Idaho is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans." Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state.
According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2004, Idaho had an estimated population of 1,393,262. Idaho is nicknamed the Gem State because of its abundance of natural resources. The state motto is Esto Perpetua (Latin for "Let it be perpetual").
Humans may have been present in the Idaho area as long as 14,500 years ago. Excavations at Wilson Butte Cave near Twin Falls in 1959 revealed evidence of human activity, including arrowheads, that rank among the oldest dated artifacts in North America. Native American tribes predominant in the area included the Nez Perce in the north and the Northern and Western Shoshone in the south.
Idaho, as part of the Oregon Country, was claimed by both the United States and United Kingdom until the United States gained undisputed jurisdiction in 1846. Between then and the creation of the Idaho Territory in 1863, parts of the present-day state were included in the Oregon, Washington, and Dakota Territories. The new territory included most of present-day Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. The first organized communities, within the present borders of Idaho, were established in 1860.
After some tribulation as a territory, including the chaotic transfer of the territorial capital from Lewiston to Boise, disenfranchisement of the large Mormon minority and a federal attempt to split the territory between Washington Territory and the state of Nevada, Idaho achieved statehood in 1890. The economy of the state, which had been primarily supported by metal mining, shifted towards agriculture and tourism.
In recent years, Idaho has changed itself from an agricultural and tourism state into a science and technology center. Science and technology have become the largest single economic center (over 25% of the State's total revenue) within the State and are greater than agriculture, forestry and mining combined.
Idaho is the only state that was likely named as the result of a hoax (the so called "Idahoax"). In the early 1860s, when the United States Congress was considering organizing a new territory in the Rocky Mountains, eccentric lobbyist George M. Willing suggested the name "Idaho," which he claimed was derived from a Shoshone language term meaning "the sun comes from the mountains" or "gem of the mountains." Willing later claimed that he had made up the name himself. Congress ultimately decided to name the area Colorado Territory when it was created in February 1861.
However, the name "Idaho" did not go away. The same year Congress created Colorado Territory, a county called Idaho County was created in eastern Washington Territory. The county was named after a steamship named Idaho, which was launched on the Columbia River in 1860. It is unclear whether the steamship was named before or after Willing's claim was revealed. Regardless, a portion of Washington Territory, including Idaho County, was used to create Idaho Territory in 1863.
Despite this lack of evidence for the origin of the name, many textbooks well into the 20th century repeated as fact Willing's account that the name "Idaho" derived from the Shoshone term "ee-da-how."
An excerpt from a Idaho History Textbook:
"Idaho" is a Shoshoni Indian exclamation. The word consists of three parts. The first is "Ee", which in English conveys the idea of "coming down." The second is "dah" which is the Shoshoni stem or root for both "sun" and "mountain." The third syllable, "how", denotes the exclamation and stands for just the same thing in Indian that the exclamation mark (!) does in the English language. The Shoshoni word is "Ee-dah-how," and the Indian thought thus conveyed when translated into English means, "Behold! the sun coming down the mountain."
"IDAHO in the Pacific Northwest." Barber -Martin. 1956. Caxton Printers Ltd. Library of Congress 55-5192.
