November 14, 2025 • 24 mins
Idaho was the 43rd state admitted to the Union, and today it's well-known for potatoes, mining, and stunning forests -- but, even in the modern day, Idaho is home to a surprising mystery: What does its name actually mean? Join the guys as they explore the ridiculous origin story of Idaho's name in this week's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with a
classic episode. This one goes out to all our friends
in Idaho.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, in an Idaho state of mind, or just in
the state, the forty third state.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yes, yes, in fact it is the forty third state.
And I gotta check. Guys, we know each other pretty
well at this point. Have any of us been to Idaho,
Not that I can recall.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I have driven through it, and I was going from
Seattle to Denver when I does trip years ago and
which involved I went through Montana and stuff. And I
will tell you right now, I had zero expectations. I
was leaving Spokane. Spokane's gorgeous place. I had no expectations
of Idaho whatsoever, at least the northern part. I didn't
go through the heart of it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Beautiful. Absolutely, Idaho's more west, right, It's just like it's right.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So the smoke stack is right between Washington and Montana.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So go go west, go west, and then go north
for a while, young man.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Indeed, it's on top of Nevada. Uh huh, Okay, there
you go. Clearly I'm excellent a geography.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah. And one of the things we found back in
twenty nineteen when we originally recorded this episode. Is that
we've all accepted the word Idaho as a normalized thing,
and then surely.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's referring to some sort of native tradition, right.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Right, or as my patter familius used to say, no Idaho,
U Daho.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Of course, I think we all had a dat or
two that dropped that one on us. But it turns
out that it's a little more hilarious and complicated than
just naming it after like a native tribe like I
think we're often used to.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, well said, Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
(02:18):
Longtime listeners amongst us may remember that some time ago,
my co hosts, our super producer, Casey Pegram, and I
decided that we were going to hell or high water
do one episode for every state in the US. And
we're sticking to our guns, or attempting to. We're not
(02:41):
going to Sufyan Stevens this right. No, you say that
every time, then, right? I know, I just want him
to make the other what forty eight albums?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, you know, I don't think he ever intended
to do any of that. And plus, you know, to
be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast on a day
is a lot different than doing like a, you know,
an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You're Noel, And perhaps it depends on how much work
goes into an album.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Right, his records are quite barokee.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yes, he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode
is a little bit of a weird one. We are
talking about an origin story, but not so much an
origin story of a state as an origin story of
a state's name.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, to feel what's in a name turns out quite
a lot and a lot of disagreement and a lot
of fraudulent claims and all kinds of stuff. This is,
you know, on the surface, seems like it could be
a dry episode. Not the case, my friend, not the
case quite juicy. Yeah, and there's a bit of a
mystery here as well. I guess one of the best
ways for us to start off today's episode is just
(03:47):
by acknowledging something that is an unspoken.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Truth here in the US. State names are weird. They
feel relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a of cohesive,
coherent logic or uniformity involved. Right, You've got like New York. Right,
that makes sense. There was another York somewhere and this
(04:11):
is the new one, right, clearly, the better York. It's clearly,
it's definitely the latest model. There's no new New York.
But then there are states like Mississippi. There are states
like Hawaii. There are states like I don't know, I
don't know. How do you feel about this? The states
that are named in relation to other states. North Dakota,
South Dakota.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Seems like a cop out to me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
There's no just Dakota. No, yeah, exactly, North Carolina, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, Carolina believe was named after a monarch.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah. And then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's
no East Virginia. Also true, that's weird, they could. It's
a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Well because, as it turns out, most of these state
names were done by committee. So as as typically happens
when things are done by committee, you end up with
something convoluted that no one really liked that much, but
people kind of settle on.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh yeah, Like in the nineteen ninety six Olympics here
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
With a creepy mascot.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, what was that guy's name?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What's it? Izzy?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Isy? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So, Yeah, he sort of looks like a weird little
like a he's like a blue drop. He's a blued
like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with like
Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
They're the Olympic rings.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Now I'm sorry, excuse me, of course they are. How
could I be so foolish? But that's the point. It
was so random looking, you know, they didn't even read
that way to me.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, it was just, uh it was guided by committee,
probably some overpriced market agency.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, exactly. So someone's like, he's got to have shoes,
he's got to have the rings somewhere, and he's got
to be a weird little water droplet alien guy because.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
People wear shoes, they get thirsty and wear at the Olympics,
and they love aliens.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I
forgot that completely turns out as short for Israel.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Is it it?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
But that is our a wonderful it guy or at
how stuff works goes by Izzy, which is short for Israel. Yes,
that is true.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I call the name I use with is depends upon
the severity or immediacy of the request.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yes, so it is.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
If we're just hanging out, it's easy. If we're hanging
out outside of work and it's Israel, if it's like
in an email other people reading, he escalated, Yeah, he
and I both have to be grown ups. So the
name Idaho that fits in right in this weird motley
crew of various fifty various names that came about for
(06:45):
various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But unlike
many other states, it's difficult for us to figure out
exactly what the name means. We're telling you the truth,
folks here in twenty nineteen. One of the most intriguing
mysteries of Idaho history is the origin and meaning of
(07:05):
the name, the name of the state in which you
might be listening to this episode right now. So, Noel,
have you ever been to Idaho?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
No, I haven't been, And you know what this is.
I'm going to put it out there right now. In
my mind, I sometimes confuse it with Ohio because of
the name, and I know they are geographically it couldn't
be less related. I am not good at geography, though,
my friends, I am here to tell you that right now,
So Ben, give us the scoop on the geography of Idaho.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Sure. So, Idaho is bordered on to the west by
Washington and Oregon to the east, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada
and Utah to the south, and then at the very
small attenuated top of the state, boom, it runs straight
into Canada.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I've heard of that.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yes, yes, Casey Pegrim, super producer, Casey Pegrim, have you
ever been to Idaho? No?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
My only I was just thinking about this. My only
like association with Idaho in general is an early built
a spell song called Twin Falls Idaho.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Oh wow, I mean there's also my own Private Idaho. Yeah,
yah ya, Well, but I think it was actually a
B fifty two song. First, okay, okay, it's like you're
living in your own private.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Idaho and the yeah, the build of spells like Christmas
Twin Falls id uh Ho. It's a pretty sad song actually,
Casey on.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
The case, Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
I am a built a spill fan myself. Yeah, I
have not as of yet traveled to Idaho that I
can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
I'm seventy percent sure I haven't been there, but the
past is a watercolor in the rain. You know, things blur.
(08:51):
Which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
Even though it seems like it would fit in, you know,
it sounds similar to many others, right, It turns out
that we have relatively little idea of where the name
Idaho came from. We have some theories.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
We have some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory
revolves around a kooky mining lobbyist by the name of
George M. Willing. It is put forth in the record
that he suggested the name Idaho and said that it
was a Native American word that meant the gem of
(09:32):
the mountains. And this was actually surrounding the naming of
what is now Colorado. So this is a whole saga
that kind of gets this. This name gets sort of
kicked around a little bit, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the background of
George Maurice Willing Junior, known as Doc to his friends.
He was born sometime around eighteen twenty nine to a
very well off family in Philadelphia. He was educated as
a physician, but he got in trouble. He got disgraced
(10:07):
because he was discovered performing performing abortions.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Right, that is true. This I did not know.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And so in the early eighteen fifties he moved to
California to escape potential legal complications, and by the late
eighteen fifties he's resettled to Saint Louis, Missouri. He becomes
part of the Pike's Peak gold Rush in eighteen fifty nine.
He was described as a man of many interests, a
good geologist, abolished a gentleman. He became a candidate for
(10:41):
the Jefferson Territory delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine.
He lost the election, but he's still despite losing the election,
check this out, he just goes to DC anyway and
becomes a lobbyist. And then while he's working as a
delegate lace according to the story, he's the associated most
strongly with the name Idaho.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, that would have been in the earliest days of lobbying,
wouldn't it have been.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Imagine it was nothing like it is today, right, you know,
it was nowhere near as closely regulated, you know what
I mean. So it's suggested by Willing and some other
people early in eighteen sixty as an alternative name for
the territory that finally became known as Colorado. And as
you said, nol it was represented as being a term
(11:29):
meaning gem of the mountains, which some people loved.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's true, but it didn't fly at that particular time,
and a little time went by, and Idaho was not
forgotten because it just had a certain, I don't know,
a certain mouthfeel to it, right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, And let's also consider the willing. Again, we can't overemphasize.
This isn't really supposed to be there. The miners aren't
even supposed to have a delegate, but people are becoming
increasing fans of this phrase or this buzzword or this term.
In the halls of d C. There's a guy named
(12:09):
Williams who has interactions with both political groups in these
different mining camps, and he's really digging the name Idaho.
And something important is happening at this point. So the
eighteen sixty elections out of the way, Lincoln is president,
and there's this blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right,
(12:31):
and this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
states are ramping up towards secession. There's an Idaho bill
for the Pike's Peak mins that was printed by the
House on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty. And at this where
it gets a little complicated, this Williams guy pushes lobbies
(12:53):
Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
sitting on for months and to change the name of
that territory from Colorado to Idaho. And then when this happened,
when this came up and this new name was proposed
in the Senate, a senator from Oregon objected. And then
another guy says, James Green, a Senator James Green says,
(13:15):
Idaho is a very good name in the Indian language.
You know, it means gem of the mountains. And this
guy from Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I do not believe it is an Indian word. It
is a corruption. No Indian tribe in this nation has
that word. In my opinion, it is a corruption, certainly
a counterfeit, and ought not to be adopted.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And let's remember too that the States. I don't hopefully,
hopefully I'm not like overly simplifying. This is something I
have a tendency to do sometimes, but the states would
begin their lives as territories when enough miners would come
in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
(13:59):
and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
the population would boom enough to justify calling it a state,
or they would be a whole. Other series of discussions
would form around, Okay, now it's going to transfer from
being a colony, a territory to actually being a proper
state and having a name.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah, and we know we know that, especially in
this period of history, or at least more so than
in the modern day. Groups of people we get together
and pitch ideas for states, like in our previous episode
about US states that never actually happened. There are so
many conversations throughout the US historical record about people trying
(14:40):
to make the name of a state or create their
own state when someone else is claiming the same land.
The thing that happens, though, is that the Senate at
first they approve this change. They say, Okay, we'll change
it from Colorado to Idaho because Williams really wants.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It that way.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But Williams gets suspens. You know, it's like this Senator
Lane is from Oregon, right, he's on the west coast.
He is probably fairly well acquainted with the languages of
indigenous people at the time, and he seems very certain
this is not a real word. So he looks into
the matter, and that's when he finds out that Idaho
(15:20):
is not a word. It's not an existing word in
an existing language.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But Williams was largely ignored in the first place too,
because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which is not
a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
just say, hey, get this guy out of here, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
So they may have been just making fun of him
right in the beginning. So this is when he learns
that George M. Willing or one of his supporters, had
just invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another
senator Eastern Center, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
(16:02):
and he says, will you please change the name back
to Colorado. And on February fourth, eighteen sixty one, the
Senate says Okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
the House did anything about its Idaho bill, the Colorado
bill passed in the Senate, and then the Representatives passed
the Colorado bill, and so the House bill never was
acted on, and the name Idaho received no further consideration
(16:24):
for Colorado, which became a territory on February twenty eighth,
eighteen sixty one. But the thing was sort of in
a Pandora's box kind of situation. People like the word.
People in what will become Idaho or in that territory
are digging it. It's already a popular phrase in the
(16:46):
Rockies and in the Pacific Northwest, and it's kind of like,
I don't know if you ever heard this. Are you
familiar with the ice cream franchise Hogandaws? Course, so Hogandaws
is a made up word? No, yeah, really, yes. They
just wanted something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it
would be a little more classing. Idaho is kind of
(17:06):
like this. People are swearing to one another up and
down that it is a word from a language of
native people who have lived in this area of the world.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So, like you said, Ben, to that point, this word
Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
It was in the zeitgeys, and people thought it sounded nice,
you know, because of the mouthfeel and it's just Indian
sounding ness. So in December of eighteen sixty one, there
was a territorial legislature of Washington and it created Idaho County.
(17:37):
And that, you know, as we mentioned the geography of Idaho,
it borders Washington State, so it originally was part of
Washington State, but then it became its own state. And
there's another player in kind of keeping this Idaho word alive,
a guy by the name of Joaquin Miller who wrote
the Poet of the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho
(17:58):
and he claimed that it meant the light or diadem
on the line of the mountain, which is a little
bit more of a high falutin way of saying, what
was the original one ben the gem of the mountain.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And keep in mind, these are mining concerns that putting
out this.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That's true. So I think at this point the original
kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, but the word,
the name kind of lived on, right.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, And at this point we do want to profile
a little bit. There's some background, some context the Willings
character that come into play here. Willings was involved in
a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
something called the Arizona Peralta lands grant fraud, in which
(18:48):
he played a despicable part. He also was an associative forgers.
He was a guy similar to so many other con
art that we have talked about in past episodes. And
you'll hear different alternating theories that he met a young
girl named Ida and that inspired the name, or that
(19:10):
it actually is a corruption of an indigenous people's language,
the Kiowa Apach term idahi, which meant enemy. That doesn't
really measure up in my opinion that last one. I
could see a state being named after a person that's
happened before, but I can't see a state being named enemy.
(19:32):
You want something a little more positive, right, So now
we know this battle that happened ultimately was a battle
fought in the public sphere in terms of public opinion
and public use of the phrase. And that's why the
term Idaho was first used to refer to Idaho as
(19:54):
a state instead of Idaho Springs or some other area
in eighteen sixty three, Williams went on to do some
ore Shenani.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, he sure did. And let's not forget too that
at this point a lot of lawmakers that had maybe
had their breaches in bunches about this in the first place,
were a little more preoccupied with the Civil War than
quarreling about state names and made up Indian words.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Right right, And so that's kind of how it slid
in under the radar, because people were so worried about
this burgeoning war between the states that they didn't really
have time nor the inclination to worry about what they
saw as a relatively benign concept like the name idahome
(20:43):
and so Idaho just like a kind of a hogendas
stuck around, sounded close enough to the thing that it
was purporting to be that more and more people began
using it. And some of the same senators who remembered
that last naming incident when they figured out it was
a made up name, were the same senators who are like, Hey,
we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
(21:05):
just just let it ride. Maybe we can fix it later,
maybe we can kick the can down the road. And
kick the can they did, because it is twenty nineteen
and Idaho is the state's name. It's not going to
change anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Now, it's true, And this is not even the most
egregious example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard
of Montpellier, Illinois?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Oh, I have heard the name. What's the skinny on that?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, it turns out that the name, and as Casey
off Mics pointed out, it would be more properly pronounced Montpellier,
was something of a practical joke. Father Jacques Marquette in
sixteen seventy three encountered some members of the Peoria Indian
tribe and that was near the mouth of what would
(21:51):
today be called the Des Moines River, and he asked
them to give him the name of another tribe of
rivals that lived further down the river, and the Peoria
leadership told him that they were called the Moonguana, and
that became the roots for Moye. But Michael McCafferty of
(22:12):
Indiana University discovered that in the Miami, Illinois language, which
is now no longer it's a dead language, this actually
would have been translated to faces and apparently nobody in
Illinois government in the city of Des Moines has acknowledged
(22:35):
that this is the case, but the research stands interesting stuff.
So I guess having a made up name is maybe
a little less embarrassing than having a name that translates
to something so derogatory.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
That's a great point, and as I'm sure many of
us are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
most actually all words are made up. At some point
we all agree, or various factions of us throughout the
human species agreed that this word means this thing. You
know what I mean, Like hand means that thing at
(23:11):
the end of your arm, shoe means that thing that
goes over your foot. And Idaho is one of the
fifty states of the United States of America. There you go,
and that is our episode for today. How many states?
How many states have we done? Now?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I don't know. Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that
want to do the tally and shoot us an email
at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. That'd be cool.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
We love to hear from you, because otherwise I'll be
completely honest with you here, folks. Otherwise we'll get halfway
through an episode and then realize that we have in
fact already covered that state.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It's okay whatever it takes to get the show out
as long as it's a good story too, So thank
you in advance for sending us that note.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
in your neck of the Global Woods. We'd also, of
course like to think a super producer case see pegram
and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
We'd also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme, Gabe,
our research associate who hiped us to this topic. You
can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You can find our show on Instagram as well on
Twitter and Facebook. You can find your fellow listeners on
our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if you
want to hang out with me see some pictures of
weird adventures and my oversized cats. You can find me
(24:35):
at Ben Bullen on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Fellow ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with a
classic episode. This one goes out to all our friends
in Idaho.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, in an Idaho state of mind, or just in
the state, the forty third state.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yes, yes, in fact it is the forty third state.
And I gotta check. Guys, we know each other pretty
well at this point. Have any of us been to Idaho,
Not that I can recall.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I have driven through it, and I was going from
Seattle to Denver when I does trip years ago and
which involved I went through Montana and stuff. And I
will tell you right now, I had zero expectations. I
was leaving Spokane. Spokane's gorgeous place. I had no expectations
of Idaho whatsoever, at least the northern part. I didn't
go through the heart of it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Beautiful. Absolutely, Idaho's more west, right, It's just like it's right.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So the smoke stack is right between Washington and Montana.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So go go west, go west, and then go north
for a while, young man.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Indeed, it's on top of Nevada. Uh huh, Okay, there
you go. Clearly I'm excellent a geography.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah. And one of the things we found back in
twenty nineteen when we originally recorded this episode. Is that
we've all accepted the word Idaho as a normalized thing,
and then surely.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's referring to some sort of native tradition, right.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Right, or as my patter familius used to say, no Idaho,
U Daho.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Of course, I think we all had a dat or
two that dropped that one on us. But it turns
out that it's a little more hilarious and complicated than
just naming it after like a native tribe like I
think we're often used to.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, well said, Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
(02:18):
Longtime listeners amongst us may remember that some time ago,
my co hosts, our super producer, Casey Pegram, and I
decided that we were going to hell or high water
do one episode for every state in the US. And
we're sticking to our guns, or attempting to. We're not
(02:41):
going to Sufyan Stevens this right. No, you say that
every time, then, right? I know, I just want him
to make the other what forty eight albums?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, you know, I don't think he ever intended
to do any of that. And plus, you know, to
be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast on a day
is a lot different than doing like a, you know,
an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You're Noel, And perhaps it depends on how much work
goes into an album.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Right, his records are quite barokee.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yes, he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode
is a little bit of a weird one. We are
talking about an origin story, but not so much an
origin story of a state as an origin story of
a state's name.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, to feel what's in a name turns out quite
a lot and a lot of disagreement and a lot
of fraudulent claims and all kinds of stuff. This is,
you know, on the surface, seems like it could be
a dry episode. Not the case, my friend, not the
case quite juicy. Yeah, and there's a bit of a
mystery here as well. I guess one of the best
ways for us to start off today's episode is just
(03:47):
by acknowledging something that is an unspoken.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Truth here in the US. State names are weird. They
feel relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a of cohesive,
coherent logic or uniformity involved. Right, You've got like New York. Right,
that makes sense. There was another York somewhere and this
(04:11):
is the new one, right, clearly, the better York. It's clearly,
it's definitely the latest model. There's no new New York.
But then there are states like Mississippi. There are states
like Hawaii. There are states like I don't know, I
don't know. How do you feel about this? The states
that are named in relation to other states. North Dakota,
South Dakota.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Seems like a cop out to me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
There's no just Dakota. No, yeah, exactly, North Carolina, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, Carolina believe was named after a monarch.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah. And then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's
no East Virginia. Also true, that's weird, they could. It's
a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Well because, as it turns out, most of these state
names were done by committee. So as as typically happens
when things are done by committee, you end up with
something convoluted that no one really liked that much, but
people kind of settle on.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh yeah, Like in the nineteen ninety six Olympics here
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
With a creepy mascot.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, what was that guy's name?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What's it? Izzy?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Isy? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So, Yeah, he sort of looks like a weird little
like a he's like a blue drop. He's a blued
like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with like
Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
They're the Olympic rings.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Now I'm sorry, excuse me, of course they are. How
could I be so foolish? But that's the point. It
was so random looking, you know, they didn't even read
that way to me.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, it was just, uh it was guided by committee,
probably some overpriced market agency.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, exactly. So someone's like, he's got to have shoes,
he's got to have the rings somewhere, and he's got
to be a weird little water droplet alien guy because.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
People wear shoes, they get thirsty and wear at the Olympics,
and they love aliens.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I
forgot that completely turns out as short for Israel.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Is it it?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
But that is our a wonderful it guy or at
how stuff works goes by Izzy, which is short for Israel. Yes,
that is true.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I call the name I use with is depends upon
the severity or immediacy of the request.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yes, so it is.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
If we're just hanging out, it's easy. If we're hanging
out outside of work and it's Israel, if it's like
in an email other people reading, he escalated, Yeah, he
and I both have to be grown ups. So the
name Idaho that fits in right in this weird motley
crew of various fifty various names that came about for
(06:45):
various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But unlike
many other states, it's difficult for us to figure out
exactly what the name means. We're telling you the truth,
folks here in twenty nineteen. One of the most intriguing
mysteries of Idaho history is the origin and meaning of
(07:05):
the name, the name of the state in which you
might be listening to this episode right now. So, Noel,
have you ever been to Idaho?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
No, I haven't been, And you know what this is.
I'm going to put it out there right now. In
my mind, I sometimes confuse it with Ohio because of
the name, and I know they are geographically it couldn't
be less related. I am not good at geography, though,
my friends, I am here to tell you that right now,
So Ben, give us the scoop on the geography of Idaho.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Sure. So, Idaho is bordered on to the west by
Washington and Oregon to the east, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada
and Utah to the south, and then at the very
small attenuated top of the state, boom, it runs straight
into Canada.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I've heard of that.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yes, yes, Casey Pegrim, super producer, Casey Pegrim, have you
ever been to Idaho? No?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
My only I was just thinking about this. My only
like association with Idaho in general is an early built
a spell song called Twin Falls Idaho.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Oh wow, I mean there's also my own Private Idaho. Yeah,
yah ya, Well, but I think it was actually a
B fifty two song. First, okay, okay, it's like you're
living in your own private.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Idaho and the yeah, the build of spells like Christmas
Twin Falls id uh Ho. It's a pretty sad song actually,
Casey on.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
The case, Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
I am a built a spill fan myself. Yeah, I
have not as of yet traveled to Idaho that I
can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
I'm seventy percent sure I haven't been there, but the
past is a watercolor in the rain. You know, things blur.
(08:51):
Which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
Even though it seems like it would fit in, you know,
it sounds similar to many others, right, It turns out
that we have relatively little idea of where the name
Idaho came from. We have some theories.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
We have some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory
revolves around a kooky mining lobbyist by the name of
George M. Willing. It is put forth in the record
that he suggested the name Idaho and said that it
was a Native American word that meant the gem of
(09:32):
the mountains. And this was actually surrounding the naming of
what is now Colorado. So this is a whole saga
that kind of gets this. This name gets sort of
kicked around a little bit, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the background of
George Maurice Willing Junior, known as Doc to his friends.
He was born sometime around eighteen twenty nine to a
very well off family in Philadelphia. He was educated as
a physician, but he got in trouble. He got disgraced
(10:07):
because he was discovered performing performing abortions.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Right, that is true. This I did not know.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And so in the early eighteen fifties he moved to
California to escape potential legal complications, and by the late
eighteen fifties he's resettled to Saint Louis, Missouri. He becomes
part of the Pike's Peak gold Rush in eighteen fifty nine.
He was described as a man of many interests, a
good geologist, abolished a gentleman. He became a candidate for
(10:41):
the Jefferson Territory delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine.
He lost the election, but he's still despite losing the election,
check this out, he just goes to DC anyway and
becomes a lobbyist. And then while he's working as a
delegate lace according to the story, he's the associated most
strongly with the name Idaho.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, that would have been in the earliest days of lobbying,
wouldn't it have been.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Imagine it was nothing like it is today, right, you know,
it was nowhere near as closely regulated, you know what
I mean. So it's suggested by Willing and some other
people early in eighteen sixty as an alternative name for
the territory that finally became known as Colorado. And as
you said, nol it was represented as being a term
(11:29):
meaning gem of the mountains, which some people loved.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's true, but it didn't fly at that particular time,
and a little time went by, and Idaho was not
forgotten because it just had a certain, I don't know,
a certain mouthfeel to it, right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, And let's also consider the willing. Again, we can't overemphasize.
This isn't really supposed to be there. The miners aren't
even supposed to have a delegate, but people are becoming
increasing fans of this phrase or this buzzword or this term.
In the halls of d C. There's a guy named
(12:09):
Williams who has interactions with both political groups in these
different mining camps, and he's really digging the name Idaho.
And something important is happening at this point. So the
eighteen sixty elections out of the way, Lincoln is president,
and there's this blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right,
(12:31):
and this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
states are ramping up towards secession. There's an Idaho bill
for the Pike's Peak mins that was printed by the
House on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty. And at this where
it gets a little complicated, this Williams guy pushes lobbies
(12:53):
Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
sitting on for months and to change the name of
that territory from Colorado to Idaho. And then when this happened,
when this came up and this new name was proposed
in the Senate, a senator from Oregon objected. And then
another guy says, James Green, a Senator James Green says,
(13:15):
Idaho is a very good name in the Indian language.
You know, it means gem of the mountains. And this
guy from Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I do not believe it is an Indian word. It
is a corruption. No Indian tribe in this nation has
that word. In my opinion, it is a corruption, certainly
a counterfeit, and ought not to be adopted.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And let's remember too that the States. I don't hopefully,
hopefully I'm not like overly simplifying. This is something I
have a tendency to do sometimes, but the states would
begin their lives as territories when enough miners would come
in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
(13:59):
and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
the population would boom enough to justify calling it a state,
or they would be a whole. Other series of discussions
would form around, Okay, now it's going to transfer from
being a colony, a territory to actually being a proper
state and having a name.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah, and we know we know that, especially in
this period of history, or at least more so than
in the modern day. Groups of people we get together
and pitch ideas for states, like in our previous episode
about US states that never actually happened. There are so
many conversations throughout the US historical record about people trying
(14:40):
to make the name of a state or create their
own state when someone else is claiming the same land.
The thing that happens, though, is that the Senate at
first they approve this change. They say, Okay, we'll change
it from Colorado to Idaho because Williams really wants.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It that way.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But Williams gets suspens. You know, it's like this Senator
Lane is from Oregon, right, he's on the west coast.
He is probably fairly well acquainted with the languages of
indigenous people at the time, and he seems very certain
this is not a real word. So he looks into
the matter, and that's when he finds out that Idaho
(15:20):
is not a word. It's not an existing word in
an existing language.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But Williams was largely ignored in the first place too,
because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which is not
a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
just say, hey, get this guy out of here, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
So they may have been just making fun of him
right in the beginning. So this is when he learns
that George M. Willing or one of his supporters, had
just invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another
senator Eastern Center, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
(16:02):
and he says, will you please change the name back
to Colorado. And on February fourth, eighteen sixty one, the
Senate says Okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
the House did anything about its Idaho bill, the Colorado
bill passed in the Senate, and then the Representatives passed
the Colorado bill, and so the House bill never was
acted on, and the name Idaho received no further consideration
(16:24):
for Colorado, which became a territory on February twenty eighth,
eighteen sixty one. But the thing was sort of in
a Pandora's box kind of situation. People like the word.
People in what will become Idaho or in that territory
are digging it. It's already a popular phrase in the
(16:46):
Rockies and in the Pacific Northwest, and it's kind of like,
I don't know if you ever heard this. Are you
familiar with the ice cream franchise Hogandaws? Course, so Hogandaws
is a made up word? No, yeah, really, yes. They
just wanted something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it
would be a little more classing. Idaho is kind of
(17:06):
like this. People are swearing to one another up and
down that it is a word from a language of
native people who have lived in this area of the world.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So, like you said, Ben, to that point, this word
Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
It was in the zeitgeys, and people thought it sounded nice,
you know, because of the mouthfeel and it's just Indian
sounding ness. So in December of eighteen sixty one, there
was a territorial legislature of Washington and it created Idaho County.
(17:37):
And that, you know, as we mentioned the geography of Idaho,
it borders Washington State, so it originally was part of
Washington State, but then it became its own state. And
there's another player in kind of keeping this Idaho word alive,
a guy by the name of Joaquin Miller who wrote
the Poet of the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho
(17:58):
and he claimed that it meant the light or diadem
on the line of the mountain, which is a little
bit more of a high falutin way of saying, what
was the original one ben the gem of the mountain.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And keep in mind, these are mining concerns that putting
out this.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That's true. So I think at this point the original
kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, but the word,
the name kind of lived on, right.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, And at this point we do want to profile
a little bit. There's some background, some context the Willings
character that come into play here. Willings was involved in
a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
something called the Arizona Peralta lands grant fraud, in which
(18:48):
he played a despicable part. He also was an associative forgers.
He was a guy similar to so many other con
art that we have talked about in past episodes. And
you'll hear different alternating theories that he met a young
girl named Ida and that inspired the name, or that
(19:10):
it actually is a corruption of an indigenous people's language,
the Kiowa Apach term idahi, which meant enemy. That doesn't
really measure up in my opinion that last one. I
could see a state being named after a person that's
happened before, but I can't see a state being named enemy.
(19:32):
You want something a little more positive, right, So now
we know this battle that happened ultimately was a battle
fought in the public sphere in terms of public opinion
and public use of the phrase. And that's why the
term Idaho was first used to refer to Idaho as
(19:54):
a state instead of Idaho Springs or some other area
in eighteen sixty three, Williams went on to do some
ore Shenani.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, he sure did. And let's not forget too that
at this point a lot of lawmakers that had maybe
had their breaches in bunches about this in the first place,
were a little more preoccupied with the Civil War than
quarreling about state names and made up Indian words.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Right right, And so that's kind of how it slid
in under the radar, because people were so worried about
this burgeoning war between the states that they didn't really
have time nor the inclination to worry about what they
saw as a relatively benign concept like the name idahome
(20:43):
and so Idaho just like a kind of a hogendas
stuck around, sounded close enough to the thing that it
was purporting to be that more and more people began
using it. And some of the same senators who remembered
that last naming incident when they figured out it was
a made up name, were the same senators who are like, Hey,
we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
(21:05):
just just let it ride. Maybe we can fix it later,
maybe we can kick the can down the road. And
kick the can they did, because it is twenty nineteen
and Idaho is the state's name. It's not going to
change anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Now, it's true, And this is not even the most
egregious example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard
of Montpellier, Illinois?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Oh, I have heard the name. What's the skinny on that?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, it turns out that the name, and as Casey
off Mics pointed out, it would be more properly pronounced Montpellier,
was something of a practical joke. Father Jacques Marquette in
sixteen seventy three encountered some members of the Peoria Indian
tribe and that was near the mouth of what would
(21:51):
today be called the Des Moines River, and he asked
them to give him the name of another tribe of
rivals that lived further down the river, and the Peoria
leadership told him that they were called the Moonguana, and
that became the roots for Moye. But Michael McCafferty of
(22:12):
Indiana University discovered that in the Miami, Illinois language, which
is now no longer it's a dead language, this actually
would have been translated to faces and apparently nobody in
Illinois government in the city of Des Moines has acknowledged
(22:35):
that this is the case, but the research stands interesting stuff.
So I guess having a made up name is maybe
a little less embarrassing than having a name that translates
to something so derogatory.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
That's a great point, and as I'm sure many of
us are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
most actually all words are made up. At some point
we all agree, or various factions of us throughout the
human species agreed that this word means this thing. You
know what I mean, Like hand means that thing at
(23:11):
the end of your arm, shoe means that thing that
goes over your foot. And Idaho is one of the
fifty states of the United States of America. There you go,
and that is our episode for today. How many states?
How many states have we done? Now?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I don't know. Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that
want to do the tally and shoot us an email
at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. That'd be cool.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
We love to hear from you, because otherwise I'll be
completely honest with you here, folks. Otherwise we'll get halfway
through an episode and then realize that we have in
fact already covered that state.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It's okay whatever it takes to get the show out
as long as it's a good story too, So thank
you in advance for sending us that note.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
in your neck of the Global Woods. We'd also, of
course like to think a super producer case see pegram
and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
We'd also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme, Gabe,
our research associate who hiped us to this topic. You
can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You can find our show on Instagram as well on
Twitter and Facebook. You can find your fellow listeners on
our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if you
want to hang out with me see some pictures of
weird adventures and my oversized cats. You can find me
(24:35):
at Ben Bullen on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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