President Harrison Makes Idaho Territory the Forty-Third U. S. State [otd 07/03]

President Benjamin Harrison, ca. 1897.
Library of Congress.On July 3, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill that made Idaho a state, the 43rd. The signing culminated one of the more convoluted pathways taken by any state to its final admission into the Union.

Idaho became a Territory in March 1863. That was largely because political leaders in Washington Territory wanted to be rid of all those voting-age prospectors in the Idaho gold fields [blog, March 4].

Lewiston was selected as the...