I have spent much of this week delving into Idaho history for my novel. I had originally settled on Iowa, but with my cheese-hole brain, I forgot and started looking into Idaho. For once, struggling with congnitive function proved beneficial.

It is almost eerie how some of the key factors of my story already fit with exactly what was happening in that state in 1891. It was a tumultuous time for people whose state had just entered the union the year before. Traders who had been the heroes and much sought after travel guides of a new area fell by the wayside as the gold rush drove the production of railway routes across the state. Towns popped up right and left and the population double in size in just a decade, to nearly 90,000. Approximately 4,000 of those residents of Idaho were Chinese immigrants, chased out of California, who found welcome and success in the mines, though silver grew to be a greater product than gold. Ranchers discovered the prime grazing land and moved north. Settlers could make a good living selling the produce of their gardens to miners. Farmers found success in the dry ground when it came to growing wheat, oats, and barley, but more importantly the appeal for the Idaho potato spread across the nation.

There was great change, great success, great growth. But none of them knew that in just a couple of years, the tide would turn and a great depression would fall across the state before the government sponsored irrigation efforts saved the struggling farmers. Further chaos was ensued by the clash between the mine owners and the miners. Strikebreakers fomented the growing tensions and violence marred the state. Governor Frank Steunenberg called in federal troops to quell the violence in 1899. Six years later, after he left office, he was assassinated in his home.

Sadly, the westward expansion once again was at the cost of the lives of Native Americans. The Nez Perce occupied northern Idaho, while the south was populated by Shoshone, Bannock, and Paiute Native Americans. While the settlement of this northwest territory was thought to have been in the distant future, the 1860 discovery of gold in the mountains held by the Nez Perce, already decimated by small pox brought by traders, spelled the end of their freedom. In 1855, the Nez Perce had a treaty that would allow them to keep their homes in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. However, in 1863 the treaty was "renegotiated" to reduce their land to only 10% of the original agreement. The territorial governor systematically moved to restrict the Nez Perce to reservations, and many were forcibly resettled from fertile land in Oregon to Idaho. In 1877, Chief Joseph made a valiant yet failed bid to lead his people in a run to freedom in Canada. By 1909, nearly all the Native American population had been moved to reservations so that the "American" people could enjoy the wealth and prosperity of the region. What selfish and cruel arrogance those people harbored in their belief that they had the right to do so!

Idaho is a land of mountains and plains and river valleys, a state of geographical contradictions. In 1891, it was a land of miners, ranchers, farmers, and traders. It was a land of new beginnings and great opportunity. But it was also a land of doom for those original inhabitants caught in the path of western expansion.