The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-03
Stories of Wonderful Gold Dis
 coveries Made There
HOW CAPITAL WAS MOVED
Mormons Now Rule Politics of the State, But In Early Days There Was a Hot Fight Against
 Them.
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKlN.

ludnoi the gem or The mountains, IS seV-
 enteen years old today, having been ad-
 mitted to the Union of states on July
 3, 1890, during the administration of the l learned Benjamin Harrison. But two
 states in the sisterhood are younger | Wyoming by eight days and Utah by six
 years, Oklahomas status still being un-
 determined. The industrial progress of
 Idaho has been keeping step with the
 prosperity of the nation, but even now,
 with ar area ten times more than Massa- | chusetts, 1t has a population only half
 as great as the city of Boston. On the
 slopes of the Rockies in Idaho there are
 areas larger than Connecticut that have
 never been surveyed or prospected.
 Seventeen-year-old Idaho has had an l eventful history since she became state as well as during the thirty years be- fore. Whom Hiram Pierce discovered the placer gold mines of the Clearwater In | 1860 a host of gold seekers abandoned California and Nevada for the new Fl
 Dorado. Two years later when the Boise
 mines were found. the prospect of riches
 attracted hosts of miners, prospectors,
 adventurers and criminals-many of them desiring to escape service fin the civil | war These bad men ruled the new min
 ing settlements by terror. In Boise alone there were twenty murders in a few
 months during 1864 and nothing could be done about 1t.
 3ut the better class of people drew
 many recruits from the east at the close of the war and peaceful government was
 begun, mining was soon supplemented
 by other callings, and Idaho lived in com
 parative peace. In March, 1863, the terri
 tory of Idaho. containing ali of what
 is now Idaho, Montana and Wyoming,
 was set off by Congress from parts of the territories of Washington, Nebraska
 and Dacotah. The capital was set up at Lewiston, in the northern part of the territory. When the bill for the creation of the territory passed the House of Representatives the name was Montana" but at the suggestion of Senator Wilson of Massachusetts 1t was changed to Ida | ho." It is interesting to note in this con-
 nection that the first measure for the
 creation of the territory of Colorado pro-
 vided that it be named "Idaho," as Idaho | Springs was a leading settlement of the country Some other reason prevailed | however, and it was named for a river | which belongs to other states
 Idaho is the I-dah-o of the Indians
 meaning the jeweled mountain tops from | which the sunrise came to Illuminate the | eartn and no other mountains in the world can claim better right to this 1 poetcal designation than the snow-clad | peaks that mark the eastern border of | the state of Idaho. Joaquin Miller tells
 the story that when the party led by
 Hiram Pierce was approaching the spot whore the first gold was found, an In
 dian guide pointed to the mountain to
 the east of them and said "I-dah-o'
 Pierce then declared that Idaho shovd
 be the name of the country. George | B. Walker, sometime a member of Con
 gross from Seattle, Is probably entitled | to the credit of having the name pre- served as the designation of one of the sovereign states of the American union. 1 While the settlement of Idaho did not l beoin until the 6os, efforts had been made | long before. The first white settlement in | tho state was made by Nathaniel J. Wy | eth at Fort Hall in 1884. Two years
 later the Presbyterian missionaries, Dr.. | Marcus Whitman and H. H. Spaulding
 came to concert the Indians. Jesuits from | Canada had before attempted to found | missions, but they were not permanent. | Mormons from Utah made an unsuceess- | full attempt to found a town in the
 southern portion of the state. The rigors | of the winters, the distance from base l .Nf md tIa af
 of the Indians made 1t difficult for any l of these early settlements to prosper. | When gold was found it was a different | story.
 | The last gold excitement in Idaho was
 the rush to Thunder Mountain, which
 occurred a few years ago, when the | country was electrified by the story of
 a mountain of gold being uncovered in
 the wilds. In the heart of an almost | inaccessible region, where the earth Is l fearfully ripped and slashed by those awful upheavals which made mountains | anu the dizzy canyons between them. the 1 Caswell twins. rowing hunters and gold
 seekers. stumbled across place where l there was a leak from the hidden treas l easy-going chaps, more fond of chasing l grizzlies than banning creeks, when
 their find netted tnem S245 worth of pre- | cious metal, they said nothing about 1t, | but went back to their hunting and fish
 ing until the freshets of another spring
 should provide water with which to make
 easy woflS of washing out more gold.
 For several years the twins kept their
 secret. One season they took out si90, 1 another $500, and finally washed out $11 00O worth of treasure in few weeks time.
 They took $50 from one pan in twenty
 minutes
 Of course all this could not go on with
 out eventually creating a stir, and the usual rush to the scene of such discov-
 cries set in. Thunder mountain is one of
 the most ,out-of-the-wa localities in the l United States. It was 150 miles from a
 railroad by the nearest route, which led
 over mountain almost as step as house. l tops. Despite this fact the hear-breaking
 trail to the new Golconda became con
 gested with gold-hungry men. To scale
 those forbidding peaks was a fearful
 strain on the muscles of man and best, 1 but they went over. At the foot of a | great rift in the mountains huge snow | drift was replaced by the white topped cabins of the town of Roosevelt. Five 1 Idaho towns, all about the same distance | from the new camp entered into spirited l rivalry to secure the rich profit derived