[Editor’s note:  This article was submitted to the Recorder-Herald by William H. Steen, although his byline did not appear on the published version.]

    Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the Steen family in Lemhi County.

    On April 28, 1879, Daniel Morrison Steen, a 19-year-old native of New Brunswick, Canada, placed a placer claim on Jordan Creek in the Yankee Fork Mining District.  The district was part of Lemhi County until the organization of Custer County in 1881.

    In 1873, Steen’s uncle, John G. Morrison, located the first claim on Yankee Fork.  The claim proved rich in gold, and Morrison’s success led to the westward migration of at least five of his nephews, including young Steen.

    Within the next 15 years, Steen, with initial backing from Morrison, assumed management of the Yellow Jacket Mine and advanced the property from an undeveloped prospect into a producing mine.  He used the proceeds from this venture to purchase a hardware and lumber business in Boise in 1893.

    The next year he married Harriet French, daughter of Dr. Joseph S. French, who had first come to Salmon City in 1881. The Steens lived in Boise for 10 years, where their sons Edwin and Heber were born.

    In 1904, then a prospering merchant, Steen learned the ultimate price of his mining ventures. He had contracted silicosis, a lung disease caused by inhalation of quartz particles. Wracked by a chronic and debilitating cough, Steen was compelled to sell his Boise interests and retire with his family to a milder climate. He died in Berkeley, Calif. in 1909 from complications of his lung ailment.

    The descendants of Daniel and Harriet Steen, now extending into the fourth generation, are frequent summer residents of Lemhi County, and the family expects that many of their members will gather this summer at the old Yellow Jacket Mine for a celebration of the family’s centennial in Idaho