Town History
How Idaho Was Named
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Feb 23, 2005, 18:11

The last issue of the Pacific Coast Miner, published at San Francisco, is devoted largely to Idaho.  Many of the mining districts are described faithfully, the articles being accompanied by fine illustrations.  The number is one that should be of great value to the mining industry in Idaho, since there is nothing about it indicating that any of the matter has been published for advertising purposes.

Perhaps the most interesting feature to Idaho readers is a contribution to the literature of the subject of the naming of the state.  On this point the Miner says:

A considerable amount of controversy has been indulged in regarding the naming of the state, and as the question is interesting, and is intimately connected with the exploits of the early miners, we will cursorily refer to it.

The first white men who visited the country now embraced by Idaho were the members of the Lewis and Clark exploring expedition, who crossed the mountains from the Horse plains to the Lemhi valley on August 18, 1805.  Five years later, the Missouri Fur company established a trading post on the Snake river.  In 1811 Wilson P. Hunt, with 60 men engaged by the Pacific Fur company, passed through to the coast.

In 1843 Captain Bonneville with 100 men visited the Port Neuf river and in the same year Nathaniel J. Wythe established a trading station at Fort Hall, near the Snake river. <!--page-->

The missionaries were also busy at this time, and formed a number of mission stations.  But whenever they referred to the scenes of their operations and exploits they described them as being at, or near, one of the rivers, or one of the trading or missionary stations.  None of them ever used the word Idaho.

It has been said that the name was first mentioned in Congress when it was proposed for one of the neighboring states:  but it seems probable that the term was first used by the Indians and afterwards by the early miners.  It was apparently compounded of two Indian words, Eda and Ho, which meant gem of the mountains, bright mountain or shining mountain.

Joaquin Miller, the poet, was one of the pioneers, and he has given a pleasing, if not altogether trustworthy, account of the origin of the word.  "The distinction of naming Idaho," he said, "certainly belongs to my old friend Colonel Craig, of Craig's mountain, Nez Perce county.  As to some fellow naming it in congress—bah!  The name was familiar in 5000 men's mouths as they wallowed through the snow in 1861 on their way to the Oro Fino diggings, long before congress had ever heard of the discovery.

"The facts are these:  I was riding pony express at the time rumors reached us through the Nez Perce Indians that gold was to be found on the headwaters and tributaries of the Salmon river.  I had lived with the Indians, and Colonel Craig, who had spent most of his life with them, often talked with me about possible discoveries of gold in the mountains to the right as we rode to Oro Fino, and of what the Indians had said of the then unknown regions.  Gallop your horse, as I have done a hundred times, against the rising sun.  As you climb the Sweetwater mountains, far away to your right, you will see a peculiar and beautiful light at sunrise, a sort of diadem on two grand clusters of mountains that bear away under the clouds fifty miles distant.

"I called Colonel Craig's attention to this singular and beautiful arched light.  'That,' said he, 'is what the Indians call E-dah-hoe, which means the light or diadem, on the line of the mountains.'

"That was the first time I ever heard of the name.  Later, in September, 1861, when I rode into the newly discovered camp to establish an express office I took with me an Indian from Lapwai.  We followed an Indian trail, crossed Craig's mountain, then Camas prairie, and had E-dah-hoe mountain all the time inview as an objective point.

"On my return to Lewiston I wrote a letter containing a brief account of our trip to the mines, and it was published in one of the Oregon papers.  In that account, I often mentioned Edahoe, but spelt it Idaho, leaving the pronunciation unmarked by any diacritical signs.  So that, perhaps, I may have been the first to give it the present spelling, but I certainly did not originate the word."

The Silver Blade: Friday, November 6, 1904  Volume VI IX  #30