B. L. Steeves

“ The tract itself is a vast plain, dotted with homes as far as the eye can reach, with great irrigation canals like rivers meandering through the land, carrying a volume of water 70 feet wide and 7 feet deep, and capable of being navigated by river steamboats if it were considered advisable. Visit the Minadoka dam, which is just being completed by the Government, and which is designed to irrigate 100,000 acres, if you would learn that there is no mechanical obstacle, however great, that American ingenuity will not overcome. It is one of the wonders of the world. ”

“ Southern Idaho will in 20 years he the most highly developed agricultural country on earth. Thirty thousand horsepower will be developed at the Minadoka dam alone, belonging to the farmers themselves, and every farmhouse will be lighted by electricity, and every churn and washing machine will be attached to an electric motor.
Idaho is proud of her resources, and she is proud of her citizens. She has a sturdy, independent citizenship, mostly young and mostly American-born. Idaho is proud of her institutions. We are proud that Idaho represents the highest development in civil government. ”

“ Like the rays of a spider's web, electric wires will radiate from the Snake River Valley, carrying the imprisoned energy of the Snake River over hill and dale, propelling trolley cars, lighting distant cities and homes, and turning the wheels of industry in our own and neighboring States. ”

“ She invites the tourist and points to her great natural beauties of river and mountain and forest and lake. She invites the invalid, for whom in a more rigorous climate, a lower altitude or a more humid atmosphere there is no hope of health, and, last, but not least, she invites the laborer, for labor is the basis of all prosperity. And the people are answering the call. They are coming to Idaho. In the past ten years they have doubled our population and quadrupled the amount of land under irrigation. They are transforming the State. ”

“ Idaho extends her arms to the world. She invites the world to come and participate in her development. She invites the capitalist, and points to the opportunities for manufacture to her great natural water power, to her mines and forests undeveloped and uncut. ”

“ We have come here to pay honor to the memory of one who made the great Northwest as we know it possible; to one to whom that highest tribute of praise can well be given, "He has done what he could"; to one who builded better than he knew. ”

“ About the year 1797 there was a large emigration to the northern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Among the earliest of these settlers was Daniel Lee, who located on four hundred acres in the almost unbroken wilderness, and here, after six years, Jason Lee, the youngest of a family of fifteen children, was born. Upon this homestead is now Rock Island, which, together with Derby Line, forms a continuous village, through which runs the boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States—Rock Island in Canada and Derby Line in the United States. ”

“ It is entirely unlikely that a soldier of the Revolution would, fourteen years after the close of that struggle, of his own volition, place himself under British dominion, and it is entirely probable that when Daniel Lee settled at Rock Island, he supposed his new home was on American soil. ”

“ Hundreds of thousands of horse power are being developed on the cataracts of the Snake, and thousands more can be developed on the Salmon. One hundred thousand horse power at one cataract, the Augur Falls, and above and below a dozen other falls of greater or less dimensions. ”

“ Soon after the War of 1812 closed our Government bought a tract of land at Rouses Point, which commanded the entry to Lake Champlain, and proceeded to expend about $200,000 in erecting a strong fortification there. ”