IDAHO

One of the most sparsely populated states, Idaho remained undeveloped until gold and silver strikes began to attract eager prospectors. Like other areas of the Great Plains and the West, Idaho was at first just a place to cross during a westward journey, not a place to settle. As mining and agriculture began to take hold and the transcontinental railroad made settlement and commerce more feasible more people began to make Idaho their new home. Contemporary Idaho has a number of important industries and significant agricultural products, especially potatoes. Idaho's tourist industry is also strong, attracting thousands annually to the state's ski resorts and scenic areas.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Idaho was part of the vast territory known as the Oregon Country, claimed at various times by the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and Russia. Until 1805 no known white explorers had disturbed the Native American tribes who were the only residents of Idaho. When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's expedition reached the region that year the Native Americans helped supply the explorers for their journey to the Columbia River and the Pacific. Fur trappers and missionaries soon followed. Although the Oregon Trail crossed Idaho and the area officially became United States land in 1846, no one thought the territory worthy of settlement until 1860. In that year, Mormons established the first permanent settlement at Franklin and a gold rush began in northern Idaho. The Idaho Territory was organized in 1863. According to historian F. Ross Peterson, "It is a sad fact of American history that while hundreds of thousands of uniformed Americans in Virginia, Tennessee, and Maryland were trying to kill each other [in the American Civil War (1861–1865)], thousands of Americans in the West were running from creek to brook to river trying to get rich quickly."

In the following two decades Idaho grew rapidly with Boise established as the capital in 1863. The Boise Basin became the most developed part of the state, reaching a population of 6,000 by 1864. Two years later $24 million in gold was produced during the Boise Basin strike. By then more than $50 million in gold had been taken from the Idaho mountains with little regard for possible damage to the environment.

As mining boom towns came and went agriculture was becoming more important in Idaho. Telegraph service and the transcontinental railway reached the state, and the population increased twofold between 1870 and 1880. The Utah and Northern Railroad, owned by mogul Jay Gould, was the first major railroad in the state which hastened the settlement of northern Idaho. Many Mormons, encouraged by their Utah church leaders, migrated to Idaho during this time to establish farms and communities such as Blackfoot and Victor. The Oregon Short Line was completed through Idaho in 1884 and a traveler could now reach Portland, Oregon, from Omaha, Nebraska, in five days—a trip that had taken Lewis and Clark 18 months to complete in 1805. The Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, and Pacific railroads also made possible the development of lead-silver lode mining in the area of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains. During the late 1870s, as in all territories settled by whites, Native American residents were gradually pushed off their land by a series of wars. The most famous Idaho battle was the Nez Perc war, after which Chief Joseph surrendered and his people were pushed onto reservations.

Another rush of prospectors came to Idaho between 1880 and 1884 after silver and lead were discovered in south central Idaho and the panhandle region. Idaho became the 43rd state in 1890, having reached a population of more than 88,000 that same year. During the 1890s Idaho was plagued with violent labor disputes in the mining regions and political bickering among Mormons and non-Mormons.

Further economic growth was made possible in the early twentieth century by federal land and irrigation projects. A very large sawmill at Potlatch was an indication of an increasingly prosperous timber industry, and agriculture also began to grow in importance in the state. The development of the russet potato in the 1920s gave Idaho its signature agricultural product. A farm depression in the 1920s, however, lasted through the Great Depression of the 1930s and did not end until World War II (1939–1945). Both agriculture and industry were important after the war, especially the fertilizer and potato businesses. Development was encouraged even more after the construction of a nuclear reactor testing and power plant at Idaho Falls in 1951, the first such generating station in the country. Idaho's mountains and open spaces also created a thriving tourist business. Today, the Sun Valley ski resort and other scenic areas attract thousands of tourists each year.

Contemporary Idaho faces new problems as the population expands and environmentalists push for better land use planning. Controversies also arise over mineral development and over water supply and dam construction. A major economic and human disaster occurred in 1976 when the new Teton Dam in eastern Idaho collapsed, causing loss of lives and $400 million in property damage.

Idaho's economy in the 1990s was largely dependent on agriculture, mining, forest products, and food processing. Idaho is the nation's leader in potato production; most potatoes are grown in the Snake River plain, and about three-fourths of the crop is used for processed potato products such as french fries or instant mashed potatoes. Other important crops produced by Idaho include hay, wheat, barley, and sugar beets. This agricultural bounty is made possible because nearly 64 percent of all land used for farming in the state is under irrigation. Mining is only a small percentage of the state's annual gross product, but a variety of minerals, such as garnet, phosphate rock, construction sand and gravel, silver, lead, and pumice are produced. It is one of the few places that produces molybdenum, in a reopened mine at Thompson Creek.

Manufacturing in the state is concentrated in the resource industries—food processing, chemical manufacturing, and lumber production. In the late 1970s and early 1980s a number of northern California computer concerns, such as Hewlett Packard, opened or expanded plants in Idaho. The leading food producer is Ore-Ida Foods, and J.R. Simplot processes both food and fertilizers. Some of the wood products industries include Boise Cascade and Louisiana-Pacific.

The state survived a downturn during the recession of the early 1980s by restructuring its major industries. Although the number of workers employed in many industries in the state has shrunk, chemical manufacturing employment grew 36 percent during the 1980s, and paper industry employment rose by 30 percent. Between 1982 and 1991, tourism employment increased by 35 percent, and jobs in the high-technology industry increased by 50 percent between 1986 and 1990. In 1996 the average per capita income in the state was $19,539, ranking 43rd in the nation. Although Idaho was a pioneer in establishing fair labor practices only 8.1 percent of all workers belong to unions, and the state is now a right-to-work state.

IDAHO

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