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EARLY IDAHO SONGS OF THE MONTH - September 2011

Early Idaho Song Bibliography

Songs of the Month List

The Poet-Prospector, Clarence E. Eddy, borrowed the melody for this plaintive song from Sunny Tennessee, published in 1899. Within three years, the Poet-Prospector adapted his poetry about the Charles Dickens min at Custer to the melody and published the lyrics in his book The Pinnacle of Parnassus.

The Old Deserted Claim (Clarence E. Eddy, 1902)

The Devil Outdone (Clarence E. Eddy, 1902)

Formed around 1901, Mackay was a wild mining camp when Poet-Prospector Clarence E. Eddy spent the winter of 1901/1902 there after his release from the asylum in Blackfoot. The Devil Outdone and many other poems and songs in The Pinnacle of Parnassus were written that winter in Mackay. The Empire Smelter near Mackay, shown at right in the early 1900s, was a key facility at the time.