Gem County, Idaho
GenWeb Project

Sweet

On the left: Sweet Bank, Talley Store, Woody Hotel. Photo courtesy of Gem County Historical Society and Museum. Visit the museum at 501 E. First Street, Emmett, to see the rest of their Sweet collection.

"Historic Sweet" (sign on south side of the Syringa Club building)

"On August 15, 1876, Andrew McQuade acquired an early homestead in Squaw Creek Valley. The property eventually became the community of Sweet. The town took its name from an early postmaster, Ezekiel Sweet.

"Following a gold rush in 1902 the town began to prosper. Merchants, ranchers and farmers were able to provide food and supplies to miners in the Thunder Mountain mining region, northeast of Cascade (Valley County). The town also supplied goods to loggers at the three to four sawmills in Dry Buck, northeast of Sweet (Boise County).

"Sweet soon had a bank, stores, hotels, liveries, a newspaper, church school, two blacksmith shops, two lodge halls and three saloons.

"Major fires in 1922 and 1925 destroyed most of the older buildings in the town. Remaining structures eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places are the Methodist Church and parsonage, the William Talley barn, Williams Saloon and the McQuade homestead."

(sign erected by the Gem County Historical Preservation Commission)

Post Office and Postmaster History

SWEET established 1885 by Ezekiel Sweet
(For his story about his postmaster duties, see Gem County Archives)
Peter Shoo, May 18, 1895
Thomas W. Porterm, January 2, 1894 (Porter?)
Frank Noland, May 10, 1895
Warren Taylor, May 13, 1901
Samuel Lilly, February 20, 1907
Mercy Sheffen, November 20, 1908 (Skippen?? Mercy Skippen m. A. Boynton Nov. 1910)
Anna Skippen, September 17, 1910
George S. Harris, February 13, 1914
Ella Linebarger, March 19, 1918
Mrs. Rosa Bennet, Oct. 10, 1919
(wed - no date) Mrs. Rosa Hammond
(wed - no date) Mrs. Rosa Goins
discontinued Dec. 31, 1967, mail to Horseshoe Bend
When the Sweet post office re-opened is unknown. There is a post office in Sweet today.

Sources:

"History of Post Offices in Idaho." U.S. Post Office; Gem County Historical Society collection

Nellie Ireton Mills, "All Along the River/Territorial and Pioneer Days on the Payette." Privately printed for Payette Radio Limited, 1963.

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