"Col. Rice L. Wood
Col. Rice L. Wood tended a band of cattle in Marsh Basin while working for a cattle company believed to be Land Cattle Co. “there being at that time only one ranch within the present limits of Cassia County.”
Col. Wood was born in Virginia in 1833. At the age of 18, he joined an overland train for California and on the trip passed through a part of Idaho in which he afterward located, and at that time was impressed by.
At Mariposa California, he engaged in placer mining fro three years. He then returned to his Missouri home and for a year was occupied in farming. At the beginning of the Civil War he was commissioned second lieutenant in a cavalry company under Captain Davis, and six months later was transferred to the artillery arm of the service, in which he served three years and six months.
In 1863, he was made captain of his battalion company and remained in command of the battalion until the surrender of General Lee. Four months after returning home he made a short trip to the south; then to White Pine Nevada when the gold excitement was at it’s height. In 1870, he came to Marsh Basin and purchased a ranch at Marsh Lake (east of Declo) but made his home at Marsh Basin. It was said that he built the first dwelling for civilized man in this region, on Howell Creek, about three miles from the present town site.
He was elected a member of the ninth, eleventh and thirteenth session of the territorial legislature, and in 1894 was elected county assessor and collector. When the war with Spain broke out, with his old time enthusiasm and zeal, he organized a battalion company for the service offering to furnish the horses, but was turned down.
He married Emma C. Ish in 1877, a native of Loundoun County, Virginia. He belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a charter member of the lodge at Albion."
John R.