Film visits the life and times of Idaho's “Two Gun” Bob
BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Wood River Journal~Ketchum
In 1918 Robert “Two Gun” Limbert spent 17 days trekking across an unmapped expanse of lava fields east of Carey
Captivated by the twisted limber pines and eerie rockscapes that early pioneers had declared the devil's doing, he photographed it and introduced it to the public through slides shows and an article he published in National Geographic.
And he pressured Washington to make it a national park on the order of Yellowstone-an effort that led to its designation as Craters of the Moon National Monument in 1924.
Now Documentary Filmmaker Steve Wursta is following in Limbert's footsteps. Only he is bringing the story of Limbert to public attention as much as the topography that Limbert cherished. And he's doing it through video-a technology that wasn't available to Limbert in the 1920s.
Wursta, who lives in Bend, Ore., will screen his new project, “Among the Craters of the Moon: The Life and Adventures of Robert W. Limbert” at 6 p.m. Thursday at The Community Library.
The hour-long film-which was a year in the making-will feature more than 400 of Limbert's never-before-seen photographs, motion pictures and documents detailing his adventures in the Craters, the Sawtooths and even Map Rock in southwestern Idaho.
Limbert, best known for building the historic Redfish Lodge near Stanley, found Map Rock, an enormous rock covered with petroglyphs that he believed mapped the Snake River and its tributaries flowing into the Columbia River, during an exploration of Idaho on his 1919 Excelsior motorcycle.
He was the first to navigate the entire length of the Bruneau River from its genesis near the Idaho-Nevada border.
And he recognized the tourism potential of the Wood River Valley a decade before an Austrian nobleman picked Sun Valley as the site for America's first destination ski resort when he told Hailey City council members: “Your town can be the St. Moritz of America and become just as famous a winter sports town.”
Wursta, a former White House photographer and picture editor for Knight-Ridder/Tribune News and United Press International in Washington, D.C., chanced upon the story of Limbert several years ago when he became intrigued with a small exhibit about Limbert at the Craters of the Moon National Monument visitor's center and learned there were no videos on the man.
“During my research I was finding Limbert's obituary in small town newspapers throughout the country, but I was surprised how few people in Idaho had even heard of the man,” he said. “I feel that Limbert was an amazing asset to the state of Idaho and I really want to tell everyone about his accomplishments.”
At first, Wursta planned to do a 20- to 30-minute show about Limbert and his involvement with the Craters of the Moon.
But that was before he interviewed Limbert's daughter Margaret Limbert, who still runs the Hollywood Market in Boise at age 89.
As the interview concluded she got out an old family Bible, which included Limbert's wedding certificate, several wedding photos and a postcard he wrote his wife three days before he died.
Then Lawrence took Wursta into the basement of her Boise North End home and told him he could have five boxes of her father's things that she had never told anyone about. The boxes contained Limbert's original handwritten manuscripts of his adventures, along with a host of maps, coordinates of his findings, newspaper clippings and poetry.
The new information filled in the gaps in Limbert's life and prompted Wursta to triple the length of his film.
Wursta, who has since donated the documents to the Boise State University Library where Limbert's other documents are archived, calls Limbert America's most colorful character since Buffalo Bill Cody. But as he came to know the man he became particularly impressed by how methodical Limbert was.
“When I started in on this project, my general impression that I received from articles about Limbert is that he just went off on these adventures without much thought-that he was just an adventurous character who liked to explore,” he said.
“How wrong I was. For example, before he built Redfish Lodge, he spent two years researching the area. And he filled seven notebooks on the business of dude ranching. He studied and researched everything that he accomplished. He really never left anything to chance.”
After he had spent months working with hundreds of Limbert's photographs, Wursta hiked to Echo Craters with a copy of Limbert's 1920 hand-drawn map and a few of his photographs.
“I knew where he and Walter Cole camped back in 1920, what they saw and how they discovered water holes and hidden ice caves. It gave me chills when I would come across scenes from his pictures that hadn't changed in 80 years. I felt like I was there on his first exploration of the area,” Wursta said.
This spring Wursta will head out into the lava fields of Craters of the Moon with the Park Service to rediscover important sites that Limbert triangulated and recorded in the manuscripts Lawrence gave him.
He also plans to show his documentary at a number of Idaho museums and at Redfish Lodge throughout the spring and summer. A shorter version of the film will be shown regularly at the Craters of the Moon visitor center, which was recently named for Limbert.
PBS-TV also has expressed interest in showing the film.
“In the end, I feel as though I am following in Limbert's footsteps and showing a film about the beauty of Idaho,” Wursta said.
If you go...
A free screening of “Among the Craters of the Moon: The Life and Adventures of Robert W. Limbert” will be shown at 6 p.m. Thursday at The Community Library.
Steve Wursta's 65-minute DVD can be purchased for $19.95 at the Craters of the Moon National Monument Visitor Center and online at www.arcticproductions.com.
A short but amazing life
He was only 48 when he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1933. But Robert W. Limbert packed a lot into his short life.
In addition to his explorations, he was an excellent marksman and traveled the country billed as “the famous Idaho explorer and trick shot artist” on behalf of the conservationist Izaak Walton League.
Limbert claimed to be the pistol champion of the world after outshooting the best marksman on the Chicago Police. In fact, he hung around Ketchum for awhile, where he amused people by shooting silver dollars flying through the air.
In fact, his confidence in his shooting ability led him to challenge Al Capone and his gangsters to a gunfight two months after the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The two did have an “encounter” at Capone's headquarters in Chicago.
He served as a one-man Department of Tourism for the state showing photographs and movies promoting the beauty of Idaho long before the state saw the need to lure vacationers.
He also worked as a radio personality just as that medium was getting started. By 1931 he was heard over 63 radio stations across the country performing animal and bird calls and telling tales of his Idaho adventures.
In addition to being a photographer, he was a poet, artist, cartographer, musician and performer.