Idaho

“ Probably no state in the union is less known than Idaho. Wyoming has her “Buffalo Bill,” Colorado her Pike’s Peak, Nevada her far, but ill-famed Reno; Utah her famous salt lake; all known throughout the English speaking world. But Idaho, rich in natural resources, fertile and prosperous, has furnished no wild-west tragedy like that of Custer in Wyoming, to attract the attention of writers. She possesses no natural wonder to rival the Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon; she has produced no Kit Carson or Daniel Boone to fire the adventurous blood of ten-year-olds. ”

“ Gallop your horse, as I have a hundred times, against the rising sun. As you climb the Sweetwater mountains, far away to your right, you will see the name Idaho written on the mountain top, at least, you will see a peculiar and beautiful light at sunrise, a sort of diadem on two grand clusters of mountains that bear away under the clouds fifty miles distant. ”

“ Idaho for our honeymoon had to be abandoned, as three weeks was the longest vacation period we could wring from a soulless bond-house. But not even Idaho could have brought us more joy than our seventy-five-mile trip up the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. We hired an old buckboard and two ancient, almost immobile, so-called horses,—they needed scant attention,—and with provisions, gun, rods, and sleeping-bags, we started forth. The woods were in their autumn glory, the fish were biting, corn was ripe along the roadside, and apples—Rogue River apples—made red blotches under every tree. ”

“ And that bright morning was followed by a cloudless afternoon and a sweet, still, starlit evening, and by this time all men and all women were on deck, and the Idaho was foaming swiftly on through the summer seas, and people went below reluctantly at night, and woke to new and brighter life on the morrow; and Loring was up with the sun and drinking deep draughts of old ocean's ozone, as he paced the decks till Pancha came. ”

“ Nature has been lavish in this land of promise. She has given us soil for the plow and water enough for the harvest. Timber enough for our homes and power for our factories. Iron for industry and copper for the arts. Gold for a Nation's commerce and lead for a Nation's defense. Wilderness enough for recreation and winter enough for vigor. Scenery enough for sentiment and sunshine enough for some.
Of the early settlement of Idaho I will say but little. She is a young State, and age has not yet clothed her early history with romance. ”

“ Idaho is a good farming country, to see which one must travel by stage, passing the beautiful Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and climbing toilsomely to the second plateau above Snake River, where is a pleasant lake resort,—or what would be a pleasant resort were the Lake House anything but a board shanty,—the fare being excellent. ”

“ There are snow-topped mountains on every side of you. Where we are right now is the upper line of the state of Idaho. Idaho sticks up in here in a sort of pocket—swings up to the north and then back again. The crest of the Divide is what makes the state line between Montana and Idaho. Four feet that way we are on Idaho ground, but there’s Montana east of us, north of us, and west of us.
“Over southwest, where you came over the Red Rock Pass, is the head of the Missouri. On north of here is the Madison River; it comes in, running northwest out of the upper corner of Yellowstone Park. ”

“ Idaho, which its boldly prophetic inhabitants call the Saratoga of the West, and which is just now full of visitors, lies comfortably at large on the level floor of a broad and long valley. The houses are of wood, shingle-roofed, most of them neat, many of them pretty. The hills around rise to the height of a thousand feet; and as little mining has been attempted on them, they are delightfully green, and their timber has not been felled. ”

“ Idaho, after small Mormon settlements of farmers, owed most of its early population to its mines. During the Civil War it grew remarkably, but the fact that it could be reached more easily from the West than from the East, due to access by the Columbia River, made its settlement somewhat anomalous in American history, for it was settled largely by Westerners moving east from Oregon, Washington, and northern California. ”

“ Senator Wilson's amendment was agreed to and when the bill went back to the House it was concurred in and the new territory was henceforth designated Idaho.
Thus Senator Wilson selected the name Idaho, whilst Sen- ator Harding was instrumental in continuing its meaning. How the Shoshoni Indian word "Ee-dah-how" was eventually transformed into the English word "Idaho" is a task for the etymologist; but, whatever may be its etymology, the word "Idaho" and its meaning, "Gem of the Mountains," are forever fixed as correlated terms in the vocabulary of the people of Idaho. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After traveling more than five hundred miles in Montana, which is surpassed in size only by Alaska and Dakota, we enter northern Idaho, attractive for its wild and picturesque scenery,—a territory of mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and prairies combined, second only to Montana in its mineral wealth, and possessing also some of the choicest agricultural districts in the great West, where Nature herself freely bestows the best of irrigation in uniform and abundant rains. ”

“ This shifting of population caused the removal of the State capital to its present location at Boise in 1864.
By an act of Congress creating the territories of Montana and Wyoming, Idaho was reduced to its present boundaries in 1868.
On July 3, 1890, Idaho passed from a territorial form of government to that of a state, being the forty-third State to join the great Federal Union. Since that time her growth and development have been continuous and rapid.
Mining, lumbering, manufacturing, and agricultural pursuits are the principal resources of the State. ”

“ Westward it becomes more and more the fact. In Idaho, at last, comes the untouched and perhaps invincible desert, plain and continuous through the long hours of travel. Huge areas do not contain one human being to the square mile, still vaster portions fall short of two....
It is upon Pennsylvania and New York State and the belt of great towns that stretches out past Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison that the nation centres and seems destined to centre. ”

“ Idaho (88) , one of the north-western States of the American Union, surrounded by Washington and Oregon in the W., Nevada and Utah in the S., Wyoming in the E., and Montana, from which it is separated by a branch of the Rocky Mountains, in the NE., the short northern boundary touches Canada; the country is traversed by lofty mountain ranges cut up into deep river valleys and cañons, is extremely rugged in its northern parts, and chiefly useful for cattle-raising; there is a plateau in the centre, some arid prairie land in the S., and lake districts in the N. and in the SE. ”

“ Price’s Left Wing sailed into the prairie and passed below the horizon. To know what it next did you must, like Ballard or Hewley, pass below the horizon yourself, clean out of sight of the dome at Washington to remote, untracked Idaho. There, besides wild red men in quantities, would you find not very tame white ones, gentlemen of the ripest Southwestern persuasion, and a Legislature to fit. ”

“ Here is located the pretty little mining town of Idaho Springs, at an elevation of 7543 feet. We make a stop of ten minutes and get out to look around. We run right along the edge of the creek and several of the boys look for gold in the sand of the shallow water, but I hear of none being found. It is cloudy, a light rain is falling, and having reached a pretty high altitude the wind is chilly. Leaving Idaho Springs the open observation car is almost deserted, the closed coaches being far more comfortable, the most of our people caring more for comfort than for scenery. ”

“ Though classed as an arid State, Idaho is by far the best watered of the arid States and one of the best watered in the Union. It is the only State, with the possible exception of Washington, which has a river of the magnitude of the Snake flowing 1,000 miles within its own territories. This river has numerous large and important tributaries all available for irrigation. Idaho has the greatest natural water power of any State in the Union, and this time we will not except Washington nor even New York, which has the American Falls of Niagara. ”

“ West of the Idaho Line, US 410 climbs upward from the irrigated orchards of the Snake River Valley through rugged, treeless hills, cut by narrow valleys and steep-walled canyons; traverses the fertile, un- dulating benchlands of the Walla Walla country and the sandy wastes along the Columbia River; crosses the river and then runs for miles through alfalfa and hop fields, orchards, vineyards, and truck farms, hemmed in by hills covered with sagebrush, dun-gray in the glare of noon, or softly purple as the sun sinks behind the Cascades. ”

“ Out There was a wide land where buildings were far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the horses did not grow tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams came true—a beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was never greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and birds and lovely people—a land of wealth and health and many smiles.
Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming the desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what had been an almost undiscovered State. ”

“ You, perhaps, have no very great acquaintance with Idaho. This, in my opinion, should induce you to select a committee to visit the state incognito to examine and report on its resources. You will find that it is capable of supporting a population of 10,000,000 18people. These can engage in manufacture, farming, grazing, fruit culture, mining, wool growing and all the pursuits followed by the people of Pennsylvania or New England. The climate is not so warm as that of Tennessee, but in my judgment that is an advantage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the V-shaped opening at the western end of Clear Creek Cañon lies Idaho Springs, a mining town, where, if these scenes are new to the visitor, odd glimpses may be caught of a life and traffic to most of the world unknown. The surrounding hills are marked with white spots high up, and these scars are almost countless. Mining is everything, and everywhere, and scenery is incidental. But Idaho Springs, as its name might indicate, is also a health resort. The springs consist of both hot and cold mineral water, and there is a natural vapor bath and boiling springs. ”

“ Most of the first settlers of Idaho were poor in purse, but were rich in muscle and energy, and most all possessed a good moral character. The rule that was in common practice was for each person to attend to his own private business, and to have an affectionate regard for his neighbors and his neighbors’ rights, and to extend a helping hand to the unfortunate that needed help. ”

“ IDAHO, a western state of the United States of America, situated between 42° and 49° N. lat. and 111° and 117° W. long. It is bounded N. by British Columbia and Montana, E. by Montana and Wyoming, S. by Utah and Nevada, and W. by Oregon and Washington. Its total area is 83,888 sq. m., of which 83,354 sq. m. are land surface, and of this 41,851.55 sq. m. were in July 1908 unappropriated and unreserved public lands of the United States, and 31,775.7 sq. m. were forest reserves, of which 15,153.5 sq. m. were reserved between the 1st of July 1906 and the 1st of July 1907. ”

“ Bear Lake, in the extreme S.E., lies partly in Utah. Mineral springs and hot springs are also a notable feature of Idaho’s physiography, being found in Washington, Ada, Blaine, Bannock, Cassia, Owyhee, Oneida, Nez Perce, Kootenai, Shoshone and Fremont counties. At Soda Springs in Bannock county are scores of springs whose waters, some ice cold and some warm, contain magnesia, soda, iron, sulphur, &c.; near Hailey, Blaine county, water with a temperature of 144° F. is discharged from numerous springs; and at Boisé, water with a temperature of 165° is obtained from wells. ”

“ E. of Lewiston, in Nez Perce county. Of these tribes, the Nez Perce and Cœur d’Alene were self-supporting; the other tribes were in 1900 dependent upon the United States government for 30% of their rations. Of the 24,604 foreign-born inhabitants of the state, 3943 were from England, 2974 were from Germany, 2528 were Canadian English, 2822 were from Sweden, and 1633 were from Ireland, various other countries being represented by smaller numbers. The urban population of Idaho in 1900 (i.e. the population of places having 4000 or more inhabitants) was 6.2% of the whole. ”

“ The great state which we occupy is entirely under the control of the Co-opolitan Association. It contains four million people and two and a half million active members of the Industrial Army. Its inhabitants are all in cities, but no city is greater than one hundred and fifty thousand persons, except Idaho Falls and Shoshone, where the great water power, generating electricity, gives exceptional advantages for manufactures. Idaho Falls contains three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and Shoshone two hundred and twenty-one thousand. ”