Northern Idaho

I have been in the northern part of Idaho on one occasion. The state is only 40 miles wide at the top, where it squeezes between Montana and Washington. I have heard this area referred to as "The Chimney" on the Weather Channel a bunch of times. Usually is it called the "Panhandle" by most people. I guess a skinny part of any state is called a "panhandle."
  As I mentioned is the last installment of this blog, the northern part of Idaho has very little in common with the southern part of the state. This area was once a part of Washington, which was still a territory at the time the current border was delineated. When the border was drawn, the northern part of Idaho mostly consisted of rowdy mining towns that were established by a series of gold rushes in the early 1860s. The territorial legislature in Washington wanted nothing to do with the rowdy miners and, thus, drew the border to exclude the mining towns.
  Idaho was established as a territory on July 4, 1863, by Abraham Lincoln. William Wallace was appointed by Lincoln to be the first governor. In territories, governors were appointed by the President and the appointee was usually someone the President owed a political favor to and the governor was rarely, if ever, a resident of the territory that he would reside over. Wallace chose Lewiston as the capital of Idaho Territory simply because it was the closest Idaho town to his hometown in Washington. It was a booming town, however, due to the gold rush that was ongoing at the time.  In the summer of 1863, Lewiston had grown to approximately 10,000 people and it was bigger than Seattle and Portland combined. Lewiston is located on the border with Washington, with the Snake River serving as the border until it makes a 90 degree curve into Washington. Beginning at that point, the border between Idaho and Washington is a land border for the remainder of the distance to the 49th parallel, which is the border with Canada.
  Even though Lewiston is barely in Idaho, it was a good choice for the territorial capital at the time because it was a major transportation corridor in the 1860s. It is located at the confluence of the Snake River and the Clearwater River and this made access by boat easy in the days before roads. Also, even though Lewiston is 465 miles from the Pacific Ocean, it was a seaport! The Snake River and its "parent" stream, the Columbia River, are both extremely wide and deep rivers and large ships were able to make it as far as Lewiston.    
  Lewiston is still a seaport today, the only seaport Idaho has. Only now, riverboats have to negotiate a series of locks to get around all the dams between Lewiston and the Pacific Ocean.
  So, even though Lewiston was chosen as the capital of Idaho Territory simply because it was the closest town in the territory to the first governor's hometown in Washington, it was a major transportation corridor, it was the supply point for all the northern Idaho gold mines and it was a booming town, so it was a logical choice to serve as the capital of the new territory. 
  Lewiston would only serve as the capital of Idaho for one year and seven months. I will get into more details about that in the next one or two editions of this blog. There are some very interesting details about that are still unresolved to this day.