Idaho
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Native people have lived in Idaho for more than 14,000 years. The earliest evidence of their existence is in the bows, arrows and pottery they crafted about 1,500 years ago.

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 included the Idaho territory. That momentous event was soon followed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which traversed Central Idaho in an unfulfilled quest for a navigable route to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark entered what is now Idaho at Lemhi Pass near Salmon only to encounter seemingly endless, forbidding peaks ahead. Traders and trappers would soon follow. Kullyspell House, the first non-native establishment in the Northwest, was built in 1809 near Lake Pend Oreille, followed by Fort Henry near St. Anthony in eastern Idaho.

In 1830 Captain Bonneville escorted the first wagon train across southern Idaho and in 1834 Fort Hall and Fort Boise were established. By 1843 the Oregon Trail migration had begun but most emigrants bypassed Idaho for milder climates in Oregon. That trend would soon change as French Canadians discovered gold on the Pend Oreille River in 1852.

In 1836 Henry Spalding established a mission near Lapwai and opened Idaho's first school, created the first irrigation system, printed the first book in the Northwest and grew the first Idaho potato.

In 1860, Idaho's first town Franklin, was established near the Utah border, and as gold and silver were discovered, mining towns sprung up between 1860 and 1863 at Pierce, Idaho City ,and Silver City.

Miners, ranchers, and farmers found a state rich with natural resources. They mined, homesteaded, plowed, and fenced, eventually staying to make Idaho a United States Territory in 1863. Lewiston served briefly as its capital. By 1864 the capital was moved to Boise. By 1870 Idaho's population was all of 17,000; a decade later it would be 32,000.

In 1877 the Nez Perce Indian War occurred as pioneers and natives clashed, and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe led his people on a historic flight across Idaho and Montana before uttering his famous words, "From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

Electricity came to Idaho in 1882 when the first electric light was turned on near the mining town of Ketchum. Telephone service soon followed in 1883 in nearby Hailey.

In 1884, silver was discovered in the Coeur d'Alene area which would prove to be the nation's richest deposit. In 1889 a constitutional convention was held and Idaho became the nation's 43rd state by 1890 and the state's population had swelled to more than 88,000. In 1889 the territorial legislature established the University of Idaho at Moscow and the College of Idaho held classes for the first time in Caldwell in 1891.

On July 3, 1890, Idaho became the 43rd state in the Union with Governor George Shoup serving as the state's first governor.

Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang made headlines by robbing a bank in Montpelier in 1896. In 1900, Idaho's population approached 162,000. After the turn of the century, commerce exploded as the Milner Dam brought valuable irrigation water south of the Snake River near Twin Falls and the largest sawmill in the country opened at Potlatch.

By 1910 Idaho had grown to over 325,000 people. That year was a disaster for northern Idaho as forest fires consumed one-sixth of the region's forests. Historic Wallace, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was burned down and rebuilt in the ensuing years. Idahoans elected Moses Alexander the first Jewish governor in the United States in 1914 and the Capitol Building was completed in 1920. Also in 1920, a young man from Rigby began to dream of concepts for the first television picture tube. Philo Farnsworth was only 15 years old at the time and would go on to be named the "Father of Television". The first television station in Boise would not open until 1953.

Craters of the Moon National Monument was established to preserve a vast lava flow near Arco in 1924 and Averell Harriman's Sun Valley Resort opened near Ketchum in 1936. Sun Valley was also the site of the world's first chair lift. Grocer Joe Albertson opened his first supermarket in Boise in 1939 and entrepreneur J. R. Simplot dehydrated the first potato in Caldwell in 1941, pioneering the way for the frozen french fry to become quintessentially American cuisine.

Idaho's population grew from almost 525,000 in 1940 to over 588,000 by 1950 and over 667,000 by 1960. A National Reactor Testing Station was established in the desert west of Idaho Falls in 1949 and by 1951 it was the first place to use nuclear fission to generate electricity. Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 would later be designated a national landmark and still stands today between Arco and Idaho Falls.

Writer Ernest Hemingway died in his home in Ketchum in 1961. Idaho's population swelled to over 713,000 by 1970. More disasters would occur during the 1970's as a fire in the Sunshine Mine in Kellogg killed 91 miners in 1972, and the new Teton Dam collapsed in Eastern Idaho in 1976, killing 11 and forcing thousands to flee. In 1980, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State left Northern Idaho covered in ash. An earthquake near Challis measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale killed two children and caused millions of dollars of damage in 1983.

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