Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/290

284 for to me it is a labor of love. I take it that as the earlier exercises of the day have been devoted exclusively to a fitting eulogy of the character of Jason Lee, and a fitting tribute to his labor and his life, it is equally appropriate that these last exercises should be devoted at least in part to a description of the wonderful country which his efforts were so largely instrumental in saving to the Union, and which now form so important a part of the United States. A land of fertile valleys, of magnificent streams, of broad ranges, of mountains whose everlasting snows have challenged the rising sun since the morning stars first sang together, of lakes whose placid bosoms reflect back the fragrant forests and the summer skies, of forest and field and waterfall, of blue skies and bountiful sunshine—such is Idaho, Gem of the Mountains, Land of Opportunity.

Nature has been lavish in this land of promise. She has given us soil for the plow and water enough for the harvest. Timber enough for our homes and power for our factories. Iron for industry and copper for the arts. Gold for a Nation's commerce and lead for a Nation's defense. Wilderness enough for recreation and winter enough for vigor. Scenery enough for sentiment and sunshine enough for some.

Of the early settlement of Idaho I will say but little. She is a young State, and age has not yet clothed her early history with romance. She was first settled in the early sixties by miners and stockmen. Idaho has been in the past and is now handicapped by the fact that the main line of travel through the State crosses what until lately has been known as the Snake River desert. For fifty years the tide of Western immigration flowed past our doors unmindful of the empire awaiting development in the inter-mountain region. Even yet people passing through the State on the train have no conception, from