Do you know how Idaho got its name?

There are plenty of stories floating around about how Idaho got its name.

Nearly all of them say "Idaho" is a Native American word; however, this isn’t true!

The word “Idaho” was actually…completely made up!

Imagine you're living in the mid-1800's. There were no iPhones, no cars & no Google Maps.

The United States was expanding rapidly and every new state, territory & town needed a name.

It’s true that some states’ names WERE derived from the Native American language—for example, both Ohio and Michigan came from Indian words.

By 1860, people were running out of fresh ideas.

At the time, Idaho was known as "the Colorado territory" & a leader in the area named George Willing tossed out “Idaho” as a possible name.

He claimed it was a Native American word for "gem of the mountains" – sounds legit, right?

The Colorado folks thought so & apparently so did Congress, because they soon thereafter voted to name the territory "Idaho."

When Willing came clean and admitted he completely made it up, local leaders went back and asked Congress to change the name back to Colorado.

But Colorado doesn’t have Native American roots either—it’s Spanish.

While that was going on, one of the leader's friends named a steamboat "The Idaho" & later that year, gold was discovered and the mines were named the Idaho Mines, after that steamboat that thousands of miners journeyed on with dreams of hitting it big.

When this new mining hub was officially made into a territory in 1863, Congress named it Idaho, with most people still under the impression it meant “gem of the mountains.”

It sounds just majestic enough to be believable—even if it was completely made-up!