Fairview Cemetery

Fairview Cemetery was formally established in the late 1800’s and is the largest cemetery in Caribou County. Although many early settlers and founders of the City of Soda Springs are buried here, the best known graves are the Wagon Box Grave and “Carriboo Jack’s” Grave.

WAGON BOX GRAVE

This was the first grave in what later became the Fairview Cemetery. In the summer of 1861 a family of seven on their way to Oregon was camped in the vicinity of Soda Creek and Bear River. Their horses had strayed and the family fell behind the main part of the wagon train to search for them. Sometime during the night they were killed by Indians. The bodies were found the next morning by members of the larger party. One man, George Goodheart, related their burial as follows:”We then covered them all up with quilts, and took the upper sideboards and sawed them so they would fit across the wagon box. We put some across over the olf Folks’ faces and some over the children’s faces at the foot. Them we got some willows from Soda Creek and cut them so as to cover the whole length of the wagom box. We them spread quilts over them, covered them with dirt, and set four formation rocks, one at each corner.”

CARRIBOO JACK’S GRAVE

In 1870, Jesse “Carriboo Jack” Fairchild, along with two other miners, discovered gold on what was then called Mt. Pisgah, about 40 miles northeast of Soda Springs. He was a colorful personality, somewhat of a braggart, and prone to exaggeration of his exploits. On September 15, 1881, he was enjoying himself in G.W. Gorton’s Saloon in Soda Springs when J.J. Call came in and asked for help in finishing off a grizzly bear he had wounded down by the Bear River. “Carriboo Jack,” having boasted previously about his prowess in killing grizzly bears around Cariboo, British Columbia, and having a few drinks under his belt, had to volunteer. Upon approaching the scene, he rushed alone into the willows to take on the bear. The bear charged and severely mauled him. His partners finished off the bear and took “Carriboo Jack’ back to town. He died several day later from blood poisoning. Soon after that the mountain where he had discovered gold began to be called Caribou Mountain in his honor. Subsequently the Caribou National Forest was named in 1907 and Caribou County became the 44th county in Idaho in 1919.