I've lived in Idaho my whole live, and I love learning new tidbits of info on our history, but even with my thirst for Idaho history trivia, I didn't know how much of a big part Idaho has played in some of some big history making decisions.

Idaho as we all know is located on a direct path from the East coast to the Pacific Ocean. In addition it’s been a territory of Native American tribes throughout history.  What does that all mean? It means that the state of Idaho is a highlight of history that many people don’t know about.  I’ve lived here my entire life and didn’t know about a few of these.

 

For instance, the Idaho border is where 7 different states got their State lines

Idaho officially became a U.S. territory under Abraham Lincoln in 1863. After this designation, in addition to Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming, all were separated into their respective states with borders created predominantly by existing landmarks. Originally all the states, which were territories at the time formed four immense rectangles of land. Idaho was larger in mass than Montana is now and even included most of the northwest part of Montana. But the new states granted a say in which parts of land they wanted to keep and that’s why we have the shapes of those states today.

Most people know that Lewiston was Idaho's original capital in 1863. But a few years later, when the gold started dwindling in the north, it was taking off in the Boise Valley, and people were moving  there by the thousands.

With very little leadership at the time, Secretary of State Charles Smith, named himself governor,  stole the territorial seal and official papers and got on his horse and rode them to Boise…the rest is history.  Some north Idahoans to this day, still claim that they were robbed of the state capital

Here’s another one I don’t remember from my high school government history..Did you know Idaho was one of the first states to allow women to vote?  Yep, officially the forth state in the country to allow women the right to vote, beginning in 1896. How were we once so progressive back in 1896 and now in 2016 we seem like one of the least progressive states?

 

Thanks to onlyinyourstate.com, here are 10 surprising locations where Idaho history was made,

Now of course with all that important history making, don't get a big head Idahoans, here are the 10 most redneck cities explained

 

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