Idaho Territory - 1860s

1860s

The territory was officially organized on March 4, 1863, by Act of Congress, and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. It is a successor region that was created by areas from existing territories undergoing parallel political transitions beginning with disputes over which country owned the region (See Oregon Country); by 1863 the area west of the Continental Divide that was formerly part of the huge Oregon Territory (by now some was a state) had been sundered from the coastal Washington Territory north of the young State of Oregon to the far west and the remnant of the Oregon Territory was officially 'unorganized'— whereas most of the area east of the Continental Divide had been part of the loosely defined Dakota Territory ending along the 49th parallel—now the border with Canada, then a colonial possession of Great Britain.

The original newly organized territory covered most of the present-day states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The later was wholly spanned east-to-west by the bustling Oregon Trail and its hitchhiker emigrant trails, the California Trail and Mormon Trail which since hitting stride in 1847, had been conveying settler wagon trains to the west, and incidentally, across the continental divide into the Snake River Basin, a key gateway into the Idaho and Oregon Country interiors.

The first territorial capital was at Lewiston. Boise was the territorial capital from 1865.

Although the 1863 Bear River Massacre in present-day Franklin County is considered to be the westernmost battle of the Civil War, the upheaval caused by the Civil War and Reconstruction was a distant concern to those in the comparatively stable Idaho Territory, a situation which in turn encouraged settlement.

In 1864, the Montana Territory was organized from the northeastern section of the territory east of the Bitterroot Range. Most of the southeastern area of the territory was made part of the Dakota Territory.

• Old Washington Territory—and the portions ceded to the new Nebraska and Idaho Territories in 1863.

• Idaho Territory in 1863

• Areas ceded to Montana Territory and Dakota Territory in 1864

• Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming territories in 1868

In the late 1860s Idaho Territory became a destination for displaced Southern Democrats who fought for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. These people were well represented in the early territorial legislatures, which often clashed with the appointed Republican territorial governors. The political infighting became particularly vicious in 1867, when Governor David W. Ballard asked for protection from federal troops stationed at Fort Boise against the territorial legislature. By 1870, however, the political infighting died down considerably.

In 1868, the areas east of the 111th meridian west were made part of the newly created Wyoming Territory. Idaho Territory assumed the boundaries of the modern state at that time. The discovery of gold, silver and other valuable natural resources throughout Idaho beginning in the 1860s, as well as the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, brought many new people to the territory, including Chinese laborers who came to work the mines. As Idaho approached statehood, mining and other extractive industries became increasingly important to its economy. By the 1890s, for example, Idaho exported more lead than any other state.