1835–1913

John C. Anderson was born in August 1835 in Kentucky. After serving as a major in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, John spent time in St. Louis, Missouri, with the Warren, Jones, and Gratz Company.

In 1866, at the age of thirty, John traveled to Eagle Rock, Idaho (later renamed Idaho Falls). His plans to establish a mercantile business near his brother, Robert, fell through after his partner, Thomas Akers, became ill and returned to St. Louis. John returned east soon after. In a revised version of his diary (later published as Mackinaws Down the Missouri), John wrote: “The trip is made – a useless one it proved to be” (Barrett, 81).

Completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, as well as slumping economic conditions in the states, prompted John’s return to Idaho in the 1870s. John and Robert established a general store, named Anderson Brothers, which later became Anderson Brothers Bank in 1898. First Security of Idaho eventually acquired the bank.

John was living with his brother and sister-in-law in 1900. While he had married in 1867, his wife is not listed in the 1880 and 1900 Idaho Censuses.

After Robert passed away in 1906, John resigned from Anderson Brothers Bank and left Idaho. He returned to the eastern states, where he passed quietly away in 1913.

Bibliography

1880 Idaho Census (John C. Anderson, Eagle Rock and Willow Creek, OneidaCounty, 333A).

1900 Idaho Census (Robert Anderson, Idaho Falls, Bingham County, E.D. 20, sheet 3).

Barrett, Glen, ed. Mackinaws down the Missouri: John C. Anderson’s Journal of a Trip from St. Louis, Missouri, to Virginia City, Montana, and Return, 1866. Logan, UT: Western Text Society, 1973.