Alturas County was a county in Idaho Territory and later the state of Idaho from 1864 to 1895. It covered an area larger than the states of Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware combined. Most present-day southern Idaho counties were created at least in part from the original Alturas County area. The name Alturas comes from a Spanish word for "mountain summits" or "mountainous heights." [1]
Alturas County was created by the Idaho Territorial Legislature in February 1864. Later that year the mining camp of Rocky Bar was designated the county seat. The county seat was moved to Hailey in 1882.
In 1889, the Idaho Territorial Legislature created Elmore County and Logan County from parts of Alturas County. On March 5, 1895, to circumvent a recent state supreme court decision striking down an earlier county reorganization, the Idaho Legislature combined Alturas and Logan Counties into a new county called Blaine. Two weeks later on March 18, the southern portion of the newly created Blaine County was split off to form Lincoln County with its county seat at Shoshone. Hailey remained the county seat of what was now Blaine County, and Alturas County disappeared from the Idaho map.
Cache County is a county located in the Wasatch Front region of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 133,154. Its county seat and largest city is Logan. Cache County is included in Logan metropolitan area.
Lincoln County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,208. The county seat and largest city is Shoshone. The county is named after President Abraham Lincoln. The Idaho Territory was created in 1863, during the Lincoln Administration of 1861–65.
Lemhi County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,974. The largest city and county seat is Salmon. The county was established in 1869, named after Fort Lemhi, a remote Mormon missionary settlement from 1855 to 1858 in Bannock and Shoshone territory.
Gooding County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,464. Its county seat is Gooding. The county was created by the Idaho Legislature on January 28, 1913, by a partition of Lincoln County. It is named for Frank R. Gooding, the 7th governor and a United States Senator from Idaho.
Elmore County is a county in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census, the population was 27,038. The largest city and county seat is Mountain Home.
Camas County is a county in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Idaho. The county seat and largest city is Fairfield. The county was established 105 years ago in 1917 by the Idaho Legislature with a partition of Blaine County on February 6. It is named for the camas root, or Camassia, a lily-like plant with an edible bulb found in the region, that Native Americans and settlers used as a food source. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,077, making it the second-least populous county in the state.
Butte County is a rural county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,574, making it the third-least populous county in Idaho. Its county seat and largest city is Arco. The county was established in 1917 from parts of Bingham, Blaine, and Jefferson counties. The county gained territory in the Clyde area from Custer County in 1937 to reach its present boundary.
Blaine County is a county in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 24,272. The county seat and largest city is Hailey. It is also home to the Sun Valley ski resort, adjacent to Ketchum.
Hailey is a city in and the county seat of Blaine County, in the Wood River Valley of the central part of the U.S. state of Idaho. The population was 7,960 at the 2010 census, up from 6,200 in 2000. Hailey is the site of Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN), the airport for the resort area of Sun Valley/Ketchum, 12 miles (19 km) north. The town of Bellevue is a few miles south. From 1882 to 1895, Hailey was the county seat of now-defunct Alturas County.
The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho.
Rocky Bar is a ghost town in Elmore County, Idaho, United States. At its height in the late 19th century Rocky Bar boasted a population of over 2,500 and served as county seat of Alturas County from 1864 to 1882. It was also the original county seat of Elmore County when it was created in 1889. :)
Logan County was a county in Idaho Territory and later the state of Idaho from 1889 to 1895.
The Wood River Valley is a region in the western United States in south-central Idaho. Located in Blaine County, it is named after the Big Wood and Little Wood Rivers, which flow through the area.
The Sawtooth Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in central Idaho, United States, reaching a maximum elevation of 10,751 feet (3,277 m) at the summit of Thompson Peak. It encompasses an area of 678 square miles (1,756 km2) spanning parts of Custer, Boise, Blaine, and Elmore counties, and is bordered to the east by the Sawtooth Valley. Much of the mountain range is within the Sawtooth Wilderness, part of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Sawtooth National Forest.
Florence is a ghost town in Idaho County, Idaho, United States. About 14 air miles (22 km) east-northeast of present-day Riggins in remote north central Idaho at an elevation of 6,080 feet (1,850 m). It was settled as a mining camp in the winter of 1861. Almost concurrent with its settlement, Washington Territory established Idaho County on December 20, 1861 in anticipation of a gold rush that brought over 9,000 residents within the first year., The town quickly became the seat with the first district court taking place at Florence on 22 September 1862. While the rich placer gold fields in the Florence Basin brought thousands of prospectors and contributed to the establishment of Idaho Territory in 1863, the rush to Florence was short-lived as intensive mining depleted the richest ground. At the first census of Idaho Territory, only 575 residents remained. By the territorial census of 1864, the population dwindled further to 254 residents. Even in its decline, Florence continued as the county seat until 1 June 1869 when the territorial legislature moved the county seat to the Warren's Camp settlement of Washington. The town thrived again from 1895–1900, based more on lode mining. Then the town slowly faded away, having only ten inhabitants in 1940, and was totally abandoned sometime after 1951.
Alturas Lake is an alpine lake in Blaine County, Idaho, United States, in the Sawtooth Valley in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The lake is approximately 21 miles (34 km) south of Stanley and 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Ketchum. Alturas Lake can be accessed from State Highway 75 via Sawtooth National Forest road 205.
The Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey, Idaho is a historic building built in 1883 to serve Alturas County, which later became Blaine County. It is a three-story building that held county offices, a jail, and a courtroom, and, at $40,000 building cost, was the most expensive building in the Idaho Territory, hurting Alturas County financially. Located at 1st and Croy Sts., it was designed by Horace Greeley Knapp in Italianate style. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Hugh W. Weir was a chief justice of the Idaho Territorial Court from 1888 to 1889. The court preceded the Idaho Supreme Court, established when Idaho became a state in 1890.
