January 10, 2019 • 22 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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yea, welcome to the show Ridiculous. Historians longtime listeners amongst
us may remember that some time ago my co hosts
(00:33):
are 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, are attempting to We're not gonna suff you
on Stevens this right, No, you say that every time, then, right.
(00:54):
I know, I just wanted to make the other what
forty eight albums? Yeah, well, you know, I don't think
you ever intended to do any of that. And plus,
you know, to be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast
on a state is a lot different than doing like a,
you know, an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
You're right, Nolan, Perhaps it depends on how much work
goes into an album, as his records are quite baroque. Yes,
(01:16):
he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode is
a little bit of a weird woe. 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. To feel what's in a name turns out
quite a lot and a lot of disagreement and a
(01:37):
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. And I guess one of the
best ways for us to start off today's episode is
just by acknowledging, uh, something that is an unspoken truth
(02:00):
here in the US. State names are weird. They feel
relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a ton 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
is the new one, right, clearly the better York. It's
(02:23):
clearly it's definitely the latest model. There's no New New York.
But then there are states like Mississippi. There states like Hawaii.
There's states like uh, 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.
Seems like there's no just Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina.
(02:45):
Carolina I believe was named after a monarch. Yeah, and
then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's no East Virginia.
That's weird. They could it's it's a weird thing. 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
(03:07):
that no one really likes that much, but people kind
of settle on. Oh yeah, like in the nineteen ninety
six Olympics here in Atlanta, Georgia, talking with a creepy mascott. Yeah,
what was that guy's name? What's it is? He is? He?
Thank you? So? Yeah, he sort of looks like a
weird little like it's like a blue drop. He's a
(03:27):
blue like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with
like Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes. So
the Olympic rings. I'm sorry, excuse 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. Yeah, it was just it
was guided by committee, probably some overpriced market. So someone's like,
(03:52):
he's got to have his shoes, he's got to have
the rings somewhere, and he's gotta be a weird little
water droplet alien guy because people wear shoes, they get thirsty,
and we're at the Olympics and they love aliens. The
love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I forgot
that completely turns out a short for Israel. Is it
(04:12):
is he it? But that is our our wonderful I
T guy parent house stuff works goes by Izzy, which
is short for Israel. Yes, that is true. I I
call the name I use with is depends upon the
severity or immediacy of the request. So it's it's is
if we're just hanging out. It's easy if we're hanging
(04:34):
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 in this weird
motley crew of various fifty various names that came about
for various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But
(04:57):
unlike many other states, it's di fickle 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 the name, the name of the state in
which you might be listening to this episode right now. So,
(05:20):
nor have you ever been to Idaho? No? I haven't been.
And you know what, um this is. I'm gonna 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 couldn't be less related. Um. I
am not good at geography, though, my friends, I am
here to tell you that right now. So Ben, give
(05:41):
us the scoop on the geography of Idaho. Sure. So,
Idaho is bordered on the 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 run straight into Canada.
(06:01):
I've heard of that. Yes, yes, uh, Casey Casey Pegram, superproducer,
Casey Pegram. Have you ever been to Idaho? No? My
only I was just thinking about this. My only like
association with Idaho in general, is an early built to
spill song called Twin Falls Idaho. I mean there's also
my own private Idaho. Well, but I think it was
(06:22):
actually at first like you're living in your own private
Idaho and the Yeah, the building spells like Christmas twin Falls.
I'd uh ho, it's a pretty sad song. Actually, Casey
on the case Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
I am a built to spill fan myself. Yeah, I
(06:43):
have not, as of yet travel to Idaho that I
can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
I'm seventy sure. I haven't been there. But the past
is a watercolor in the rain, you know, things blur,
which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
Even though it seems like it would fit in you know,
(07:05):
it sounds similar to many other states, right. It turns
out that we have relatively little idea of where the
name Idaho came from. We have some theories. We have
some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory revolves around
a cookie mining lobbyist by the name of George M.
(07:28):
Willing Um. 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 the mountains,
and this was actually surrounding the naming of what is
now Colorado. Um, so this is a whole saga that
(07:49):
kind of gets this this this name gets sort of
kicked around a little bit done. Now, yeah, let's talk
a little bit about the background of George Maurice Willing Jr.
Known as Doc to his friends. He was and sometime
around eighteen twenty nine to a very well off family
in Philadelphia. He was educated as a physician, but he
(08:11):
got in trouble. He got disgraced because he was discovered
performing performing abortions. That is true, 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
(08:32):
to St. 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, a
polished gentleman. He became a candidate for the Jefferson Territory
delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine. He lost the election,
(08:55):
but he's still despite losing the election, check this out.
He just goes to dec he anyway and becomes a lobbyist,
and then while he's working as a delegate, least according
to the story, he's the one associated most strongly with
the name Idaho. And this would have been in the
earliest days of lobbying, wouldn't it have been. I imagine
it was nothing like it is today. You know, it
(09:17):
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, Noel,
it was represented as being a term meaning gem of
(09:38):
the mountains, which some people loved. 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 mouth feel
to it, right, Ben. Yeah, And let's also consider the
Willing Again. We can't over emphasize. This isn't really supposed
(09:59):
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 Williams who has
um interactions with both political groups in these different mining camps,
(10:23):
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 as president, and there's this
blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right and
this this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
(10:44):
states are ramping up towards secession, there's an Idaho bill
for the Pike's Peak minds that was printed by the
House on December six. And at this is where it
gets a little complicated. This Williams guy uh pushes lobbies
Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
(11:06):
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. Senator James Green says, Idaho
is a very good name in the Indian language. You know,
(11:27):
it means gem of the mountains. And this guy from
Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no quote.
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. And let's
remember too that the states. I don't hopefully hopefully I'm
(11:50):
not like overly simplifying. This is something I have a
tendency to do sometimes. But um, the states would begin
their lives as territories when a enough miners would come
in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
(12:10):
the population would boom enough to justify, uh, calling it
a state or they would be a whole. Another 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. Yeah yeah, And
we know we know that, especially in this period of history,
(12:32):
or at least more so than in the modern day,
groups of people would get together and pitch ideas for states,
like in our previous episode about U S states that
never actually happened. There are so many conversations throughout the
U S historical record about people trying 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,
(12:56):
is that the Senate at first they approved this change.
They okay, we'll change it from Colorado to Idaho, because
Williams really wants it that way. But Williams gets suspicious.
You know, it's like this Senator Lane is from Oregon, right,
he's on the West coast. He is probably fairly well
(13:16):
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 is not a word. It's not
a it's not an existing word in an existing language.
But Williams um was largely ignored in the first place too,
(13:37):
because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which was not
a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
just say, I get this guy out of here. 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
(14:00):
invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another senator,
an Eastern Senator, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
and he says, will you please change the name back
to Colorado, And on February four, eight sixty one, the
Senate says, okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
(14:20):
the House did anything about it's 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
for Colorado, which became a territory on February sixty one.
But the thing was sort of in a Pandora's box
(14:42):
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 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 Hoggindahs. So hoggin Das is a
(15:05):
made up word. No, yeah, really, yes, They just wanted
something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it would be
a little more classy. In Idaho is kind of 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. So,
like you said, ben Um, to that point, this word
(15:27):
Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
It was in the zeit guys, and people thought it
sounded nice, you know, because of the mouth field and
it's just Indian sounding nests. So in December of eighteen
sixty one, there was a territorial legislature of Washington and
it created Idaho County UM. And that you know, as
we mentioned the geography of Idaho, it borders Washington State, UM.
(15:50):
So it originally was part of Washington State, but then
it became its own state. And there's another player and
kind of keeping this Idaho word alive. A guy by
the name of Joaquim Miller who wrote the Poet of
the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho, and he claimed
that it meant the light or diadem on the line
(16:11):
of the mountain, which is a little bit more of
a high salutant way of saying what was the original
one been the gym of the mountain. And keep in
mind these are mining concerns putting out that that's that's
that's true. So I think at this point the original
kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, and but the
word the name kind of lived on, right. Yeah, And
(16:35):
at this point we do want to profile a little
bit there. There's some background, some context the Willings character
that come into play here. Uh. Willings was involved in
a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
something called the Arizona Peralta land grant fraud, in which
(16:56):
he played a despicable part. He also was an associate
of forgers. He was a guy similar to so many
other con artists 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
(17:18):
that it actually is a corruption of indigenous people's language,
the Kiowa apache term i dahi, 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
(17:39):
named enemy. 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
(18:02):
Idaho as a state instead of Idaho Springs or some
other area. In eighteen sixty three. Williams went on to
do some more Shenannigo. Yeah, he sure did. And let's
not forget too that at this point, um a lot
of lawmakers that it maybe had their breaches and bunches
about this in the first place, where a little more
preoccupied with the Civil War than than quarreling about state
(18:28):
names and made up Indian words, 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 Idaho, and so Idaho just
(18:53):
like kind of a hog and dahs 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 that it was a made
up name, were the same senators who were like, Hey,
we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
(19:13):
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 and Idaho
is the state's name. It's not going to change anytime soon. No,
it's true. And this is not even the most egregious
example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard of Montpelier, Illinois?
(19:35):
Who I have heard the name? What's the what's the
skinny on that? Yeah, it turns out that the name,
and as Casey um Off Mike has pointed out, it
would be more properly pronounced Montpellier um was something of
a practical joke. Um Father Jacques Marquette in sixteen seventy
three um encountered some members of the Peoria Indian tribe,
(19:57):
and that was near the mouth of what would today
be called the Des Moines River UM, 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 Monguana, and
that became the roots for Moyne. But Michael McCafferty of
(20:21):
Indiana University UM discovered that in the Miami Illinois language,
which is now no longer it's a dead language, UM,
this actually would have been translated to faces and apparently
UM nobody in Illinois government in the city of Des
(20:41):
Moines has acknowledged that this is the case, but the
research stands. UM. 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. That's
a great point, and as I'm sure many of us
are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
(21:04):
most actually all words are made up. At some point
we all agreed, to 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
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,
(21:28):
and that is our episode for today. How many states?
How many states have we done? Now? I don't know.
Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that want to do
the tally and shoot us an email at ridiculous at
how stuff works dot com. That'd be cool. We love
to hear from you because otherwise, now 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
(21:49):
already covered that state. 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.
We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
in your neck of the global Woods. We'd also, of
course like to thank uh super producer Casey pegram uh
(22:09):
and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it. We'd
also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Gabe,
our research associate who kept us to this topic. Um,
you can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
You can find our show on Instagram as well on
Twitter and Facebook. Uh you can find your fellow listeners
(22:30):
on our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if
you if you want to hang out with me see
some pictures of weird adventures and uh my oversized cats,
you can find me at Ben Bullen on Instagram. We'll
see you next time, Fox
Yea, welcome to the show Ridiculous. Historians longtime listeners amongst
us may remember that some time ago my co hosts
(00:33):
are 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, are attempting to We're not gonna suff you
on Stevens this right, No, you say that every time, then, right.
(00:54):
I know, I just wanted to make the other what
forty eight albums? Yeah, well, you know, I don't think
you ever intended to do any of that. And plus,
you know, to be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast
on a state is a lot different than doing like a,
you know, an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
You're right, Nolan, Perhaps it depends on how much work
goes into an album, as his records are quite baroque. Yes,
(01:16):
he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode is
a little bit of a weird woe. 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. To feel what's in a name turns out
quite a lot and a lot of disagreement and a
(01:37):
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. And I guess one of the
best ways for us to start off today's episode is
just by acknowledging, uh, something that is an unspoken truth
(02:00):
here in the US. State names are weird. They feel
relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a ton 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
is the new one, right, clearly the better York. It's
(02:23):
clearly it's definitely the latest model. There's no New New York.
But then there are states like Mississippi. There states like Hawaii.
There's states like uh, 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.
Seems like there's no just Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina.
(02:45):
Carolina I believe was named after a monarch. Yeah, and
then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's no East Virginia.
That's weird. They could it's it's a weird thing. 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
(03:07):
that no one really likes that much, but people kind
of settle on. Oh yeah, like in the nineteen ninety
six Olympics here in Atlanta, Georgia, talking with a creepy mascott. Yeah,
what was that guy's name? What's it is? He is? He?
Thank you? So? Yeah, he sort of looks like a
weird little like it's like a blue drop. He's a
(03:27):
blue like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with
like Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes. So
the Olympic rings. I'm sorry, excuse 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. Yeah, it was just it
was guided by committee, probably some overpriced market. So someone's like,
(03:52):
he's got to have his shoes, he's got to have
the rings somewhere, and he's gotta be a weird little
water droplet alien guy because people wear shoes, they get thirsty,
and we're at the Olympics and they love aliens. The
love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I forgot
that completely turns out a short for Israel. Is it
(04:12):
is he it? But that is our our wonderful I
T guy parent house stuff works goes by Izzy, which
is short for Israel. Yes, that is true. I I
call the name I use with is depends upon the
severity or immediacy of the request. So it's it's is
if we're just hanging out. It's easy if we're hanging
(04:34):
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 in this weird
motley crew of various fifty various names that came about
for various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But
(04:57):
unlike many other states, it's di fickle 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 the name, the name of the state in
which you might be listening to this episode right now. So,
(05:20):
nor have you ever been to Idaho? No? I haven't been.
And you know what, um this is. I'm gonna 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 couldn't be less related. Um. I
am not good at geography, though, my friends, I am
here to tell you that right now. So Ben, give
(05:41):
us the scoop on the geography of Idaho. Sure. So,
Idaho is bordered on the 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 run straight into Canada.
(06:01):
I've heard of that. Yes, yes, uh, Casey Casey Pegram, superproducer,
Casey Pegram. Have you ever been to Idaho? No? My
only I was just thinking about this. My only like
association with Idaho in general, is an early built to
spill song called Twin Falls Idaho. I mean there's also
my own private Idaho. Well, but I think it was
(06:22):
actually at first like you're living in your own private
Idaho and the Yeah, the building spells like Christmas twin Falls.
I'd uh ho, it's a pretty sad song. Actually, Casey
on the case Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
I am a built to spill fan myself. Yeah, I
(06:43):
have not, as of yet travel to Idaho that I
can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
I'm seventy sure. I haven't been there. But the past
is a watercolor in the rain, you know, things blur,
which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
Even though it seems like it would fit in you know,
(07:05):
it sounds similar to many other states, right. It turns
out that we have relatively little idea of where the
name Idaho came from. We have some theories. We have
some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory revolves around
a cookie mining lobbyist by the name of George M.
(07:28):
Willing Um. 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 the mountains,
and this was actually surrounding the naming of what is
now Colorado. Um, so this is a whole saga that
(07:49):
kind of gets this this this name gets sort of
kicked around a little bit done. Now, yeah, let's talk
a little bit about the background of George Maurice Willing Jr.
Known as Doc to his friends. He was and sometime
around eighteen twenty nine to a very well off family
in Philadelphia. He was educated as a physician, but he
(08:11):
got in trouble. He got disgraced because he was discovered
performing performing abortions. That is true, 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
(08:32):
to St. 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, a
polished gentleman. He became a candidate for the Jefferson Territory
delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine. He lost the election,
(08:55):
but he's still despite losing the election, check this out.
He just goes to dec he anyway and becomes a lobbyist,
and then while he's working as a delegate, least according
to the story, he's the one associated most strongly with
the name Idaho. And this would have been in the
earliest days of lobbying, wouldn't it have been. I imagine
it was nothing like it is today. You know, it
(09:17):
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, Noel,
it was represented as being a term meaning gem of
(09:38):
the mountains, which some people loved. 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 mouth feel
to it, right, Ben. Yeah, And let's also consider the
Willing Again. We can't over emphasize. This isn't really supposed
(09:59):
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 Williams who has
um interactions with both political groups in these different mining camps,
(10:23):
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 as president, and there's this
blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right and
this this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
(10:44):
states are ramping up towards secession, there's an Idaho bill
for the Pike's Peak minds that was printed by the
House on December six. And at this is where it
gets a little complicated. This Williams guy uh pushes lobbies
Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
(11:06):
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. Senator James Green says, Idaho
is a very good name in the Indian language. You know,
(11:27):
it means gem of the mountains. And this guy from
Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no quote.
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. And let's
remember too that the states. I don't hopefully hopefully I'm
(11:50):
not like overly simplifying. This is something I have a
tendency to do sometimes. But um, the states would begin
their lives as territories when a enough miners would come
in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
(12:10):
the population would boom enough to justify, uh, calling it
a state or they would be a whole. Another 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. Yeah yeah, And
we know we know that, especially in this period of history,
(12:32):
or at least more so than in the modern day,
groups of people would get together and pitch ideas for states,
like in our previous episode about U S states that
never actually happened. There are so many conversations throughout the
U S historical record about people trying 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,
(12:56):
is that the Senate at first they approved this change.
They okay, we'll change it from Colorado to Idaho, because
Williams really wants it that way. But Williams gets suspicious.
You know, it's like this Senator Lane is from Oregon, right,
he's on the West coast. He is probably fairly well
(13:16):
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 is not a word. It's not
a it's not an existing word in an existing language.
But Williams um was largely ignored in the first place too,
(13:37):
because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which was not
a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
just say, I get this guy out of here. 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
(14:00):
invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another senator,
an Eastern Senator, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
and he says, will you please change the name back
to Colorado, And on February four, eight sixty one, the
Senate says, okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
(14:20):
the House did anything about it's 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
for Colorado, which became a territory on February sixty one.
But the thing was sort of in a Pandora's box
(14:42):
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 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 Hoggindahs. So hoggin Das is a
(15:05):
made up word. No, yeah, really, yes, They just wanted
something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it would be
a little more classy. In Idaho is kind of 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. So,
like you said, ben Um, to that point, this word
(15:27):
Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
It was in the zeit guys, and people thought it
sounded nice, you know, because of the mouth field and
it's just Indian sounding nests. So in December of eighteen
sixty one, there was a territorial legislature of Washington and
it created Idaho County UM. And that you know, as
we mentioned the geography of Idaho, it borders Washington State, UM.
(15:50):
So it originally was part of Washington State, but then
it became its own state. And there's another player and
kind of keeping this Idaho word alive. A guy by
the name of Joaquim Miller who wrote the Poet of
the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho, and he claimed
that it meant the light or diadem on the line
(16:11):
of the mountain, which is a little bit more of
a high salutant way of saying what was the original
one been the gym of the mountain. And keep in
mind these are mining concerns putting out that that's that's
that's true. So I think at this point the original
kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, and but the
word the name kind of lived on, right. Yeah, And
(16:35):
at this point we do want to profile a little
bit there. There's some background, some context the Willings character
that come into play here. Uh. Willings was involved in
a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
something called the Arizona Peralta land grant fraud, in which
(16:56):
he played a despicable part. He also was an associate
of forgers. He was a guy similar to so many
other con artists 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
(17:18):
that it actually is a corruption of indigenous people's language,
the Kiowa apache term i dahi, 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
(17:39):
named enemy. 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
(18:02):
Idaho as a state instead of Idaho Springs or some
other area. In eighteen sixty three. Williams went on to
do some more Shenannigo. Yeah, he sure did. And let's
not forget too that at this point, um a lot
of lawmakers that it maybe had their breaches and bunches
about this in the first place, where a little more
preoccupied with the Civil War than than quarreling about state
(18:28):
names and made up Indian words, 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 Idaho, and so Idaho just
(18:53):
like kind of a hog and dahs 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 that it was a made
up name, were the same senators who were like, Hey,
we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
(19:13):
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 and Idaho
is the state's name. It's not going to change anytime soon. No,
it's true. And this is not even the most egregious
example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard of Montpelier, Illinois?
(19:35):
Who I have heard the name? What's the what's the
skinny on that? Yeah, it turns out that the name,
and as Casey um Off Mike has pointed out, it
would be more properly pronounced Montpellier um was something of
a practical joke. Um Father Jacques Marquette in sixteen seventy
three um encountered some members of the Peoria Indian tribe,
(19:57):
and that was near the mouth of what would today
be called the Des Moines River UM, 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 Monguana, and
that became the roots for Moyne. But Michael McCafferty of
(20:21):
Indiana University UM discovered that in the Miami Illinois language,
which is now no longer it's a dead language, UM,
this actually would have been translated to faces and apparently
UM nobody in Illinois government in the city of Des
(20:41):
Moines has acknowledged that this is the case, but the
research stands. UM. 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. That's
a great point, and as I'm sure many of us
are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
(21:04):
most actually all words are made up. At some point
we all agreed, to 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
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,
(21:28):
and that is our episode for today. How many states?
How many states have we done? Now? I don't know.
Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that want to do
the tally and shoot us an email at ridiculous at
how stuff works dot com. That'd be cool. We love
to hear from you because otherwise, now 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
(21:49):
already covered that state. 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.
We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
in your neck of the global Woods. We'd also, of
course like to thank uh super producer Casey pegram uh
(22:09):
and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it. We'd
also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Gabe,
our research associate who kept us to this topic. Um,
you can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
You can find our show on Instagram as well on
Twitter and Facebook. Uh you can find your fellow listeners
(22:30):
on our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if
you if you want to hang out with me see
some pictures of weird adventures and uh my oversized cats,
you can find me at Ben Bullen on Instagram. We'll
see you next time, Fox
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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