University of Idaho - Gem of the Mountains Yearbook (Moscow, ID)

Page 24 text:

The history of white men’s activities in our State of Idaho began on August 12, 1805. This day brought a party of thirty-three doughty frontiersmen, led by the sandy-haired Lewis, and Sacajawea, the bird-woman, to the land of the Gem State, “E-dah-hoe,” the Light on the Mountains. One hundred twenty-three years ago across the Rocky Mountain divide into Lemhi Pass, there came an expedition known as the Lewis and Clark exploring party sent out by Thomas Jefferson. This heterogeneous band consisted yf Sie Ae Meriwether Lewis, the private secretary of 7 effer- son; Lewis’ friend, Captain William Clark; Sacajawea, the Shoshoni; Chaboneau, the bird-woman’s husband; Baptiste, the papoose; an ebony-skinned servant, York, the wonder of the aborigines; three i reters; fourteen United States soldiers ? Kentucky frontiersme % of depar- twre from St. Louis, Missouri, they had fought the elements, savages, grizzly bears, rattlers, accidents and disappoint- ment. They had canoed and trekked nearly one and one-half thousand miles by this August day. What a feeling of o'erwhelming emotion the two leaders must have felt as they viewed the westward flowing streams and heard the rills gurgling back, retracing their steps. Before them lay the reat Pacific Northwest, virgin land of pine, nugget and fake gold, fur-bearing animals and terrestrial harvests. It was their achievement—the conquering of the Divide, the journey down the Salmon, the Clark Fork, thru the Lo Lo Trail to Weippe Prairie and “Canoe Camp on down the Clearwater—passed Lewiston—the Snake, the Columbia and on October 16th to the Pacific Ocean. Thus claim was given to the area of three future states: Idaho, Washington and Ore- gon. The Journals of that party brought the Missouri fur men, the King George men, Missionaries, the advance guard of “Joe Meek”’ and, inevitably, the emigrants, miners and cattlemen, who clinched the claim of the United States to the Great Northwest and to Idaho, the ‘“‘Gem”’ of the area.

Page 26 text:

. mn @¢ YY 7 y ‘ yaa , é 7 wae § P iar . ‘on ; Pie ™ a b —— Gt oo