blackfoot-valley

which included part of present day Montana that drains into the Pacific. When Oregon was carved out as a state in 1859, our region became part of the newly established Washington Territory along with all of Idaho and the portion of Wyoming west of the Divide. (At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, it was possible to travel from Iowa clear to the Pacific while passing through only two territories, the huge Dakota Territory that then included most of Montana and half of Wyoming, and the Washington Territory which bounded Dakota along the Great Divide.) Then in 1863, with the Civil War raging back east, Washington Territory was reduced to the area of that present state while the entire area of present Montana and Idaho and most of Wyoming were merged into one great Idaho Territory. Finally, in 1864, Montana Territory was designated with the same boundaries as the present state. Montana had at last become an entity. The name is derived from Span- ish montana , meaning mountain (not the often erroneously stated adjective “mountainous,” which is montanoso in Spanish). “Montana” won out over other proposed names which included “Jefferson,” “Douglas” (after the well- known Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois), and “Shoshone.” 73