41%

Because the land sales happened over a long stretch of time, and there were so many of them, and so many involved tracts of land moderate in size, they tended not to attract a lot of attention, and their accumulated amount largely escaped notice.

That end result should and may, though, stick in the memory of more than a few Idahoans, because it’s reducible to one startling number: 41%.

That’s the portion of the 4.2 million acres of land the state of Idaho had at statehood, granted from the f...