92 Fun Facts About Idaho

What is the official state flower of Idaho?

Syringa, a shrub with fragrant white blossoms like the mock orange's, has been Idaho's state flower since 1931; Native Americans made bows, arrows and cradles from its branches.

Which bird is recognized as Idaho's official state bird?

The Mountain Bluebird, Idaho's state bird since 1931, hovers over open fields more than any other bluebird, then drops onto the insects it spots in the grass.

What is the official state tree of Idaho?

The Western White Pine (Pinus monticola) was adopted as Idaho's state tree in 1935; the species was devastated in the 20th century by white pine blister rust, an introduced fungus.

Idaho is known by what nickname, reflecting its geological riches?

Idaho produces 72 varieties of precious and semi-precious stones, which earned it The Gem State; the unofficial rival nickname is, inevitably, the Potato State.

Boise is home to one of America's largest communities of which European people, known in Idaho as shepherds?

Basques arrived from the 1880s and became known as shepherds; the boarding houses they built in Boise grew into today's Basque Block, where the Jaialdi festival fills the streets every five years.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum, born in Idaho Territory in 1867, is best known for which American landmark?

Mount Rushmore consumed Borglum from 1927 until his death in March 1941, months before the work stopped; his son Lincoln put the finishing touches on the four presidents.

Idaho's narrow Panhandle ends at a short international border with which neighbour?

British Columbia touches only Idaho's slim northern tip; the Panhandle is that narrow because Congress gave the land east of the Bitterroot Range to the new Montana Territory in 1864.

What is the highest point in Idaho?

Borah Peak, 12,662 feet up in the Lost River Range, carries the name of William Borah, the senator nicknamed the 'Lion of Idaho', who represented the state for more than 30 years.

The Snake River, Idaho's most important waterway, is a major tributary of which river?

The Columbia takes in the Snake near Washington's Tri-Cities; the Snake is its largest tributary, and dams on both rivers let barges climb from the ocean all the way into Idaho.

Which gemstone is Idaho's official state gem?

Star Garnet shows a four-rayed, occasionally six-rayed, star caused by needles of the mineral rutile inside the stone; it is found almost nowhere except India and the Idaho Panhandle.

Central Idaho's vast wilderness is named for a senator and for which nickname of its main river?

River of No Return was the name boatmen gave the river at the wilderness's heart: its swift current and rapids carried them downstream but made the trip back up all but impossible.

Which Idaho lake straddles the state's border with Utah?

Bear Lake straddles the Idaho-Utah line; suspended limestone particles give it a turquoise colour that earned the nickname 'Caribbean of the Rockies'.

Idaho Territory's 1880s 'test oath' barred members of which church from voting?

Latter-day Saints, numerous in the territory's south, were shut out of the polls over polygamy; most had voted Democratic, so the ban handed Republicans control and helped Idaho reach statehood six years before Utah.

Idaho's fame as a potato state rests on which baking variety?

Russet Burbank, a rough-skinned mutation of a potato bred by Luther Burbank, suits Idaho's light volcanic soil so well that it became the state's signature crop and the most widely grown potato in North America.

Idaho's state seal, the only one designed by a woman, shows a woman standing beside which worker?

A miner faces a woman who stands for equality, liberty and justice; Emma Edwards Green painted the pair as equals and won the new state's 1891 design competition.

Which Idaho resort installed the world's first chairlift in 1936?

Sun Valley Resort was a railroad's creation: Union Pacific engineers in Omaha designed the single-seat lifts in the summer of 1936 and had them running on Proctor and Dollar mountains that autumn.

What is Idaho's official state fruit?

The huckleberry became Idaho's state fruit in 2000 after fourth-graders proposed it; the plants take up to 15 years to mature and have never been farmed successfully, so the berries are still gathered wild.

What is Idaho's official state raptor?

The Peregrine Falcon became Idaho's state raptor in 2004; The Peregrine Fund, based in Boise since 1984, bred and released more than 4,000 of the birds, helping the species off the endangered list in 1999.

Which fish is designated as Idaho's official state fish?

The Cutthroat Trout was designated Idaho's state fish in 1990; named for the red slash under its jaw, it is native to Idaho waters such as the Snake and Clearwater drainages.

What is North America's deepest river gorge, partly along Idaho's western border?

Hells Canyon, carved by the Snake River along the Idaho-Oregon line, drops almost 8,000 feet from He Devil Peak to the water, which makes it deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Idaho's first state governor, George L. Shoup, resigned after a few weeks in 1890 to do what?

George L. Shoup had wanted the Senate all along: weeks after he became governor the new legislature elected him, and he resigned in December 1890 to take a seat in the U.S. Senate, where he stayed until 1901.

Which U.S. President signed the act admitting Idaho into the Union?

Benjamin Harrison signed Idaho's statehood bill on 3 July 1890, and a 43rd star joined the flag the very next day, the Fourth of July; that 43-star flag lasted just one year.

Between 2010 and 2020 Idaho was America's second-fastest-growing state, behind which neighbour?

Utah topped the growth table for the 2010s; Idaho, which had lost 28,000 people to out-migration in the 1980s, came second with a 17.3% jump.

The name 'Idaho' was first proposed for which other future state, where a town called Idaho Springs kept it?

Colorado nearly got the name: lobbyist George Willing pitched 'Idaho' to Congress as a Native word and later claimed he had made it up; Congress chose Colorado in 1861, and the spare name went to a new territory two years later.

Which city overtook Pocatello and Idaho Falls in the late 1990s as Idaho's second-largest?

Nampa's 1990s boom carried it to about 52,000 people by 2000, just past Pocatello and Idaho Falls; its neighbour Meridian grew faster still and has since pushed Nampa down to third.

Which central Idaho mountain range towers over Redfish Lake and the town of Stanley?

The Sawtooth Range anchors a national recreation area that Congress created in 1972, two years after plans for an open-pit mine in the neighbouring White Clouds became a major issue in the race for governor.

What was the primary attraction that led to large-scale settlement in Idaho after 1860?

Gold discoveries began in 1860 around Pierce, on Nez Perce reservation land; the rush that followed drew so many miners that Congress organized Idaho Territory within three years.

Ranger Ed Pulaski, who sheltered his crew in an Idaho mine tunnel, gave his name to a tool for which job?

Fighting wildfires: in the Great Fire of 1910 Pulaski saved most of his crew by ordering them into an old mine tunnel, then refined the combined axe and hoe that fire crews still carry.

Which 1846 agreement with Britain made the future Idaho part of the United States?

The 1846 Oregon Treaty set the boundary with British North America at the 49th parallel, ending joint occupation of the Oregon Country; Idaho Territory was organized from that land in 1863.

Kullyspell House, the first non-indigenous settlement in what is now Idaho, was built in 1809 as what?

A fur-trading post was the plan: David Thompson's North West Company men raised a strong log store for goods and furs in September 1809, the first building outsiders put up in what is now Idaho.

Idaho is part of which two U.S. subregions?

Pacific Northwest and Mountain West both claim Idaho: its main rivers drain west to the Pacific, while the Rockies and Mountain Time tie most of the state to Montana and Wyoming.

What is Idaho's official state dance?

Square dancing became Idaho's official folk dance in 1989, one of about thirty states to adopt it during a long campaign by square dancers to have it named America's national dance.

By 1870, immigrants from which country made up about 28.5% of Idaho Territory's population?

Miners from China worked in large teams on ground earlier prospectors had passed over; the 1870 census counted 4,274 Chinese residents among Idaho's 14,999 people, before anti-Chinese violence and expulsions spread in the 1880s.

Which Idaho waterfall, the 'Niagara of the West', drops from a greater height than its namesake?

Shoshone Falls, on the edge of Twin Falls, plunges 212 feet, about 45 feet more than Niagara; a catastrophic Ice Age flood out of Lake Bonneville carved the falls and the canyon around them.

Idaho's state fossil, dug up in quantity near Hagerman, is an early relative of which animal?

Horse: the Hagerman Horse lived more than three million years ago; a rancher spotted the bones in 1928, and Smithsonian digs then uncovered a whole population, from foals to old adults.

Idaho's isolated northern Panhandle is closely linked, culturally and by the clock, with the eastern part of which neighbouring state?

Washington's Spokane, about 30 miles from Coeur d'Alene, is the Panhandle's main city and air hub, and northern Idaho keeps Pacific Time with it, an hour behind Boise.

What state song did Idaho's legislature adopt in 1931?

Here We Have Idaho began as another composer's tune, 'Garden of Paradise'; University of Idaho students borrowed it for a campus song, 'Our Idaho', and the legislature adopted it with new verses in 1931.

Which eastern state gives its name to the Boise Valley's major irrigation canal?

New York Canal was begun in the 1880s by engineer Arthur Foote, but money ran short and it watered little land until the federal Reclamation Service took it over and enlarged it in the 1900s.

Which supermarket chain was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1939?

Joe Albertson opened the first Albertsons store in Boise in 1939 after leaving Safeway; the chain grew into one of the largest grocers in the United States.

The University of Idaho's jazz festival and music school are both named for which bandleader?

Lionel Hampton first brought his big band to the student festival in 1984 and threw his support behind it; the festival took his name the following year and the music school in 1987.

Which city, home to Idaho's only seaport, sits at the state's lowest point?

Lewiston lies just 710 feet above sea level where the Clearwater meets the Snake, low enough for barges to reach it from the Pacific, more than 460 miles away.

Which species became Idaho's official state amphibian in 2015?

The Idaho Giant Salamander became the state amphibian in 2015; it lives almost nowhere else, can reach 13 inches, and some adults never grow up, keeping their gills and staying in the water for life.

Which eastern Idaho dam failed in June 1976 while its reservoir was filling for the first time?

Teton Dam, a brand-new earthen dam, gave way on 5 June 1976 as its reservoir filled for the first time; the flood killed 11 people and tore through the farm towns downstream.

What is the official state insect of Idaho?

The Monarch Butterfly became Idaho's official state insect in 1992 after fourth-graders at Boise's Cole Elementary School proposed it to the legislature.

What is Idaho's official state horse?

The Appaloosa, the spotted horse bred by the Nez Perce, became Idaho's state horse in 1975; the breed fell into decline after the tribe lost its herds in the 1877 war, until breeders founded a club in 1938 to save it.

Which president signed the act that created Idaho Territory?

Abraham Lincoln signed the act in March 1863, in the middle of the Civil War; the territory at first took in today's Montana and most of Wyoming, but Congress carved Montana off the very next year.

The vast majority of Idaho's population lives in which geographic feature?

The Snake River Plain holds Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls because it holds the water: canals spread the river over dry sagebrush country and turned it into the state's farm belt.

In 2017 a swathe of central Idaho became America's first international reserve protecting what?

Dark night skies: the reserve covers more than 1,400 square miles of mountains, and the towns inside it agreed to shield their street lights so the stars stay visible.

Weiser, Idaho, has hosted a national championship in what since 1953?

Old-time fiddling: Weiser held its first fiddle contest in 1914, and the national contest each June now draws nearly 7,000 people, more than live in the town.

Which daredevil's steam-powered rocket failed to clear the Snake River Canyon near Twin Falls in 1974?

Evel Knievel's Skycycle X-2 took off on 8 September 1974, but its parachute opened as it left the ramp and the rocket drifted down into the canyon; he got away with minor injuries.

Which Idaho town was the first community in the world lit solely by nuclear power?

Arco's feat lasted about an hour on July 17, 1955, powered by Argonne's BORAX-III reactor at the nearby testing station.

In 1951, the EBR-I reactor in Idaho first generated enough electricity to light how many bulbs?

Four 200-watt bulbs glowed on 20 December 1951, among the first usable electricity ever made by a nuclear reactor; EBR-I was soon lighting its whole building.

Pulling what too far caused Idaho's 1961 SL-1 reactor explosion?

Control rod: reconnecting it meant lifting it a few inches by hand, but it came up too far and the small Army reactor went from shut down to runaway in four milliseconds, killing all three operators.

Ernest Hemingway died in 1961 at his home in which Idaho town?

Ketchum first drew Hemingway in 1939, when he worked on For Whom the Bell Tolls at the new ski resort next door; he later bought a house above the Big Wood River, died there on 2 July 1961 and is buried in town.

The January 1863 Bear River Massacre was an army attack on a winter camp of which people?

Shoshone families were in their winter camp when Colonel Patrick Connor's California Volunteers crossed the river and surrounded it on 29 January 1863; at least 250 died, among the deadliest massacres of Native Americans in U.S. history.

Idaho's 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff pitted federal agents against whose family?

Randy Weaver's wife Vicki, his teenage son Sammy and a U.S. marshal were shot dead during the siege of the family's cabin; three years later the government paid the Weavers $3.1 million.

The Perrine Bridge at Twin Falls is world-famous for which activity?

BASE jumping is the draw at the 486-foot Perrine Bridge over the Snake River Canyon; Twin Falls has long allowed the sport there year-round without a permit, drawing jumpers from around the world.

Rigby, Idaho, calls itself the birthplace of which invention, first sketched there by a high-school student?

Television: Philo Farnsworth chalked his idea for an all-electronic system on the blackboard for his Rigby science teacher, whose memory of the drawing later helped him win his patent fight with RCA.

Which Hall of Fame slugger was born and raised in Payette, Idaho?

Harmon Killebrew starred in several sports at Payette High School, where a big-league scout found him in 1954; he signed with the Senators at 17 and went straight to the major leagues.

Which 2004 cult comedy was filmed in and around the small Idaho town of Preston?

Napoleon Dynamite was shot in Preston in July 2003 for about $400,000, with Preston High School playing Napoleon's school, and became a runaway hit.

Which Idaho mining town proclaimed a sewer cover the "Center of the Universe" in 2004?

Wallace declared a manhole cover at the crossing of Bank and Sixth streets the Center of the Universe in 2004; the cover now bears the emblems of the district's great mines, and the town gathers to re-dedicate it.

Which future vice-presidential nominee was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1964?

Sarah Palin was born in Sandpoint on 11 February 1964; her family moved to Skagway, Alaska, when she was a few months old, and she became that state's governor in 2006.

Which Breaking Bad star was born in Emmett, Idaho?

Aaron Paul, who played Jesse Pinkman, was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant in Emmett, the son of a Baptist minister, and dropped his surname for the screen.

Which Idaho senator chaired the 1975 Senate committee that investigated CIA and FBI abuses?

Frank Church chaired the 1975-76 Senate select committee, known as the Church Committee, whose hearings exposed CIA assassination plots and FBI surveillance programs and led to permanent intelligence oversight committees.

Which Idaho governor served as US Secretary of the Interior under Jimmy Carter?

Cecil Andrus resigned as Idaho's governor in 1977 to become Jimmy Carter's Secretary of the Interior, serving until 1981, then won the governorship again in 1986 and 1990.

The Nez Perce fighting retreat of 1877 ended about 40 miles short of which border?

After a 1,170-mile fighting retreat, Chief Joseph's band surrendered on 5 October 1877 at the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana, about 40 miles short of the border with Canada and the safety it offered.

Which famous defence lawyer won an acquittal for union leader 'Big Bill' Haywood in Boise in 1907?

Clarence Darrow defended Haywood against a charge of plotting the bomb murder of former governor Frank Steunenberg; the prosecutor he beat, William Borah, had just been chosen for the U.S. Senate.

Arrowrock Dam on the Boise River set which world record when it opened in 1915?

Tallest dam: at about 350 feet it stood higher than any other dam in the world for roughly a decade; it was built that high to store Boise River water for the valley's irrigated farms.

Which emigrant wagon road, opened in the 1840s, ran the length of southern Idaho?

Oregon Trail wagons rolled across Idaho for two decades without stopping: emigrants saw it as dry country to get through, and almost nobody stayed to settle.

Which memory-chip company was founded in Boise in 1978?

Micron began as a four-man chip-design consultancy in Boise, backed by local investors and later by potato billionaire J.R. Simplot, and only turned to making its own memory chips in 1981.

Potato magnate J.R. Simplot sealed a 1960s handshake deal to supply frozen fries to which chain?

Ray Kroc of McDonald's shook on the deal with J.R. Simplot in 1967; the frozen fry went on to make the Idaho potato grower a billionaire.

Who quarried the sandstone for Boise's Old Idaho Penitentiary?

Its own inmates cut the stone in the foothills above the prison and helped raise almost every building; the 'Old Pen' then held prisoners for 101 years before closing in December 1973.

Since 1982, what has heated Idaho's Capitol in Boise?

Geothermal water pumped from about 3,000 feet below Boise has warmed Idaho's Capitol since 1982, the only U.S. statehouse heated this way; the city's homes have tapped the same hot water since the 1890s.

Built in 1850–53, what is the oldest standing building in Idaho?

Cataldo Mission, the Mission of the Sacred Heart, was raised between 1850 and 1853 by members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe working with Jesuit missionaries, to a design by the Italian priest Antonio Ravalli.

Which Boise Basin boomtown was founded in 1862 under the name Bannock?

Idaho City, laid out as Bannock in December 1862, is credited with about 7,000 people by 1864, which would have made it the largest town in the Northwest, ahead of Portland.

North America's tallest single-structured sand dune, about 470 feet high, is in which Idaho park?

Bruneau Dunes holds a dune that stands about 470 feet above the desert floor; the winds blow from the southeast and the northwest almost equally, so the sand piles up in one place instead of drifting away.

At which Idaho site did California Trail emigrants write their names in axle grease on the granite?

City of Rocks was already called that by the wagon trains: an emigrant of 1849 wrote of camping 'at the city of the rocks', and names daubed in axle grease still show on Register Rock and Camp Rock.

What does the US Navy test at its research detachment on Lake Pend Oreille?

Submarine sonar gear is calibrated, and large model hulls are checked for stealth, at the Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment in Bayview, because the lake is 1,150 feet deep and unusually quiet.

Which northern Idaho state park was a World War II boot camp for 293,000 Navy recruits?

Farragut took the name of the Navy's first admiral; ground was broken beside a mountain lake in March 1942, and by September the camp held 55,000 people, which made a boot camp the largest city in Idaho.

Which World War II camp in southern Idaho held more than 13,000 Japanese Americans?

Minidoka, on the sagebrush plain near Jerome, held families uprooted from the West Coast and Alaska from 1942 to 1945; in 2001 the site was made a national monument so the story would be kept.

The 1972 Sunshine Mine disaster killed 91 Idaho miners by what means?

A fire that broke out deep in the Sunshine Mine on 2 May 1972 filled the workings with smoke, and 91 miners died of carbon monoxide poisoning; two survivors were brought out a week later.

Which Silver Valley mine and smelter complex was added to the Superfund list in 1983?

Bunker Hill kept its lead smelter running, and even raised output, after a 1973 fire wrecked part of its dust filters; children nearby soon showed some of the highest blood-lead levels ever recorded.

Boise State's football field has been famous since 1986 for being which colour?

Blue turf replaced ordinary green AstroTurf, and the look grew so famous that when the NFL voted in 2011 to keep its own fields green, the measure was nicknamed the 'Boise rule'.

Boise State beat Oklahoma in overtime at the 2007 Fiesta Bowl with a two-point conversion on which famous trick play?

Statue of Liberty: Ian Johnson took the hidden handoff from Jared Zabransky and ran in for a 43-42 win, moments after a pass-and-lateral trick with seven seconds left had forced overtime.

The Kibbie Dome in Moscow is the home stadium of which college team?

The Kibbie Dome is the home field of the University of Idaho Vandals; it opened in 1971 as an open concrete stadium and gained its barrel-arched wooden roof in 1975.

Twin Falls native Mark Felt was revealed in 2005 as 'Deep Throat', the secret source in which scandal?

Watergate: as a top FBI official, Felt quietly steered two young newspaper reporters toward the truth while the White House hunted for the leaker, then kept his secret for more than 30 years.

The legal loophole called the "Zone of Death" lies in the Idaho section of which national park?

Yellowstone's uninhabited 50-square-mile Idaho strip has no residents to form a jury, which in theory makes a constitutional trial impossible.

Which Idaho resort town's ten-day Winter Carnival can draw more than 60,000 visitors?

McCall's Winter Carnival, held over ten days each late January and early February beside Payette Lake, is famous for its snow-sculpture contest; its roots go back to the 1924 Payette Lakes Winter Carnival.

Jerry Kramer, raised in Sandpoint and a University of Idaho star, played guard for which NFL team?

Green Bay Packers: Kramer blocked for Vince Lombardi's famous sweep and won the first two Super Bowls, yet had to wait until 2018 for his place in the Hall of Fame.

The name Boise comes from a French word meaning what?

Woods is the sense in every telling: in one, a French-speaking guide cried 'Les bois!' on sighting the tree-lined river after weeks of dry country; in another, French Canadian trappers had already named the river for its trees.

The Coeur d'Alene Resort holds a world record for a 3,300-foot floating what?

The Coeur d'Alene Resort's 3,300-foot floating boardwalk, which encloses its marina on Lake Coeur d'Alene, is billed as the world's longest; the resort's golf course is also known for its movable floating green, opened in 1991.

Sun Valley Lodge was built of what material, disguised to look like wood?

Concrete was poured inside rough-sawn timber forms, so the boards' grain printed itself onto the walls, which were then stained to finish the disguise; from a distance the lodge passes for a wooden building.