Idaho State Fossil?

Idaho has an official State Fossil?  Yes, it's true.  Idaho has declared a number of official items.  Sure you knew the State Bird is the Mountain Bluebird and the State flower is the Syringa, but did you know Idaho also has a State Insect, Raptor, Dance, Soil and even Fossil.

The 1988 legislature designated the Hagerman Horse as the Official State Fossil. Discovered in 1928, it was originally described as Plesippus shoshonensis. The Hagerman Horse is the oldest known representative of the modern horse genus Equus (includes horses, donkeys, and zebras) and is believed to be more closely related to the living Grevy's zebra in Africa.

Just so you won't get caught not knowing this information, here's the official list for the State of Idaho.

State flower is the Syringa

State bird is the Mountain Bluebird

State tree is the Western White Pine.

State fruit is the Huckleberry

State vegetable is the Potato

State horse is the Appaloosa

State fish is the Cutthroat Trout

State insect is the Monarch Butterfly

State gem is the Star Garnet

State fossil is the Hagerman Horse

State raptor is the Peregrine Falcon

State dance is the Square Dance

State soil is Threebear

Perhaps we should also have an official State Pie, Huckleberry of course.

(Just so you'll know, Threebear consists of moderately well drained soils formed in silty sediments with a thick mantle of volcanic ash.)

Born in the Iron Horse Parking Lot

Seriously.  There are lots of people who where born in the Iron Horse Parking lot at 4th & Lakeside in Coeur d'Alene.  Of course it wasn't a parking lot then, it was Lake City General Hospital.


Lake City General was a three story building with 36 beds and was at one time was considered on the cutting edge of medicine.  It wasn't unusual to have North Idaho's inured loggers sent there for treatment.  And countless babies were born at Lake City General.


Lake City was closed November 1966 when Kootenai Memorial Hospital (Kootenai medical Center, Kootenai Health) was opened at the I-90 and Hwy 95 junction.  And that's why there was an era when every kid in Coeur d'Alene who had a bicycle knew where Hospital Hills were.  But that's anther story for another blog.


After it ceased being a hospital a man named Francis Schuckhardt acquired the use of, and perhaps ownership of, the LCGH building.  Schuckhardt had risen to a top administrative position with the Blue Army a mainstream Catholic Marian organization but was dismissed in 1966 for condemning a Vatican Council.  The following year he founded a militarily traditionalist community in Coeur d'Alene called the Fatima Crusade which was housed in the old hospital.  Later the name was changed to the Tridentine Latin Rite Church.  


Locals still referred to the group as the Blue Army due to the blue habits the nuns wore.  And there a lot of them.  They traveled around in big white vans full of praying nuns.  A local inside joke was they were praying they wouldn't get in a wreck because it looked like even the driver was praying instead of driving.


Followers of Schuckhardt came to the area and started a community, The City of Mary, near Rathdrum.  By the mid 1970's the whole operation was moved to Mount St. Michael's outside of Spokane.


The hospital then became the home of a new company called Action Printers.  As it grew, Action Printers moved out and the building was acquired by Tom Robb of the Iron Horse, leveled and turned into the current parking lot.


So next time you hear someone say "I was born in the Iron Horse parking lot" you better believe them.

This Day in Idaho History, 18 March 1859

March 18, 1859 The United States War Department appropriates $100,000 for the actual construction of what would be known as the Mullan Road.

As early as 1852 proposals were made to build a railroad to the Pacific and many routes were considered.  One was a northern route from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound.  In 1853, Washington Territorial Governor General Issac Stevens was ordered by Congress to find a possible route from the Missouri River to the Columbia River.  One of those in that exploration party was Lt. John Mullan.

In 1854 Congress appointed Mullan to survey a route between Ft. Benton (MT) to Ft. Walla Walla (WA).  Mullan and his team crossed the Continental Divide six times and traveled over a thousand miles picking the best route.  In 1855 Mullan went to Washington, DC to make his report and secure funding.  Politicians favoring a southern route and lack of money held it up until 1857.

The threat of Indians in the eastern part of Washington Territory spurred Congress to action and directed Mullan to make a final survey and make plans for construction.  Mullan refined the survey and served as topographer while a member of Col  George Wright's forces when they fought the Nez Perce, Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Palouse and Yakima tribes.  

Finally in 1859, March 18th, funds were allocated for the road's construction.  On July 1 Mullan started the road work in Walla Walla.  Completed in 1862, the "Mullan Road" was passed over for the route of the first transcontinental railroad (though the northern route was later used) but became a major road for settlers and prospectors.

General William T. Sherman crossed the road in 1877 on a tour to locate possible forts.  It was on that trip that Sherman picked the site for Fort Coeur d'Alene.  Later the name was changed to Ft. Sherman and that site is now the home of North Idaho College.

Interstate 90 follows Mullan's road.