IdaHistory

03/26/2025

Our new cocktail and history walking tours with the Avery Hotel and Tiner’s Alley officially begin on April 13th. Book the first tour now at www.idahistory.com

More tours coming soon!

03/25/2025

Go to www.awhileagoinidaho.com to get a copy from the Boise OG today! Also pick one up at your local Flying M Coffee Shop!

03/23/2025

Fishing is Idaho's favorite pastime... and present.

Credit: National Archives Catalog

03/12/2025

Photos of what Camel’s Back Park in downtown Boise used to look like.

Book a tour with www.idahistory.com

03/09/2025

“Jennie Eva Hughes, Class of 1899, was the first African-American to graduate from the University of Idaho. Jennie’s family had travelled west from Washington, D.C. to Idaho, where according to the Census of 1890, there were only 201 African-Americans in the entire state. Although there is no doubt the family encountered prejudice of some sort, it is known that the family was well regarded in Moscow. Although some western states restricted the enrolment of black students in public schools, Jennie had not been prohibited from attending Moscow’s public schools and she graduated from Moscow High School in 1895.

As a student at the University of Idaho, according to historian Keith Petersen in This Crested Hill: An Illustrated History of the University of Idaho, Jennie “accumulated an admirable academic record.” She won the prestigious Watkins Medal for Oratory in 1898, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, one of seven students in the Class of 1899. In a speech to her classmates at the time of their graduation, Jennie urged them to “occupy positions of usefulness.” After college, Jennie met and married George Augustus Smith and the two relocated to Wardner, Idaho where George worked as a miner.

Despite the success George enjoyed in the Silver Valley, Jennie and George and their four children moved to Spokane, Washington in 1912 in part because Jennie did not consider the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the mining towns “a suitable place to raise children.” Jennie’s son Berthol was the second African-American student to enroll in the University of Idaho, but sadly died in 1919 while still a student. Another son, Leonard, earned a law degree and practiced as an attorney in Spokane while her youngest son graduated from Washington State University in 1935 with a degree in Electrical Engineering.”

Credit: University of Idaho Library

03/09/2025

“Dr. Minnie Howard, one very few women physicians practicing in the American West in the early 20th century, became known as one of Idaho’s most energetic and influential women.

Dr. Howard studied medicine with her husband, William Forrest Howard, at the Kansas City Medical College (later merged with the University of Kansas) and graduated in 1899 after earning straight A’s. The couple first set up a medical practice in Kansas, but moved to Pocatello, Idaho in 1902 and established the Pocatello General Hospital in 1907. Dr. Minnie, as she was known to her family, friends, and patients, left the practice officially when the couple’s third son was born in 1908. All four sons followed their parents into medicine.

Dr. Howard secured a grant from Andrew Carnegie to help found the Pocatello Carnegie Library in 1908. She was also the first co-chair of the American Red Cross of Bannock and Caribou counties, a member of the American Medical Association, the Department of Indian Welfare, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. From 1931 to 1956, Dr. Minnie Howard was appointed Bannock County Historian by the Idaho State Historical Society. Minnie was particularly interested in American Indian health care and was a friend of Shoshone Chief Pocatello’s daughter. She would often visit the reservation to provide medical care and help distribute food. Concerned about alcohol use on the reservation, Dr. Minnie was active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Additionally, Dr. Howard was fascinated with Old Fort Hall, an important point on the Oregon Trail that had been lost to history. With the help of two friends, she located and marked the site she believed to be Old Fort Hall and her claims were vindicated in 1933. In 1983, Howard Mountain near Pocatello was named in her and her husband’s honor.”

Credit: University of Idaho Library & Idaho State Digital Archives

02/22/2025

Idaho has over 2,000 lakes, 1,228 of which have been named, and 93,000 miles of rivers and streams. (Idaho Department of Water Resources)

Photos: National Archives Catalog

02/13/2025

Photos of people camping in Idaho from 1940 to 1964. Makes me miss the warm weather already… (Credit: National Archives Catalog)

02/12/2025

“There are several versions of the story behind a series of promotional photos taken of Marilyn Monroe wearing a potato sack dress.

The best one involves a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel in which Monroe, then 24, allegedly showed up in a revealing red dress that a columnist declared ‘cheap and vulgar,’ adding she would have been better served wearing ‘a potato sack.’ The Twentieth Century Fox PR department then capitalized on the moment by putting her in one.

The less colourful version of the story is that the studio was simply hoping to drum up some publicity by suggesting their starlet was so beautiful, she could even make a potato sack look good — which she indubitably does.

As for who tailored it to hug her famous curves, chances are good it was William Travilla … One of the sack-dress photos ran in Stare, a cheesecake magazine, in 1952 — a year before Pl***oy launched with Monroe on the cover. ‘MMMarilyn MMMonroe doesn’t care too much for potatoes because it tends to put on weight,’ the Stare caption read. ‘But she decided to do something for the potatoes!’” - Credit: The Hollywood Reporter

“While Marilyn’s response was certainly eye-catching, the potato sack wasn’t a new idea as she had already made a similar pose for another studio photographer, Earl Thiesen, in 1951. Today, her risqué style is celebrated – and her provocative stance takes pride of place at the Idaho Potato Museum.” (Last photo) - Credit: The Marilyn Report

02/06/2025

Digging through the archives for material and to work on our new tours. Stumbled upon these old photos of prostitutes at the Starling Rooming House (just west of the Egyptian Theater) in 1915 and more proof that Mulligans (formerly the Clyde Rooming House) was a brothel.

01/30/2025

Table Rock - 1900

01/28/2025

On September 10, 1996, Rage Against the Machine performed at the Old Idaho State Penitentiary in what they called “Rage in the Cage.”

Credit: Old Idaho Penitentiary and the Idaho State Historical Society

01/23/2025

Listen to this weeks episode of the Highway to History podcast. https://www.idahistory.com/theidashistorypodcast

After the Civil War concluded in 1865, and the failure of Reconstruction in the South, the white citizens of the southern states unleashed a system of race based terrorism on black Americans so severe it caused The Great Migration northward, wherein black southerners emigrated in mass to northern cities and towns to start new lives. In the North, tragically, they’d face the same type of systematic violence they did in the South on a smaller scale, but no less savage. The terror was called lynching and it was perpetrated by various brutal means, not just hanging. The legacy of lynching can still be felt today throughout America, though many choose to look away rather than confront Lynching’s impact on the United States.

First photo I forgot to add in our recent video on MLK Jr Day.

Second photo is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at 69 Fifth Avenue, New York City, in 1938

01/12/2025

Our Instagram got taken down a couple months ago after being hacked. Go follow our new Insta for more Idahistory content! Thank you for the support!

190 Followers, 88 Following, 26 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from IdaHistory (.history)

01/10/2025

A good night for a good cause! 3 days left!
https://rafflecreator.com/pages/89988/help-our-friend-megan-beat-cancer

01/04/2025

Just 9 days left to enter a raffle for a Boise True Crime Tour along with 8 friends. $10 for a good cause and for a fun night out!!!

Help our friend Megan Beat Cancer! is raising funds online with Raffle Creator!

12/23/2024

If you need a last minute xmas gift, book a Boise true crime tour for/with someone you love at www.idahistory.com

12/20/2024

"The Niagara of the West" Shoshone Falls. Photos taken in 1874 by Timothy O'Sullivan.

Credit: National Archives Catalog