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CLASSIC: What does "Idaho" actually mean? · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: classic episode. This one goes out to all our friends
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: in Idaho.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in an Idaho state of mind, or just in
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: the state, the forty third state.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, in fact it is the forty third state.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And I gotta check. Guys, we know each other pretty
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: well at this point. Have any of us been to Idaho,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Not that I can recall.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: I have driven through it, and I was going from
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Seattle to Denver when I does trip years ago and
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: which involved I went through Montana and stuff. And I
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: will tell you right now, I had zero expectations. I
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: was leaving Spokane. Spokane's gorgeous place. I had no expectations
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: of Idaho whatsoever, at least the northern part. I didn't
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: go through the heart of it.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Beautiful. Absolutely, Idaho's more west, right, It's just like it's right.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: So the smoke stack is right between Washington and Montana.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So go go west, go west, and then go north
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: for a while, young man.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Indeed, it's on top of Nevada. Uh huh, Okay, there
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: you go. Clearly I'm excellent a geography.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of the things we found back in
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen when we originally recorded this episode. Is that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we've all accepted the word Idaho as a normalized thing,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and then surely.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: It's referring to some sort of native tradition, right.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Right, or as my patter familius used to say, no Idaho,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: U Daho.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Of course, I think we all had a dat or
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: two that dropped that one on us. But it turns
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: out that it's a little more hilarious and complicated than
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: just naming it after like a native tribe like I
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: think we're often used to.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, well said, Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous History is
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Longtime listeners amongst us may remember that some time ago,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: my co hosts, our super producer, Casey Pegram, and I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: decided that we were going to hell or high water
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: do one episode for every state in the US. And
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: we're sticking to our guns, or attempting to. We're not
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: going to Sufyan Stevens this right. No, you say that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: every time, then, right? I know, I just want him
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to make the other what forty eight albums?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I don't think he ever intended
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: to do any of that. And plus, you know, to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: be fair, doing a thirty minute podcast on a day
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: is a lot different than doing like a, you know,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: an album. So let's give Sufian a break.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: You're Noel, And perhaps it depends on how much work
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: goes into an album.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Right, his records are quite barokee.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, he's going for baroque every time. So today's episode
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: is a little bit of a weird one. We are
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: talking about an origin story, but not so much an
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: origin story of a state as an origin story of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: a state's name.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to feel what's in a name turns out quite
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: a lot and a lot of disagreement and a lot
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: of fraudulent claims and all kinds of stuff. This is,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you know, on the surface, seems like it could be
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a dry episode. Not the case, my friend, not the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: case quite juicy. Yeah, and there's a bit of a
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: mystery here as well. I guess one of the best
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: ways for us to start off today's episode is just
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: by acknowledging something that is an unspoken.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Truth here in the US. State names are weird. They
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: feel relatively arbitrary at times, and there's not a of cohesive,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: coherent logic or uniformity involved. Right, You've got like New York. Right,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. There was another York somewhere and this
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: is the new one, right, clearly, the better York. It's clearly,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: it's definitely the latest model. There's no new New York.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But then there are states like Mississippi. There are states
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like Hawaii. There are states like I don't know, I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: don't know. How do you feel about this? The states
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: that are named in relation to other states. North Dakota,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: South Dakota.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Seems like a cop out to me.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: There's no just Dakota. No, yeah, exactly, North Carolina, South Carolina.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Carolina believe was named after a monarch.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then oddly enough, Virginia and West Virginia. There's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: no East Virginia. Also true, that's weird, they could. It's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a weird thing.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Well because, as it turns out, most of these state
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: names were done by committee. So as as typically happens
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: when things are done by committee, you end up with
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: something convoluted that no one really liked that much, but
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: people kind of settle on.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like in the nineteen ninety six Olympics here
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: With a creepy mascot.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that guy's name?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: What's it? Izzy?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Isy? Thank you?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: So, Yeah, he sort of looks like a weird little
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: like a he's like a blue drop. He's a blued
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: like exactly, like a blue droplet of water, with like
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Saturn rings around him and big tennis shoes.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: They're the Olympic rings.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Now I'm sorry, excuse me, of course they are. How
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: could I be so foolish? But that's the point. It
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: was so random looking, you know, they didn't even read
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: that way to me.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just, uh it was guided by committee,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: probably some overpriced market agency.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So someone's like, he's got to have shoes,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: he's got to have the rings somewhere, and he's got
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: to be a weird little water droplet alien guy because.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: People wear shoes, they get thirsty and wear at the Olympics,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and they love aliens.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: They love aliens. Izzy that was his name? Huh? I
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: forgot that completely turns out as short for Israel.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: No?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Is it it?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But that is our a wonderful it guy or at
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: how stuff works goes by Izzy, which is short for Israel. Yes,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: that is true.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I call the name I use with is depends upon
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the severity or immediacy of the request.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, so it is.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: If we're just hanging out, it's easy. If we're hanging
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: out outside of work and it's Israel, if it's like
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in an email other people reading, he escalated, Yeah, he
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and I both have to be grown ups. So the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: name Idaho that fits in right in this weird motley
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: crew of various fifty various names that came about for
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: various reasons, often, as you said, by committee. But unlike
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: many other states, it's difficult for us to figure out
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: exactly what the name means. We're telling you the truth,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: folks here in twenty nineteen. One of the most intriguing
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: mysteries of Idaho history is the origin and meaning of
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the name, the name of the state in which you
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: might be listening to this episode right now. So, Noel,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: have you ever been to Idaho?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't been, And you know what this is.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put it out there right now. In
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: my mind, I sometimes confuse it with Ohio because of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the name, and I know they are geographically it couldn't
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: be less related. I am not good at geography, though,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: my friends, I am here to tell you that right now,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: So Ben, give us the scoop on the geography of Idaho.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Sure. So, Idaho is bordered on to the west by
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Washington and Oregon to the east, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and Utah to the south, and then at the very
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: small attenuated top of the state, boom, it runs straight
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: into Canada.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I've heard of that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Casey Pegrim, super producer, Casey Pegrim, have you
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: ever been to Idaho? No?
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: My only I was just thinking about this. My only
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: like association with Idaho in general is an early built
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: a spell song called Twin Falls Idaho.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I mean there's also my own Private Idaho. Yeah,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: yah ya, Well, but I think it was actually a
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: B fifty two song. First, okay, okay, it's like you're
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: living in your own private.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: Idaho and the yeah, the build of spells like Christmas
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Twin Falls id uh Ho. It's a pretty sad song actually,
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: Casey on.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: The case, Yeah, that was a great deep cut too.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I am a built a spill fan myself. Yeah, I
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: have not as of yet traveled to Idaho that I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: can recall. I know it sounds sketchy, but yeah, yeah,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I'm seventy percent sure I haven't been there, but the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: past is a watercolor in the rain. You know, things blur.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Which brings us background to the speculation about Idaho's name.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Even though it seems like it would fit in, you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it sounds similar to many others, right, It turns out
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that we have relatively little idea of where the name
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Idaho came from. We have some theories.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: We have some theories, and the biggest, most lasting theory
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: revolves around a kooky mining lobbyist by the name of
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: George M. Willing. It is put forth in the record
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: that he suggested the name Idaho and said that it
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: was a Native American word that meant the gem of
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the mountains. And this was actually surrounding the naming of
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: what is now Colorado. So this is a whole saga
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: that kind of gets this. This name gets sort of
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: kicked around a little bit, doesn't.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the background of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: George Maurice Willing Junior, known as Doc to his friends.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: He was born sometime around eighteen twenty nine to a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: very well off family in Philadelphia. He was educated as
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a physician, but he got in trouble. He got disgraced
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: because he was discovered performing performing abortions.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Right, that is true. This I did not know.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And so in the early eighteen fifties he moved to
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: California to escape potential legal complications, and by the late
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifties he's resettled to Saint Louis, Missouri. He becomes
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: part of the Pike's Peak gold Rush in eighteen fifty nine.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: He was described as a man of many interests, a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: good geologist, abolished a gentleman. He became a candidate for
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the Jefferson Territory delegation in October of eighteen fifty nine.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: He lost the election, but he's still despite losing the election,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: check this out, he just goes to DC anyway and
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: becomes a lobbyist. And then while he's working as a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: delegate lace according to the story, he's the associated most
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: strongly with the name Idaho.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been in the earliest days of lobbying,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: wouldn't it have been.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Imagine it was nothing like it is today, right, you know,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it was nowhere near as closely regulated, you know what
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I mean. So it's suggested by Willing and some other
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: people early in eighteen sixty as an alternative name for
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the territory that finally became known as Colorado. And as
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you said, nol it was represented as being a term
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: meaning gem of the mountains, which some people loved.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: That's true, but it didn't fly at that particular time,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and a little time went by, and Idaho was not
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: forgotten because it just had a certain, I don't know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: a certain mouthfeel to it, right, Ben.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And let's also consider the willing. Again, we can't overemphasize.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: This isn't really supposed to be there. The miners aren't
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: even supposed to have a delegate, but people are becoming
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: increasing fans of this phrase or this buzzword or this term.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: In the halls of d C. There's a guy named
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Williams who has interactions with both political groups in these
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: different mining camps, and he's really digging the name Idaho.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And something important is happening at this point. So the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty elections out of the way, Lincoln is president,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and there's this blockade that has existed against creating new territories, right,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and this blockade begins to clear. So while the Southern
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: states are ramping up towards secession. There's an Idaho bill
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: for the Pike's Peak mins that was printed by the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: House on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty. And at this where
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it gets a little complicated, this Williams guy pushes lobbies
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Congress to alter a Colorado territorial bill that they've been
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: sitting on for months and to change the name of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that territory from Colorado to Idaho. And then when this happened,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: when this came up and this new name was proposed
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, a senator from Oregon objected. And then
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: another guy says, James Green, a Senator James Green says,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Idaho is a very good name in the Indian language.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You know, it means gem of the mountains. And this
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: guy from Oregon says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Quote.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I do not believe it is an Indian word. It
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is a corruption. No Indian tribe in this nation has
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that word. In my opinion, it is a corruption, certainly
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: a counterfeit, and ought not to be adopted.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And let's remember too that the States. I don't hopefully,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: hopefully I'm not like overly simplifying. This is something I
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: have a tendency to do sometimes, but the states would
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: begin their lives as territories when enough miners would come
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: in and they realized there were enough natural resources there
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to justify a colony of miners. And then as more
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: and more people came and more and more infrastructure was created,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the population would boom enough to justify calling it a state,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: or they would be a whole. Other series of discussions
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: would form around, Okay, now it's going to transfer from
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: being a colony, a territory to actually being a proper
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: state and having a name.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and we know we know that, especially in
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: this period of history, or at least more so than
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: in the modern day. Groups of people we get together
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and pitch ideas for states, like in our previous episode
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: about US states that never actually happened. There are so
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: many conversations throughout the US historical record about people trying
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: to make the name of a state or create their
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: own state when someone else is claiming the same land.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: The thing that happens, though, is that the Senate at
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: first they approve this change. They say, Okay, we'll change
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: it from Colorado to Idaho because Williams really wants.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It that way.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: But Williams gets suspens. You know, it's like this Senator
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Lane is from Oregon, right, he's on the west coast.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: He is probably fairly well acquainted with the languages of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: indigenous people at the time, and he seems very certain
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: this is not a real word. So he looks into
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the matter, and that's when he finds out that Idaho
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is not a word. It's not an existing word in
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: an existing language.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: But Williams was largely ignored in the first place too,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: because he was like the vice presidential candidate of the
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: pro slavery wing of the Democratic Party, which is not
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: a good look. So he was kind of, you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: just say, hey, get this guy out of here, you know.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: So they may have been just making fun of him
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: right in the beginning. So this is when he learns
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that George M. Willing or one of his supporters, had
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: just invented the word, along with the notion of its definition,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: about a year before. And so Williams hunts up another
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: senator Eastern Center, a guy named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and he says, will you please change the name back
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to Colorado. And on February fourth, eighteen sixty one, the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Senate says Okay, we'll change it to Colorado. And before
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the House did anything about its Idaho bill, the Colorado
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: bill passed in the Senate, and then the Representatives passed
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the Colorado bill, and so the House bill never was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: acted on, and the name Idaho received no further consideration
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: for Colorado, which became a territory on February twenty eighth,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one. But the thing was sort of in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: a Pandora's box kind of situation. People like the word.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: People in what will become Idaho or in that territory
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: are digging it. It's already a popular phrase in the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Rockies and in the Pacific Northwest, and it's kind of like,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever heard this. Are you
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: familiar with the ice cream franchise Hogandaws? Course, so Hogandaws
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: is a made up word? No, yeah, really, yes. They
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: just wanted something that sounded like vaguely Scandinavian so it
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: would be a little more classing. Idaho is kind of
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: like this. People are swearing to one another up and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: down that it is a word from a language of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: native people who have lived in this area of the world.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: So, like you said, Ben, to that point, this word
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Idaho was already out of the box. It was floating around.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It was in the zeitgeys, and people thought it sounded nice,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: you know, because of the mouthfeel and it's just Indian
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: sounding ness. So in December of eighteen sixty one, there
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: was a territorial legislature of Washington and it created Idaho County.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And that, you know, as we mentioned the geography of Idaho,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: it borders Washington State, so it originally was part of
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Washington State, but then it became its own state. And
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: there's another player in kind of keeping this Idaho word alive,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: a guy by the name of Joaquin Miller who wrote
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the Poet of the Sierras, where he spelled it Idaho
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and he claimed that it meant the light or diadem
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: on the line of the mountain, which is a little
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: bit more of a high falutin way of saying, what
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: was the original one ben the gem of the mountain.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And keep in mind, these are mining concerns that putting
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: out this.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: That's true. So I think at this point the original
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: kerfuffle with Willing had been largely forgotten, but the word,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the name kind of lived on, right.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And at this point we do want to profile
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit. There's some background, some context the Willings
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: character that come into play here. Willings was involved in
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a number of frauds, one of the most notorious being
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: something called the Arizona Peralta lands grant fraud, in which
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: he played a despicable part. He also was an associative forgers.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: He was a guy similar to so many other con
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: art that we have talked about in past episodes. And
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you'll hear different alternating theories that he met a young
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: girl named Ida and that inspired the name, or that
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it actually is a corruption of an indigenous people's language,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the Kiowa Apach term idahi, which meant enemy. That doesn't
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: really measure up in my opinion that last one. I
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: could see a state being named after a person that's
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: happened before, but I can't see a state being named enemy.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: You want something a little more positive, right, So now
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: we know this battle that happened ultimately was a battle
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: fought in the public sphere in terms of public opinion
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and public use of the phrase. And that's why the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: term Idaho was first used to refer to Idaho as
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a state instead of Idaho Springs or some other area
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three, Williams went on to do some
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: ore Shenani.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he sure did. And let's not forget too that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: at this point a lot of lawmakers that had maybe
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: had their breaches in bunches about this in the first place,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: were a little more preoccupied with the Civil War than
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: quarreling about state names and made up Indian words.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Right right, And so that's kind of how it slid
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in under the radar, because people were so worried about
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: this burgeoning war between the states that they didn't really
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: have time nor the inclination to worry about what they
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: saw as a relatively benign concept like the name idahome
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and so Idaho just like a kind of a hogendas
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: stuck around, sounded close enough to the thing that it
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: was purporting to be that more and more people began
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: using it. And some of the same senators who remembered
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that last naming incident when they figured out it was
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a made up name, were the same senators who are like, Hey,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: we have to figure out the Civil War things, so
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: just just let it ride. Maybe we can fix it later,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: maybe we can kick the can down the road. And
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: kick the can they did, because it is twenty nineteen
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and Idaho is the state's name. It's not going to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: change anytime soon.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Now, it's true, And this is not even the most
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: egregious example of a naming fraud. Have you ever heard
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: of Montpellier, Illinois?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I have heard the name. What's the skinny on that?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out that the name, and as Casey
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: off Mics pointed out, it would be more properly pronounced Montpellier,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: was something of a practical joke. Father Jacques Marquette in
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: sixteen seventy three encountered some members of the Peoria Indian
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: tribe and that was near the mouth of what would
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: today be called the Des Moines River, and he asked
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: them to give him the name of another tribe of
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: rivals that lived further down the river, and the Peoria
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: leadership told him that they were called the Moonguana, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that became the roots for Moye. But Michael McCafferty of
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Indiana University discovered that in the Miami, Illinois language, which
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: is now no longer it's a dead language, this actually
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: would have been translated to faces and apparently nobody in
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Illinois government in the city of Des Moines has acknowledged
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: that this is the case, but the research stands interesting stuff.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So I guess having a made up name is maybe
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a little less embarrassing than having a name that translates
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: to something so derogatory.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: That's a great point, and as I'm sure many of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: us are thinking as we're listening to this episode right now,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: most actually all words are made up. At some point
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: we all agree, or various factions of us throughout the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: human species agreed that this word means this thing. You
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like hand means that thing at
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the end of your arm, shoe means that thing that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: goes over your foot. And Idaho is one of the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: fifty states of the United States of America. There you go,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and that is our episode for today. How many states?
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: How many states have we done? Now?
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Are there any intrepid ridiculous historians that
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: want to do the tally and shoot us an email
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. That'd be cool.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: We love to hear from you, because otherwise I'll be
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: completely honest with you here, folks. Otherwise we'll get halfway
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: through an episode and then realize that we have in
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: fact already covered that state.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: It's okay whatever it takes to get the show out
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: as long as it's a good story too, So thank
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: you in advance for sending us that note.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: We want to hear the interesting stories of place names
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: in your neck of the Global Woods. We'd also, of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: course like to think a super producer case see pegram
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and maybe, you know, maybe we could go for a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: road trip to Idaho one day. Let's do it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: We'd also like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme, Gabe,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: our research associate who hiped us to this topic. You
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You can find our show on Instagram as well on
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook. You can find your fellow listeners on
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: our Facebook community page That's Ridiculous Historians. And if you
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: want to hang out with me see some pictures of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: weird adventures and my oversized cats. You can find me
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: at Ben Bullen on Instagram.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.