Gooding is no longer a whistling station on the Oregon Short Line. It is a full fledged stations with a depot and an agent; and what is more the depot has already proved too small and the railway people are planning to build a warehouse in addition. The lands of the Idaho Land Project bump right against Gooding and so also do the lands of the north side of the Twin Falls project.

This will put into cultivation about 100,000 acres of the best Idaho sage brush lands within a radius of a very few miles of Gooding and that is enough to make any town strut about and put on airs but Gooding is taking its fortune in a very modest manner and is interested in showing the visitor that Gooding has always been a pretty good sort of a place and that there has always been plenty of good money made here before these great irrigation schemes were conceived.

At the present time the Stockgrowers Merc. company is the only store in Gooding, but it is doing a flourishing trade under the management of platt Williams and Ed Eagles. The Gooding hotel has recently been opened and is under the management of William Kelly. This place furishes ample and update accommodations for the available public.

The Gooding Bros. are now having hauled the stone for the foundation for a large warehouse to be erected as rapidly as men can be acquired to do the work.

The soil about Gooding has been analyzed and declared to be as fine sugar beet soil as can be found any where and the fact that there are already several thousands of acres near the place that have run to alfalfa for several years thus making the best possible preparation for sugar beet culture has caused the sugar beet manufacturer to look about there with a view of the establishment of a factory. With the land already in cultivation and that which will soon be added by the new irrigation projects there will be a larger body of find lands around Gooding that any other town in the Snake River valley, for within a radius of four miles there will be from 75,000 to 100,000 acres of cultivated lands.

A feature not to be overlooked in counting the natural advantages of Gooding is the fact that an abundant supply of the purest water may be procured from wells and that the wells will not reach beyond the 200-foot mark. This matter of domestic water has already been fully demonstrated by those people living there as a number as a number of fine wells have been recently put down and the drills are still working on others.

No one is trying to boom Gooding on its bright prospects for the near future, in fact lots are not for sale at all, but the future is so bright that it has attracted the attention of many people familiar with conditions in irrigation districts and there has been quite an inquire for them.

The trains have passed through this place for so many years with nothing more than a whistle that persons not familiar with the conditions there during the past few years naturally supposed that one or two isolated ranchers constituted the community, but as a matter of fact there is quite a good sized settlement there now. About 500 hundred people are living on the lands in that neighborhood and some 160 votes were called there at the last election.

Local Events in Gooding March 1, 1907

E. E. Decker's blacksmith shop is now completed and ready for business.

Walt Gooding has bought a new plow from the Stockgrowers' Merc Co. He is pleased to note that it beats walking.

All the neighboring farmers are turning the land preparatory to putting in the oats.

T. H. Gooding was in town a short time last Monday.

Mrs. Frank Housman of Soldier, was in town last Saturday on her way to Salt Lake where she will purchase their spring and summer millinery and drygoods.

The well drillers have finished their work on Fred Goodings ranch. They sunk about 200 feet and have over 25 feet of water.

Tom Gooding has received a pump for his well and will soon begin the construction of his well tower.

M. Palmer now has his machine on Gov. Gooding's ranch. It will only be a short time before all the ranchers around here will have an abundant water supply of their own.

Rev. Pratt is now conducting a singing school at the new school house.

R. I. Boyer has completed the organization of a stock company for the purchase of Keota Colonel, the Pereheron stallion that has been in the stables here for the past two weeks. J. B. Bryant is president of the company.

T. P. Darr, the mail contractor, will move his family to Gooding the latter part of this week. Mr. Darr is now conducting his business from this end of the line.

W. B. Kelly is highly elated over the astounding fact that he was able to get a carload of Rock Springs coal and better still has it now stored in his sheds.

History of the Town - Gooding, Idaho

Source Documents