Masthead Logo The Palimpsest Volume 55 | Number 4 Article 2 7-1-1974 Idaho-Iowa' Peter T. Harstad Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Harstad, Peter T. "Idaho-Iowa'." The Palimpsest 55 (1974), 98-126. Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol55/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the State Historical Society of Iowa at Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The alP impsest by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 98 T he Palimpsest seriously. But only those irrigated and groomed "IDAHO-IOWA" row crops reminded one of Iowa. My new neigh­ bor in Pocatello, who regarded Denver as an eastern city, would simply not accept the fact that in parts of Iowa there are six feet or more by of fertile black topsoil. Peter T. Harstad After a decade of conditioning in the Gem State I followed my fathers cue and moved to and Iowa. How rectangular the farms; how lush the Michael D. Gibson vegetation. Plant one seed of corn in the glacial soil and get back a thousand without irrigation. Back in Iowa I began to detect the frequent Introduction confusion that exists in some minds concerning An explanation of why anyone would wish to the Hawkeye and Gem states. To a considerable pursue this std?ject may he in order. Initially, degree the confusion springs from the similarity the motivation stemmed from family and personal of the two names. For example, a west coast history. During the Civil War, my maternal great­ book dealer sent a catalog to me at my Idaho grandfather settled in central Iowa. The family address. With a hasty scrawl the post office re­ is still there on the same farm near Story City. turned it to the sender with the information that My fathers forebears pushed farther north, just I now lived in Iowa City, Iowa. The bookman over the Minnesota line. After attending Luther sent out the catalog again, this time with my College at Decorah and graduating from a correct street address in Iowa City, but the mid-western seminary, my paternal grandfather name of the town “Idaho City, Idaho.” The post­ moved along with the Dakota frontier, skipped man in Idaho City apparently decoded the zip over Montana and the Idaho panhandle, and and sent the parcel off to Iowa City where it settled down in the state of Washington. Father finally reached me. too became a minister and, because of compli­ An illustration of confusion from the opposite cated reorientations, came to serve a parish of coast comes from the pen of Laurence Lafore, like-minded souls near Story City. Here my the historian-novelist at The University of Iowa. parents met and were wed. In an interesting article about Iowa in the Octo­ After a mid-western upbringing and education, ber 1971 issue of Harper’s Lafore tells about an with boyhood summers spent on the Iowa farm, eastern hostess who has just been informed that I headed west to teach history in Idaho. Happily her guest has moved to Iowa. “My dear,” the for me, my wife came along. She is a native of hostess retorts, “I think you ought to know in Albert Lea, Minnesota, barely over the Iowa line, Boston we pronounce it Idaho.” Many variations but named after the army officer and frontier of this story circulate, some of them involving promoter who gave Iowa its name. Ohio, Iowa, or Idaho. For example, a native of I remember vividly that August day in 1963 northwestern Iowa recognized the following pro­ when we approached Idaho from West Yellow­ vincial assurance while he attended Harvard stone and, just over the border, read these words early in this century. One of his friends informed painted on the blistering blacktop: “HELP a distinguished Boston lady that he was from KEEP IDAHO GREEN.” There was no Corn Iowa. She replied, “We pronounce it Ohio here Belt greenery in sight. It would take several years in Boston.” Perhaps the idtimate in this vein ap­ to read the subtle hues in the Idaho landscape peared on some shirts made especially for some and to realize that the slogan was to be taken good-natured University of Iowa students in the f T he Palimpsest 99 Looking west from the summit of Mt. Borah, Idaho's highest point. spring of 1974. The hold lettering reads: “Uni­ versity of Iowa—Idaho City, Ohio." Sometimes the confusion takes on more serious implications as when Newsweek reported Au­ gust 14, 1972 on the “lower-magnitude stars” who refused to be considered for the Democratic nomination for the Vice-Presidency. Included were Senators “Nelson of Wisconsin, Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota and Frank Church of Iowa. .” No good geographical reason exists for the confusion of the Hawkeye and Gem states ex­ cept perhaps in the minds of the rtiost sheltered and smug residents of the coastal regions. A thousand miles separates the two states. The high point in Idaho is emphatic 12,662 foot Mount Borah. Late one October I stood on this summit and saw the Grand Tetons of western The view from Merrill Sterlers hog lot, Iowa's Wyoming 150 miles distant. The high point in highest elevation, somewhat less dramatic than Mt. Iowa is so undramatic that it was found only Borah, (courtesy of the Des Moines Register) 100 T he Palimpsest this year. It is located on Merrill Sterlers hop, members of editors families. Picotte was lot— 7,669.35 feet above sea level in northwestern editor of the bombastic Wood River Times. Iowa. According to Des Moines Register report­ er Otto Knauth, Sterlers hogs have a view un­ As the evening progressed, speeches alter­ matched anywhere in Iowa. “On a clear day, nated with music, recitations, dancing, and they can easily see Sibley, four miles to the hearty expressions of good will. At one southwest. ...” point S. B. Kingsbury of Hailey and editor Iowa's land is so rich that only 0.6 percent of Lafe Young of the Atlantic, Iowa Daily it remains in federal ownership; 63.9 percent of Telegraph offered a joint toast: Tdaho- Idaho is federally owned, much of it mountain­ ous. In Iowa there is usually ample rain for row Iowa.” crops; irrigation is necessary for intensive farm­ When the toast was offered, anv of the ing in most of Idaho. Iowa editors with a historical turn of mind Progressing beyond personal involvement with might have conjured up visions of the past. both Iowa and Idaho and frequent confusion The 1885 visitors were not the first to stemming from the similarity of names, what strands of the history of these two areas inter­ travel the westward route from Iowa to twine? Seldom has anyone defied the forces of the Intermountain region. American nationalism and written about the re­ The Lewis and Clark journals record the lationship of one state to another. Yet such re­ first known journey of Caucasians between lationships exist. This article is an attempt to the two areas. The explorers encountered examine some of the ties that bind Iowa and Idaho. serious difficulties of contrasting nature in P.T.H. the areas destined to become Iowa and Idaho. The only fatality of the expedition occurred at what is now Sioux Citv where In midafternoon of June 12, 1885, a train Sergeant Charles Floyd died of what was halted at the Bullion Street crossing in probably appendicitis, but the trek across Ketchum, a mining town in Idaho Terri­ Idaho, between the headwaters of the Mis­ tory. Iowans by the score disembarked. A souri and those of the Columbia, proved mountain breeze wafted unfamiliar hints to be the most rugged and exhausting part of pine, sage, and sulfur. How different of the trip. from the smells back home. A local ar­ Four decades later (after the Oregon rangements committee transported the Trail had wended its wav across the con- visitors to nearby sites. They viewed the tinent with frayed ends in Iowa and main Queen of the Hills Mine, took in the strands through southern Idaho) there be­ mountain scenery, and bathed in a warm gan a steady flow of people westward. Re­ sulfur spring. cently, the United States government com­ 1 hat evening, band music summoned missioned a study of the construction and both visitors and locals to the courthouse use of the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon at nearby Hailev. If anv of the Hawkeves Trail through the Caribou National Forest passed T. E. Picotte’s establishment on of southern Idaho. Twelve diaries, written their wav to the festivities thev would have * 0 by people who used this route between known his occupation by the sound of the the years 1859 and 1865, came to light. Six machinery and the smell of printer s ink. of the twelve diarists were Iowans. One of 1 he Iowans were newspaper editors, or them (Charles J. Cummings of Brooklyn, I T he Palimpsest 101 & Jfe-’®N4| 1 - N y l .iri * 4 0 3 $ ,4 V-, ’ t V*. * ' ~ 5 ^ o f ? >y *m ^ -,J^ —** • v*. ^ ■r*"*“ - - ‘ • •. -"• 'v’* - V- -v"“*•>'/ -’' A >’- *'77' ' 7. * 7 ‘7 *'- ¿T ,..—-‘--:- -* ~,jS*rpr>s-r . - - v - -. T - :--V**^ *»s. AW~ - -- , T-zMm- ' *>' > '-■-.-j.-?^'- - 22£ ~-»y-A** ’ / - • — ^ ■_..... ~-\ j rv^* pr^ ' **.• . ^ • \'v . -.y. •’» J r * • Massacre Rocks, Idaho (an early twentieth century view), scene of the death of A.