Штат Айдахо
full name State
of Idaho
POSTAL
ABBREVIATION ID
inhabitant
Idahoan
ADMITTED TO THE UNION July 3, 1890.
Rank
43rd
capital city Boise, the largest city in the state,
located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho; population 125,738. Originally
an army camp, it was founded as a settlement in 1863 and was incorporated as a
city the following year, when it also became the territorial capital.
state name and nicknames The name "Idaho"
is an artificial Indian word invented by George M. Willing. Also known as the
Gem State and the Gem of the Mountains (the putative meaning of
"Idaho").
state seal In the center is a shield showing a
landscape, with the Snake River, mountains, a fir tree, and a farmer at the
plow. Above the shield is an elk's head and the
state motto on a scroll; below it is a
sheaf of wheat; to the right is a miner; to the left a woman holding symbols of
justice and liberty. Along the bottom are agricultural symbols, including two
cornucopias, the state flower, and ripened wheat. The yellow border reads
"Great Seal of the State of Idaho."
The western
state of Idaho belongs to the Mountain states. It is bordered on the north by
Canada, on the east by Montana and Wyoming, on the south by Nevada and Utah,
and on the west by Oregon, Washington, and the Snake River. It ranks 42nd in
population and 14th in area among the states.
motto Esto Perpetua (It Is Forever)
song
"Here We
Have Idaho," lyrics by McKinley Helm and Albert J. Tompkins, music by
Sallie Hume Douglas.
SYMBOLS
Flower syringa Tree white
pine Bird mountain bluebird Gem star garnet Horse
Appaloosa flag A blue field with
the state seal in the center and below it a red band bearing the legend
"State of Idaho."
As a Rocky Mountain state, Idaho is
dominated by mountain terrain, with the Continental Divide forming Idaho's
eastern border. The state contains some of the largest stretches of unspoiled
wilderness in the continental U.S., with a wide diversity of flora and game.
Idaho also boasts more than 2,000 lakes and ten major rivers. Heavily irrigated
farmland lines the Snake River valley, the state's major drainage; Hell's
Canyon, along the western Snake River, is the deepest gorge—about one mile in
depth—in North America.
elevations Highest point-. Borah Peak, Cus-
ter County, 12,662 feet. Lowest point. Snake
River, Nez Perce County, 710 feet. Mean elevation: 5,000 feet
major rivers Snake, Salmon, Clearwater
major
lakes Pend
Oreille, Coeur d'Alene, Priest, Bear, American Falls, Cascade, and Dworshak
temperatures (1990) The highest recorded
temperature was 118°F on July 28, 1934, at Orotino. The lowest was —60°F on
January 18, 1943, at Island Park Dam.
IDAHO IN HISTORY
1805
A U.S. expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crosses what is now
the Idaho panhandle en route to the Pacific coast.
1809 David Thompson of the North West Company establishes a trading
post on the eastern shore
of Lake Pend Oreille.
1810 Andrew Henry of the Missouri Fur Company establishes a camp on
the fork of the Snake River but abandons it the following year.
1818 The United States and Great Britain agree on joint occupancy of
the Pacific Northwest, including what is now Idaho.
1834 Fort Hall and Fort Boise are constructed to aid fur
traders; these posts become stops on the Oregon Trail, which by 1845 is a
well-traveled road.
1836 Henry Spalding
establishes a mission to the Nez Perce Indians at Lapwai.
1846 June 15. A treaty with Great Britain establishes the
Pacific Northwest below the 49th parallel as U.S. territory.
1848 August 14.
Oregon Territory is created, including present-day Idaho.
1855 A treaty with the Koutenai, Pend Oreille, and Flathead Indians
creates reservations for them in what is now Idaho and Montana. A treaty with
the Nez Perce establishes for them a reserve in what is now Idaho, Oregon, and
Washington.
I860 June 15. First permanent settlement in Idaho, at
Franklin, by Mormons from Utah. In 1911 this day is proclaimed Pioneer Day.
1862 The Golden Age
is Idaho's first newspaper and is published in Lewiston.
1863 March 4. Creation of Idaho
Territory.
Some Nez Perce accept a smaller reservation
replacing the 1855 area, overrun by
gold prospectors. Chinese violence in 1866-1867 that leaves over a
hundred dead. 1874 The Utah Northern Railroad reaches Franklin from Ogden,
Utah.
1877 Nontreaty Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph, expelled from
northeastern Oregon, are pursued
through Idaho by federal troops before surrendering in Montana
1878 Forty whites and
78 Indians die in an uprising by Paiutes and Bannocks. Indian
warfare in Idaho ends the
following year. 1880 Silver is found in the Wood River region. 1882
The Northern Pacific Railroad links northern Idaho to the east and the Pacific
Northwest
seaports. .
1884 Completion of the
Oregon Short Line Railroad from Wyoming through southern
Idaho to Oregon.
1885 Noah S. Kellogg finds silver in the Coeur d Alene area. 1 he
Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines become the biggest in the chief lead-silver
district in the U.S., which has yielded about $2
billion. . . Test Oath Act bars Mormons from
voting, holding office, or serving on Juries These disabilities become part of
the state constitution and remain in force until 1890 when Mormons renounce
polygamy as an act of faith.
1892 Martial law is declared in northern Idaho mining towns, where
the dispatch ot federal troops helps break a miners' strike. More than 600
union leaders and sympathizers are arrested.
1896-1902 Democrats, allied
with Populists, control state politics. They also receive support from
dissident Republicans who join in seeking the remonetization of silver.
1899 Dynamiting of Bunker Hill concentrator results in the
reimposition of martial law and dispatch of U.S. troops. The Western Federation
of Miners is suppressed, and hundreds of miners are imprisoned for six months.
1905 Women receive the
right to vote.
December W. Former governor Frank Steunenberg is
assassinated.
1907 Clarence Darrow successfully defends "Big Bill"
Haywood and two other Western Federation of Miners officials found not guilty
of conspiracy in Steunenberg s murder. William Borah, the prosecutor, is
elected to the U.S. Senate; he servesuntil his death in
1940. . establishing the initiative, referendum
and recall.
1912 Voters adopt constitutional amendments
1914 Moses Alexander is elected the first
Jewish governor of any state.
1915 Arrowrock Dam,
completed on the Boise River, is, at 354 feet, the highest dam in
the
world. . 1922
Farmers are receiving less than one-third of 1919 prices for crops and
livestock. 1927 The American Falls Dam, on the Snake River near Pocatello,
provides irrigation
water for one million
acres. Completion of U.S. Highway 95, the only land connection between northern
and
southern Idaho.
1931 Adoption of a state income tax and a
tax on private-power combines.
1932 As a result of the the Great Depression, average income has
fallen 49 percent since 1929. Cash income of farmers has fallen by almost
two-thirds.
1934 Idaho is first among states in silver and second in lead
production. Shoshone County has the nation's largest silver mine (the Sunshine
Mine) and the three largest lead producers. The state also ranks third in hay
and fifth in wool.
1936 The Union Pacific
Railroad creates Sun Valley as a ski resort.
1939 Per capita income has risen to $452
from $287 in 1933.
1942 Nearly 10,000 persons of Japanese
ancestry are sent from the West Coast to an
internment camp at Hunt.
1951 The Atomic Energy Commission's National Reactor Testing Station,
near Arco, successfully uses atomic energy to produce electricity. Opening, at
Lewiston, of Idaho's first pulp and paper plant.
1959 Completion of the Brownlee Dam on the Hell's Canyon stretch of
the Snake River.
Idaho is fourth among states in irrigated acres—2,330,000—comprising 54
percent of the state's farmland.
1965 A state sales tax
of three percent is adopted.
1972 May 2. A fire in the Sunshine
Mine kills 91 miners.
1973 Completion of the
Dworshak Dam on the Clearwater River.
1975 Lewiston becomes a seaport with the dedication of a
$344-million deep-channel waterway linking the Snake and Columbia rivers to the
Pacific Ocean.
1980 Creation of the 2.2-million-acre River of No Return
Wilderness, the largest wilderness preserve in the United States outside of
Alaska.
1982 The Sunshine Mine and Bunker Hill mine and smelter are closed
because of low silver prices.
1985 Idaho accounts for 48
percent of national silver production. It also produces all the nation's
antimony and ranks second among states in lead and vanadium production and
third in phosphate rock and molybdenum. Record potato production of over 102
million hundredweight comprises one-fourth of all U.S. potatoes.
1986 Idaho voters adopt a right-to-work constitutional amendment
prohibiting the payment of union dues as a condition for employment.
1992 Overcoming objections from state officials and tribal councils,
the federal government ships nuclear waste to an Idaho Falls storage center
for the first time in three years.Angus!. Governor Cecil Andrus declares
a state of emergency as fires rage through the state.
SOME INFORMATION: The Idaho potato remains the state's
most important cash crop, followed by wheat, sugar beets, alfalfa, beans, truck
vegetables, and peas. Cattle are the main livestock. Total farm receipts were
over $2.7 billion in 1989. Manufacturing in the state is centered around potato
and beet-sugar processing, lumber products, and chemicals. Silver, lead, and
zinc, sand, gravel, basalt, pumice, garnet, and phosphate are the principle mining
products. As in many Western states, tourism is one of the fastest growing
industries, as visitors flock to see Idaho's spectacular national and state
parks.
Among states, Idaho
ranks high in the generation of energy from renewable resources —mainly
hydropower and woodburning. The Columbia and Snake River system, which passes
through the state, is one of the most endangered in the nation, in part due to
Idaho's heavy use of irrigation. In fact, Idahoans use more water per capita
than the inhabitants of any other state. Among the species threatened by
declining river levels is the sockeye salmon, which is nearly extinct in
Idaho.
NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES
Idaho was formerly home to the
Kalispel, Nehelem, Northern Paiute, Palouse, and Spokane tribes. Groups that
continue to live there include the Bannock, Coeur d'Alene, Kootenay, Nez Perce,
Northern Shoshoni, and Western Shoshoni. Native Americans were 1.4 percent of
the population in 1990.
RELIGIONS,
ETHNICITIES, AND LANGUAGES
More than half of Idaho's population was
born in Idaho; the rest is drawn mainly from the western and north central
states. There is also a large community of Basques, originally from Spain, who
continue their tradition of sheep-herding. Among churchgoers, Mormons are the
biggest group, followed by Catholics and Methodists. In 1990, 2.9 percent of
the population was foreign-born, with the majority of immigrants coming from
Mexico and Canada; 6.4 percent of the population spoke languages other than English
at home, of which the ten most common were Spanish, German, French, Japanese,
Shoshoni, Chinese, Basque, Thai (Laotian), Portuguese, and Italian. Catholics
and Methodists. In 1990, 2.9 percent of the population was foreign-born, with
the majority of immigrants coming from Mexico and Canada; 6.4 percent of the
population spoke languages other than English at home, of which the ten most
common were Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Shoshoni, Chinese, Basque,
Thai (Laotian), Portuguese, and Italian.
MAJOR MUSEUMS
AND LIBRARIES
Boise Gallery of Art Idaho State
Historical Museum, Boise
MAJOR ARTS
ORGANIZATIONS
Boise Opera
Boise Philharmonic Association
Idaho has the
only state seal designed by a woman—Emma Sarah Edwards. The seal was officially
adopted on March 14, 1891.
Democrat Moses Alexander,
Idaho governor from 1915 to 1919, was the nation's first full-term Jewish
governor.
Idaho's Craters of the Moon
National Monument, a region of volcanic craters and ash-strewn low hills, was
used by NASA as a training ground for Apollo astronauts.
The state's hydroelectric
power plants, with 1 million-plus kilowatt capacity, use less than ten percent
of Idaho's hydroelectric potential.
Idaho's stretch of U.S.
Highway 12 runs along the route taken by the Lewis and Clark expedition in
1805. Only one major highway runs north-south in the state; when that is
blocked in winter, vehicular travel between the upper and lower parts of the
state is nearly impossible.
MAJOR MUSEUMS
AND LIBRARIES
Boise Gallery of Art Idaho State Historical Museum, Boise
MAJOR ARTS
ORGANIZATIONS Boise Opera Boise Philharmonic Association.
SHORT: Throughout the 1860’s, Idaho experienced a gold rush that
drew scores of prospectors but left a lot of ghost towns. These relics of
instant communities are found in many parts of the state. Mining? However? Is
still important. Idaho ranks first internationally in the production of silver?
Lead? Zinc? Copper and cobalt.
The
famed Sunshine Mince, a long and largest lode producer of silver in the United
States? Is there. In May 1972. A fire in the Sunshine sent lethal carbon
monoxide and smoke wafting through 100 miles of workings. The death toll of
miners was a staggering 91 people.
Of
all commercial activities in the state, Idaho leans most heavily on agriculture
for its economic well-being. It is the tenth largest producer of wheat in the
nation and the leader in potatoes.
The
Idaho potato, like the Georgia peach, remains something of an American
institution. But it is the cattle industry that is responsible for the largest
single share in annual farm-marketing cash receipts. Tourism, now the
third-ranked industry, is one the rise, with an estimated 6 million yearly
visitors.
There
are more than 25 established ski areas in Idaho, including that dowager of
winter resorts, Sun Valley.
Celebrated
in song and film, Sun Valley has worn its fame well down through the years.