The first houses were built mostly of adobe, logs or boards, the doors of which opened on the street with the proverbial latch string hanging down. Dry goods boxes were at a premium, as most of the furniture in the … Continue reading →
Isolated as Boise City was in the 1860s, it still was influenced by the passions of the Civil War. Miners at lonely diggings would pay several dollars in gold dust for a scrap of newspaper, only a quarter of a … Continue reading →
The first part of Idaho we saw, like that we had been passing ever since [our wagon train had left] the Rockies, was barren and monotonous. Sage brush, alkali dust, all sorts of creeping things and millions of crickets. These … Continue reading →
This occurred at Soda Springs, Idaho in the early 1830s. In the course of the day [Captain Bonneville] arrived at the plain of white clay, already mentioned, surrounded by the mineral springs, called Beer Springs, by the trappers. Here the … Continue reading →
When a squad of young braves attacked and massacred pioneers with the Alexander Ward wagon train near Middleton in August 1854, an era of danger was introduced in the Boise Valley, sometimes called “peaceful valley” by the Indians. The valley … Continue reading →
Our Boise Valley provides good examples of the lessons from Earth Sciences class: a river valley formed by erosion caused by the river itself and soil made from eroded rock. But to the east, the Snake River plain reveals a … Continue reading →
The Wildest Boat Ride in America by Caroline Lockhart [In May 1911 Ms. Lockhart rode with a flotilla of three flatboats that was hauling mining equipment on the Salmon River. This is an excerpt of an article published in the … Continue reading →
Though Idaho’s Salmon River is now a playground for vacationers, in earlier times it had a fearsome reputation. Lewis and Clark tried to travel down it but gave up and hiked overland instead. By the 1890s several men had sufficient … Continue reading →
The “three Rs,” reading, writing and arithmetic, still occupy a central role in today’s discussions of what schools should do. A superintendent’s report from the Idaho frontier of the 1870s gives a small glimpse of what education devoted to the … Continue reading →
A native Idahoan was responsible for one of America’s treasures: the U. S. presidents carved on Mount Rushmore. John Gutzon Borglum was born in a cabin near Bear Lake in 1867. His parents were Mormons from Denmark who were seeking … Continue reading →