Utah State Historical Society State Capitol—Salt Lake City, Utah Volume XXI
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October, 1953
No. 4
MORMONISM IN IDAHO POLITICS, 1880-1890 BY GRENVILLE H.
GIBBS *
M
. UCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the political struggles between the Mormons and the non-Mormons in Utah. Those battles were fought mainly between an overwhelming majority of Mormons and an almost minute group of non-Mormon residents led by a handful of anti-Mormon officials appointed to govern the Territory of Utah. An entirely different set of circumstances existed in the Territory of Idaho. There the Mormons were in the minority at all times, but peculiar conditions made their minority position an advantageous one. The Territory of Idaho was established by act of Congress in 1863 as a result of a series of gold and silver mining booms which began in 1860 in the Clearwater River Valley at Oro Fino and progressed southward to the Owyhee discoveries in the vicinity of Silver City. These mining booms brought many people from states of the middle South, such as Missouri, to Idaho. They were mostly Democratic in their party preferences. Consequently the Idaho Legislative Assembly was largely dominated by the Democrats during the first twenty years of its existence as a territory.
In 1863 there was a considerable colony of Mormons in the southeastern corner of the territory. The colonizing genius of the Latter-day Saints under the leadership of Brigham Young had established permanent settlements within what was to become * Mr. Gibbs is a native of Pocatello, Idaho. He received his education in the Idaho public schools, University of Idaho (Southern Branch), University of California, Oxford University, University of Idaho, and the University of Utah. The latter institution awarded him a doctor's degree in 1952, his dissertation being "Idaho Becomes a State."
