I’d like to think that “Idaho” means something like “sun going up the mountain.” Or “gem of the mountains.” Or as Steve Crump mentioned in a Twin Falls Times-News column this week – the name of an Arapahoe chief who discovered "healing springs" in what’s now the north-central Colorado of Idaho Springs, population 2,000. The Idaho Springs Chamber of Commerce spreads the last yarn. Idahoan natives know that the origin of the state’s name is mysterious. Idaho, like Seinfeld, is a name about nothing. Idaho state historian Merle Wells said it doesn’t mean anything. Crump provides this background: “The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation creating Idaho Territory – what’s now Colorado – in 1861 before the territory’s delegate to Congress found he had been the victim of a practical joke, according to Wells … B.D. Williams discovered that his predecessor and political rival, George Willing, had simply made up the name … So on the eve of its passage by the Senate, Williams got a sympathetic senator to substitute “Colorado” for “Idaho” and the same bill was approved by the House.” Two years later, when Idaho Territory was carved from Colorado and Washington, the name Idaho resurfaced to replace the first new name considered, “Montana.” So who launched the legend that “Idaho” meant “gem of the mountains”? Joaquin Miller, an eccentric 19th-century poet from California, is the prime suspect. He told the story so much, Crump points out, that it made its way into Idaho history books. So Idaho means anything you want it to mean. Call of the jury
