, but not of good quality for farming). We do know that Varion occasionally took other jobs because the homestead could not support their growing family (Ken - Rita's dad, and his brother Keith arrived with their parents; baby sister Margaret was born here). Or, did the family return to Michigan because of Viola's ill-health? Regardless of the reason, it was fun for Linda to play the role of family sleuth. . . and exciting for both Rita and Glenn to walk on the property on which their ancestors lived and on which many family stories are based.