Little Known Facts

• Between 1863 (when Abraham Lincoln signed the bill making Idaho a territory) and statehood (27 years later), the Idaho Territory had 16 governors, four who never set foot in Idaho.
• Appropriately named the "Gem State," Idaho produces 72 types of precious and semiprecious stones, some of which can be found nowhere else in the world.
• Butch Cassidy robbed the bank in Montpelier, Idaho, on August 13, 1896. He got away with $7,165, allegedly to hire a lawyer for his partner Matt Warner, who was awaiting trail for murder in Ogden, Utah.
• One of the largest diamonds ever found in the United States, nearly 20 carats, was discovered near McCall, Idaho.
• The engineering prototype of the first nuclear submarine, Nautilus, was built and tested in the Idaho desert on the Snake River Plain near Arco.
• The world's first alpine skiing chairlift is located in Sun Valley. Built by Union Pacific Railroad engineers, it was designed after a banana-boat loading device. The 1936 "fee" was 25 cents per ride.
• Craters of the Moon National Monument was used as a training ground for early astronauts.
• The Bear Lake Monster, witnessed by several different people, was first sighted around 1900 in Bear Lake on the Idaho/Utah border. The serpent-like monsters were up to 90 feet in length and could move faster than horses. To this day there are still those who refuse to night fish on the lake.
• The Scott Ski Pole, an invention which helped revolutionize skiing, was invented by Ketchum's Edward Scott.
• Shoshone Falls (212 feet), near Twin Falls, drops 52 feet further than Niagara Falls.
• The Pulaski, a mattock-axe tool used in fire fighting, was invented in Idaho.
• When Bernard DeVoto, author of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning history Across the Wide Missouri, died in 1955, the U.S. Forest Service saw to DeVoto's wish that his ashes be scattered over Idaho's Bitterroot Wilderness.
• Highway 12 follows the old Lewis and Clark Trail along the Lochsa (pronounced lock-saw) and Clearwater Rivers until they merge with the Snake and continue their journey to the Pacific Ocean.
• The most recent, largest and deepest volcanic rift in the U.S. is located in South Central Idaho.
• Athol is home to Silverwood, the Pacific Northwest's largest theme park.
• The world's longest single state gondola is located in Kellogg.
• An original sacred gathering place for the Bannock and Shoshone Indians was Lava Hot Springs.