Speaker 1: Yea, welcome to the show Ridiculous. Historians longtime listeners amongst
Speaker 1: us may remember that some time ago my co hosts
Speaker 1: are super producer Casey Pegram and I decided that we
Speaker 1: were going to hell or high water do one episode
Speaker 1: for every state in the US, and we're sticking to
Speaker 1: our guns, are attempting to We're not gonna suff you
Speaker 1: on Stevens this right, No, you say that every time, then, right.
Speaker 1: I know, I just wanted to make the other what
Speaker 1: forty eight albums? Yeah, well, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: you ever intended to do any of that. And plus,
Speaker 1: you know, to be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast
Speaker 1: on a state is a lot different than doing like a,
Speaker 1: you know, an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
Speaker 1: You're right, Nolan, Perhaps it depends on how much work
Speaker 1: goes into an album, as his records are quite baroque. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a weird woe. We are talking
Speaker 1: about an origin story, but not so much an origin
Speaker 1: story of a state as an origin story of a
Speaker 1: state's name. To feel what's in a name turns out
Speaker 1: quite a lot and a lot of disagreement and a
Speaker 1: lot of fraudulent claims and all kinds of stuff. This is,
Speaker 1: you know, on the surface, seems like it could be
Speaker 1: a dry episode. Not the case, my friend, not the
Speaker 1: case quite juicy. Yeah, and there's a bit of a
Speaker 1: mystery here as well. And I guess one of the
Speaker 1: best ways for us to start off today's episode is
Speaker 1: just by acknowledging, uh, something that is an unspoken truth
Speaker 1: here in the US. State names are weird. They feel
Speaker 1: relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a ton of cohesive,
Speaker 1: coherent logic or uniformity involved. Right, You've got like New York, Right,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. There was another York somewhere and this
Speaker 1: is the new one, right, clearly the better York. It's
Speaker 1: clearly it's definitely the latest model. There's no New New York.
Speaker 1: But then there are states like Mississippi. There states like Hawaii.
Speaker 1: There's states like uh, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about this? The states that are
Speaker 1: named in relation to other states. North Dakota, South Dakota.
Speaker 1: Seems like there's no just Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Carolina I believe was named after a monarch. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's no East Virginia.
Speaker 1: That's weird. They could it's it's a weird thing. Well because,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, most of these state names were
Speaker 1: done by committee. So as as typically happens when things
Speaker 1: are done by committee, you end up with something convoluted
Speaker 1: that no one really likes that much, but people kind
Speaker 1: of settle on. Oh yeah, like in the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six Olympics here in Atlanta, Georgia, talking with a creepy mascott. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was that guy's name? What's it is? He is? He?
Speaker 1: Thank you? So? Yeah, he sort of looks like a
Speaker 1: weird little like it's like a blue drop. He's a
Speaker 1: blue like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with
Speaker 1: like Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes. So
Speaker 1: the Olympic rings. I'm sorry, excuse of course they are.
Speaker 1: How could I be so foolish? But that's the point.
Speaker 1: It was so random looking, you know, they didn't even
Speaker 1: read that way to me. Yeah, it was just it
Speaker 1: was guided by committee, probably some overpriced market. So someone's like,
Speaker 1: he's got to have his shoes, he's got to have
Speaker 1: the rings somewhere, and he's gotta be a weird little
Speaker 1: water droplet alien guy because people wear shoes, they get thirsty,
Speaker 1: and we're at the Olympics and they love aliens. The
Speaker 1: love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I forgot
Speaker 1: that completely turns out a short for Israel. Is it
Speaker 1: is he it? But that is our our wonderful I
Speaker 1: T guy parent house stuff works goes by Izzy, which
Speaker 1: is short for Israel. Yes, that is true. I I
Speaker 1: call the name I use with is depends upon the
Speaker 1: severity or immediacy of the request. So it's it's is
Speaker 1: if we're just hanging out. It's easy if we're hanging
Speaker 1: out outside of work, and it's Israel. If it's like
Speaker 1: in an email other people reading, he escalated, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: and I both have to be grown ups. So the
Speaker 1: name Idaho that fits in right in in this weird
Speaker 1: motley crew of various fifty various names that came about
Speaker 1: for various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But
Speaker 1: unlike many other states, it's di fickle for us to
Speaker 1: figure out exactly what the name means. We're telling you
Speaker 1: the truth, folks here in twenty nineteen. One of the
Speaker 1: most intriguing mysteries of Idaho history is the origin and
Speaker 1: meaning of the name, the name of the state in
Speaker 1: which you might be listening to this episode right now. So,
Speaker 1: nor have you ever been to Idaho? No? I haven't been.
Speaker 1: And you know what, um this is. I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: it out there right now. In my mind, I sometimes
Speaker 1: confuse it with Ohio because of the name, and I
Speaker 1: know they are geographically couldn't be less related. Um. I
Speaker 1: am not good at geography, though, my friends, I am
Speaker 1: here to tell you that right now. So Ben, give
Speaker 1: us the scoop on the geography of Idaho. Sure. So,
Speaker 1: Idaho is bordered on the to the west by Washington
Speaker 1: and Oregon to the east, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada and
Speaker 1: Utah to the south, and then at the very small
Speaker 1: attenuated top of the state, boom, it run straight into Canada.
Speaker 1: I've heard of that. Yes, yes, uh, Casey Casey Pegram, superproducer,
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Have you ever been to Idaho? No? My
Speaker 1: only I was just thinking about this. My only like
Speaker 1: association with Idaho in general, is an early built to
Speaker 1: spill song called Twin Falls Idaho. I mean there's also
Speaker 1: my own private Idaho. Well, but I think it was
Speaker 1: actually at first like you're living in your own private
Speaker 1: Idaho and the Yeah, the building spells like Christmas twin Falls.
Speaker 1: I'd uh ho, it's a pretty sad song. Actually, Casey
Speaker 1: on the case Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
Speaker 1: I am a built to spill fan myself. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have not, as of yet travel to Idaho that I
Speaker 1: can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm seventy sure. I haven't been there. But the past
Speaker 1: is a watercolor in the rain, you know, things blur,
Speaker 1: which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
Speaker 1: Even though it seems like it would fit in you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds similar to many other states, right. It turns
Speaker 1: out that we have relatively little idea of where the
Speaker 1: name Idaho came from. We have some theories. We have
Speaker 1: some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory revolves around
Speaker 1: a cookie mining lobbyist by the name of George M.
Speaker 1: Willing Um. It is put forth in the record that
Speaker 1: he suggested the name Idaho and said that it was
Speaker 1: a Native American word that meant the gem of the mountains,
Speaker 1: and this was actually surrounding the naming of what is
Speaker 1: now Colorado. Um, so this is a whole saga that
Speaker 1: kind of gets this this this name gets sort of
Speaker 1: kicked around a little bit done. Now, yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the background of George Maurice Willing Jr.
Speaker 1: Known as Doc to his friends. He was and sometime
Speaker 1: around eighteen twenty nine to a very well off family
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. He was educated as a physician, but he
Speaker 1: got in trouble. He got disgraced because he was discovered
Speaker 1: performing performing abortions. That is true, and so in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen fifties he moved to California to escape potential
Speaker 1: legal complications, and by the late eighteen fifties he's resettled
Speaker 1: to St. Louis, Missouri. He becomes part of the Pike's
Speaker 1: Peak gold Rush in eighteen fifty nine. He was described
Speaker 1: as a man of many interests, a good geologist, a
Speaker 1: polished gentleman. He became a candidate for the Jefferson Territory
Speaker 1: delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine. He lost the election,
Speaker 1: but he's still despite losing the election, check this out.
Speaker 1: He just goes to dec he anyway and becomes a lobbyist,
Speaker 1: and then while he's working as a delegate, least according
Speaker 1: to the story, he's the one associated most strongly with
Speaker 1: the name Idaho. And this would have been in the
Speaker 1: earliest days of lobbying, wouldn't it have been. I imagine
Speaker 1: it was nothing like it is today. You know, it
Speaker 1: was nowhere near as closely regulated, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's suggested by Willing and some other people early
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty as an alternative name for the territory
Speaker 1: that finally became known as Colorado. And as you said, Noel,
Speaker 1: it was represented as being a term meaning gem of
Speaker 1: the mountains, which some people loved. That's true, but it
Speaker 1: didn't fly at that particular time, and a little time
Speaker 1: went by, and Idaho was not forgotten because it just
Speaker 1: had a certain, I don't know, a certain mouth feel
Speaker 1: to it, right, Ben. Yeah, And let's also consider the
Speaker 1: Willing Again. We can't over emphasize. This isn't really supposed
Speaker 1: to be there. The miners aren't even supposed to have
Speaker 1: a delegate. But people are becoming increasing fans of this
Speaker 1: phrase or this buzzword or this term in the halls
Speaker 1: of d C. There's a guy named Williams who has
Speaker 1: um interactions with both political groups in these different mining camps,
Speaker 1: and he's really digging the name Idaho. And something important
Speaker 1: is happening at this point. So the eighteen sixty elections
Speaker 1: out of the way, Lincoln as president, and there's this
Speaker 1: blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right and
Speaker 1: this this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
Speaker 1: states are ramping up towards secession, there's an Idaho bill
Speaker 1: for the Pike's Peak minds that was printed by the
Speaker 1: House on December six. And at this is where it
Speaker 1: gets a little complicated. This Williams guy uh pushes lobbies
Speaker 1: Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
Speaker 1: sitting on for months and to change the name of
Speaker 1: that territory from Colorado to Idaho. And then when this happened,
Speaker 1: when this came up and this new name was proposed
Speaker 1: in the Senate, a senator from Oregon objected, and then
Speaker 1: another guy says, James Green. Senator James Green says, Idaho
Speaker 1: is a very good name in the Indian language. You know,
Speaker 1: it means gem of the mountains. And this guy from
Speaker 1: Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no quote.
Speaker 1: I do not believe it is an Indian word. It
Speaker 1: is a corruption. No Indian tribe in this nation has
Speaker 1: that word. In my opinion, it is a corruption, certainly
Speaker 1: a counterfeit and ought not to be adopted. And let's
Speaker 1: remember too that the states. I don't hopefully hopefully I'm
Speaker 1: not like overly simplifying. This is something I have a
Speaker 1: tendency to do sometimes. But um, the states would begin
Speaker 1: their lives as territories when a enough miners would come
Speaker 1: in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
Speaker 1: to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
Speaker 1: and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
Speaker 1: the population would boom enough to justify, uh, calling it
Speaker 1: a state or they would be a whole. Another series
Speaker 1: of discussions would form around, Okay, now it's going to
Speaker 1: transfer from being a colony, a territory to actually being
Speaker 1: a proper state and having a name. Yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: we know we know that, especially in this period of history,
Speaker 1: or at least more so than in the modern day,
Speaker 1: groups of people would get together and pitch ideas for states,
Speaker 1: like in our previous episode about U S states that
Speaker 1: never actually happened. There are so many conversations throughout the
Speaker 1: U S historical record about people trying to make the
Speaker 1: name of a state or create their own state when
Speaker 1: someone else is claiming the same land. The thing that happens, though,
Speaker 1: is that the Senate at first they approved this change.
Speaker 1: They okay, we'll change it from Colorado to Idaho, because
Speaker 1: Williams really wants it that way. But Williams gets suspicious.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like this Senator Lane is from Oregon, right,
Speaker 1: he's on the West coast. He is probably fairly well
Speaker 1: acquainted with the languages of indigenous people at the time,
Speaker 1: and he seems very certain this is not a real word.
Speaker 1: So he looks into the matter, and that's when he
Speaker 1: finds out that Idaho is not a word. It's not
Speaker 1: a it's not an existing word in an existing language.
Speaker 1: But Williams um was largely ignored in the first place too,
Speaker 1: because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
Speaker 1: pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which was not
Speaker 1: a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: just say, I get this guy out of here. So
Speaker 1: they may have been just making fun of him right
Speaker 1: in the beginning. So this is when he learns that
Speaker 1: George M. Willing or one of his supporters, had just
Speaker 1: invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
Speaker 1: about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another senator,
Speaker 1: an Eastern Senator, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and he says, will you please change the name back
Speaker 1: to Colorado, And on February four, eight sixty one, the
Speaker 1: Senate says, okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
Speaker 1: the House did anything about it's Idaho bill. The Colorado
Speaker 1: Bill passed in the Senate, and then the Representatives passed
Speaker 1: the Colorado Bill, and so the House bill never was
Speaker 1: acted on, and the name Idaho received no further consideration
Speaker 1: for Colorado, which became a territory on February sixty one.
Speaker 1: But the thing was sort of in a Pandora's box
Speaker 1: kind of situation. People like the word, people in what
Speaker 1: will become Idaho or in that territory are digging it.
Speaker 1: It's already a popular phrase in the Rockies and in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest, and it's kind of like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ever heard this, are you familiar with
Speaker 1: the ice cream franchise Hoggindahs. So hoggin Das is a
Speaker 1: made up word. No, yeah, really, yes, They just wanted
Speaker 1: something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it would be
Speaker 1: a little more classy. In Idaho is kind of like this.
Speaker 1: People are swearing to one another up and down that
Speaker 1: it is a word from a language of native people
Speaker 1: who have lived in this area of the world. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, ben Um, to that point, this word
Speaker 1: Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
Speaker 1: It was in the zeit guys, and people thought it
Speaker 1: sounded nice, you know, because of the mouth field and
Speaker 1: it's just Indian sounding nests. So in December of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, there was a territorial legislature of Washington and
Speaker 1: it created Idaho County UM. And that you know, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned the geography of Idaho, it borders Washington State, UM.
Speaker 1: So it originally was part of Washington State, but then
Speaker 1: it became its own state. And there's another player and
Speaker 1: kind of keeping this Idaho word alive. A guy by
Speaker 1: the name of Joaquim Miller who wrote the Poet of
Speaker 1: the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho, and he claimed
Speaker 1: that it meant the light or diadem on the line
Speaker 1: of the mountain, which is a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a high salutant way of saying what was the original
Speaker 1: one been the gym of the mountain. And keep in
Speaker 1: mind these are mining concerns putting out that that's that's
Speaker 1: that's true. So I think at this point the original
Speaker 1: kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, and but the
Speaker 1: word the name kind of lived on, right. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: at this point we do want to profile a little
Speaker 1: bit there. There's some background, some context the Willings character
Speaker 1: that come into play here. Uh. Willings was involved in
Speaker 1: a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
Speaker 1: something called the Arizona Peralta land grant fraud, in which
Speaker 1: he played a despicable part. He also was an associate
Speaker 1: of forgers. He was a guy similar to so many
Speaker 1: other con artists that we have talked about in past episodes.
Speaker 1: And you'll hear different alternating theories that he met a
Speaker 1: young girl named Ida and that inspired the name, or
Speaker 1: that it actually is a corruption of indigenous people's language,
Speaker 1: the Kiowa apache term i dahi, which meant enemy. That
Speaker 1: doesn't really measure up in my opinion that last one.
Speaker 1: I could see a state being named after a person
Speaker 1: that's happened before, but I can't see a state being
Speaker 1: named enemy. You want something a little more positive, right,
Speaker 1: So now we know this battle that happened ultimately was
Speaker 1: a battle fought in the public sphere in terms of
Speaker 1: public opinion and public use of the phrase. And that's
Speaker 1: why the term Idaho was first used to refer to
Speaker 1: Idaho as a state instead of Idaho Springs or some
Speaker 1: other area. In eighteen sixty three. Williams went on to
Speaker 1: do some more Shenannigo. Yeah, he sure did. And let's
Speaker 1: not forget too that at this point, um a lot
Speaker 1: of lawmakers that it maybe had their breaches and bunches
Speaker 1: about this in the first place, where a little more
Speaker 1: preoccupied with the Civil War than than quarreling about state
Speaker 1: names and made up Indian words, right right. And so
Speaker 1: that's kind of how it slid in under the radar,
Speaker 1: because people were so worried about this burgeoning war between
Speaker 1: the states that they didn't really have time nor the
Speaker 1: inclination to worry about what they saw as a relatively
Speaker 1: benign concept like the name Idaho, and so Idaho just
Speaker 1: like kind of a hog and dahs stuck around, sounded
Speaker 1: close enough to the thing that it was purporting to
Speaker 1: be that more and more people began using it. And
Speaker 1: some of the same senators who remembered that last naming
Speaker 1: incident when they figured out that it was a made
Speaker 1: up name, were the same senators who were like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
Speaker 1: just just let it ride. Maybe we can fix it later,
Speaker 1: maybe we can kick the can down the road. And
Speaker 1: kick the can they did, because it is and Idaho
Speaker 1: is the state's name. It's not going to change anytime soon. No,
Speaker 1: it's true. And this is not even the most egregious
Speaker 1: example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard of Montpelier, Illinois?
Speaker 1: Who I have heard the name? What's the what's the
Speaker 1: skinny on that? Yeah, it turns out that the name,
Speaker 1: and as Casey um Off Mike has pointed out, it
Speaker 1: would be more properly pronounced Montpellier um was something of
Speaker 1: a practical joke. Um Father Jacques Marquette in sixteen seventy
Speaker 1: three um encountered some members of the Peoria Indian tribe,
Speaker 1: and that was near the mouth of what would today
Speaker 1: be called the Des Moines River UM, and he asked
Speaker 1: them to give him the name of another tribe of
Speaker 1: rivals that lived further down the river, and the Peoria
Speaker 1: leadership told him that they were called the Monguana, and
Speaker 1: that became the roots for Moyne. But Michael McCafferty of
Speaker 1: Indiana University UM discovered that in the Miami Illinois language,
Speaker 1: which is now no longer it's a dead language, UM,
Speaker 1: this actually would have been translated to faces and apparently
Speaker 1: UM nobody in Illinois government in the city of Des
Speaker 1: Moines has acknowledged that this is the case, but the
Speaker 1: research stands. UM. Interesting stuff. So I guess having a
Speaker 1: made up name is maybe a little less embarrassing than
Speaker 1: having a name that translates to something so derogatory. That's
Speaker 1: a great point, and as I'm sure many of us
Speaker 1: are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
Speaker 1: most actually all words are made up. At some point
Speaker 1: we all agreed, to various factions of us throughout the
Speaker 1: human species, agreed that this word means this thing, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like hand means that thing at
Speaker 1: the end of your arm. Shoe means that thing that
Speaker 1: goes over your foot and Idaho is one of the
Speaker 1: fifty states of the United States of America. There you go,
Speaker 1: and that is our episode for today. How many states?
Speaker 1: How many states have we done? Now? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that want to do
Speaker 1: the tally and shoot us an email at ridiculous at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. That'd be cool. We love
Speaker 1: to hear from you because otherwise, now I'll be completely
Speaker 1: honest with you here, folks. Otherwise we'll get halfway through
Speaker 1: an episode and then realize that we have in fact
Speaker 1: already covered that state. Whatever it takes to get the
Speaker 1: show out as long as it's a good story too.
Speaker 1: So thank you in advance for sending us that note.
Speaker 1: We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
Speaker 1: in your neck of the global Woods. We'd also, of
Speaker 1: course like to thank uh super producer Casey pegram uh
Speaker 1: and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
Speaker 1: road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it. We'd
Speaker 1: also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Gabe,
Speaker 1: our research associate who kept us to this topic. Um,
Speaker 1: you can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1: You can find our show on Instagram as well on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook. Uh you can find your fellow listeners
Speaker 1: on our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if
Speaker 1: you if you want to hang out with me see
Speaker 1: some pictures of weird adventures and uh my oversized cats,
Speaker 1: you can find me at Ben Bullen on Instagram. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time, Fox