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Valley County, Idaho
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I'd like to thank Joe Howard, the previous CC, for all the work he did on this site. If you have data or photos to add to this site please drop me a note.
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| Valley County lies some sixty miles north of the state
capitol city of Boise. The county was established in 1917 through a division
of adjacent Boise and Idaho counties. Before the coming of white men, Mountain
Shoshoni and Nez Perce Indians had used the mountainous areas for summer
food gathering, hunting and fishing. The area became the scene of fur-trapping
from the 1820's through the 1840's; following which, gold-miners started
pouring into the area in 1862, with the discovery of gold at Warrens. A
few gold-miners stayed on into the 1880's, at which time early settlers
began entering into the Long Valley area to homestead the fertile high
mountain valley. Much of the eastern area of Valley County has been set aside as the Frank Church Wilderness Area--a rugged, beautiful isolated primitive area, even down to the present time. Nearly all of Idaho's extensive mountain land belongs to the federal government and is maintained in its primitive condition. Over 10 million acres of this Forest Service land are still without roads, more than in any other state except Alaska. Because these mountains are rich in forest and mineral resources, they are the subject of endless debate between persons who want their resources used to build the economy and those who want their beauty left undisturbed. Valley County, in general, is high and rugged, with a few level spaces along the main rivers. Topography varies from rolling wooded plateaus and meadows of the Monumental Creek section to altitudes of 10,000 feet along the Middle Fork of the Salmon. Long Valley, located at the western side of the county, is some fifty miles long and is traversed from north to south by,the North Fork of the Payette River. The elevation of the valley floor ranges from 5,030 feet at McCall on the north to 4,790 feet at Cascade. HISTORICAL SETTLEMENTS IN VALLEY COUNTY: Most of the settlements/villages/towns in the County are located on the western side of the county in Long Valley. Going from south to north the names of these are/were: Fern*, Cabarton*, Alpha*, Thunder (City)*, Crawford*, Cascade, Van Wyck*, Boulder Creek*, Beaver Meadows*, Arling*, Center*, Omega/Roseberry*, Spink*, Donnelly, Midway*, Norwood*, Gold Fork, Waino*, Ehlo/Elo*, Lakeview*, McCall, Lardo*. Other settlements in outlying areas have included:
Smith's Ferry,
High Valley*, Deadwood*,
Warm Lake, Yellow Pine, Stibnite,
Big Creek*, Logan*, Edwardsburg*, Roosevelt*, and Comfort*.
Population of the county is listed (1994) as 7,200,
with the largest town being McCall (a noted summer resort on the shore
of Payette Lake) with 1,275 winter residents. Cascade, the county seat
notes 945 inhabitants and Donnelly between the two has a population of
139. During the summer season the county population nearly doubles in size
as many outsiders have summer homes in the area, especially near Payette
Lake and the Cascade Lake/Reservoir. Tourism is gradually replacing logging,
mining and stock raising as the number one industry of the area.
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Surrounding counties are:
Adams, Idaho,
Lemhi, Custer,
Boise, Gem
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