Gold Changes Idaho
For around 20 years, Southern Idaho was essentially a "bridge" country--a hazardous 25-day journey through dust and sagebrush which was necessary to cross to get to the fertile valleys of Western Oregon.
The discovery of gold in the Boise Basin in the early 1860s brought many single men back from the Oregon and Northern California gold strikes of 1849. These men came in droves on foot and horseback with the intention of striking it rich.
Some never made it to the Basin, but chose to settle on the low land next to the river where one could claim 160 acres of wild hay and grasses by squatter's rights.