Coeur D'Alene, Idaho Labor Confrontation of 1899 - Arrests

Arrests

At the Idaho governor's request, President William McKinley sent black soldiers from Brownsville, Texas and other areas, veterans of the Spanish-American war, to round up 1,000 men and put them into bullpens. The arrests were indiscriminant; Governor Steunenberg's representative, state auditor Bartlett Sinclair believed that all the people of Canyon Creek had a "criminal history," and "the entire community, or the male portion of it, ought to be arrested." The soldiers searched every house, breaking down the door if no one answered.

As Sinclair had ordered, they arrested every male: miners, bartenders, a doctor, a preacher, even the postmaster and school superintendent... Cooks and waiters arrested in kitchens, diners at their supper tables... For desperate criminals, the men of Burke went quietly, the only gunshot was aimed at a "vicious watch dog."

One thousand men were herded into an old barn, a two-story frame structure 120 feet long by 40 feet wide and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather." The overflow were herded into boxcars. The prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.

The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.

Two of the three county commissioners had been caught in the roundup, as had the local sheriff. These, too, were held prisoner. Later, a district court removed all of the county commissioners and the sheriff from office, charging that they'd neglected their official duties.