The Cottonwoods - near Shoshone, Idaho USA - Best Kept Secrets on Waymarking.com

In the late 1800s, when the Kinsey family lived in the Idaho settlement called "The Cottonwoods" along the Big Wood River, "its many trees and green fields made it look like an oasis in the desert. Travelers between Shoshone and Bellevue often stopped at their two story home, where Mrs. Kinsey served home cooked meals." (Behr, A.C. and Ward, M.H. 1995. "The History of Richfield, Idaho." p. 218.) The meals famously included "wild meats, ice cream and ice cold water. The ice was quite an attraction. By accident the family discovered its own ice supply." (Shoshone Chamber of Commerce. 1983. "Shoshone and Her People." p. 13.)

Their 10-year-old son, Alpha, discovered what became known as the "Shoshone Indian Ice Caves" among the nearby desert lava-tube caves. Later in life, the boy told about meeting an old bandit who came to The Cottonwoods. The reformed bandit was returning to the scene of his crime many years after robbing a stagecoach but was unable to find the stolen treasure box that he and his long-dead partners in crime had hidden in the big, lava-flow desert south of The Cottonwoods.

The Cottonwoods was also where "two bandits from the Boise Basin area were overtaken by a posse. When their horses were shot from underneath them, they tried to escape on foot towards the distant lava fields. They made their last stand behind a pile of rocks and were finally shot and killed. Their loot, estimated at $75,000, was not found with them or around their barricade." (Cubit, J. and Glenn, T. R. 1968. "Idaho Treasure Tales and Treasure Trails." Alturas Enterprises, Boise, Idaho)

The Cottonwoods settlement has been almost forgotten. The green fields and cottonwood tree groves that once lined the Big Wood River at the Kinsey homestead have vanished. Now a huge gravel pit dominates that whole area next to the old dusty road where weary travelers between Shoshone and Bellevue once saw an oasis and could get a homecooked meal with ice cream.

Factors that led to the demise of "The Cottonwood" settlement included the building of Magic Reservoir dam upstream with its diversion canals, which took Big Wood River water away from the cottonwood tree groves and redistributed it southward to irrigate the "Cary Act" lands (Desert Land Act of 1894) of Richfield and Dietrich. With its water flowing through irrigation canals, the Big Wood River bottom became a valuable source of gravel for construction projects. The desert "oasis" known as the Kinsey homestead at "The Cottonwoods" was literally excavated away.

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