The Dedication of a Memorial to the First

Unfurling of the United States Flag Over Idaho

FLAG OVER IDAHO

It was August 13 — the year, 1805. Captain Meriwether Lewis, co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was leading a small detachment of his men that mornEing in search of Indians. There

was a measure of desperation in their search. Since leaving the Mandan villages four months before, the party had traveled 1,200 miles along the Missouri and its tributary, the Jefferson River, and had now crossed the Continental Divide without seeing another human being.

In the headwaters of the Missoui drainage system, their boats had become useless and they were without transportation for men or supplies. Lewis hoped to find Indians of the Shoshone tribe who would sell them horses. Lewis tells us what happened next in his journal:

"... we had proceeded through a wavy plain parrellel to the valley or river bottom (the valley of the Lemhi River) when at a distance of about a mile we saw two women, a man and some dogs on an eminence immediately before us ... we continued our usual pace towards them. When we had arrived within a half mile of them I directed the party (he had three companions - Drewyer, Shields and McNeal) to halt and leaving my pack and rifle I took the flag which I unfurled and advanced singly toward them..."

This very non-committal narration records the first time the Flag of the United States ever flew over the State of Idaho.

This year the long ignored. event is being memoralized by

the erection of a monument bear-
ing a bronze plaque calling at-
tention to the display of the flag.
The monument is a large slab of
rough native volcanic rock. Two
flag holders are anchored in the
concrete foundation to allow the
15-star, 15-stripe flag of 1804 to be
displayed beside the present 50-
star, 13-striped flag. The plaque
carries a brief excerpt from the
Lewis and Clark Journal. The
monument is located on the
Warm Springs Road off Idaho
State Highway 28 about 25 miles
southeast of Salmon, Idaho.

The dedication ceremonies will
be held on August 13, 1976, as a
part of the Nation's Bicentennial
celebration. State and local of-
ficials as well as the general pub-
lic have been invited. Members of
the National Lewis and Clark Trail
Heritage Foundation, who will
hold their annual convention in
Great Falls, Montana, in August,
are expected to be on hand for
the dedication. Ample parking
is provided.

The author and BLM District Manager
Harry Finlayson display the bronze
plaque that will become a part of the

monument.

The memorial is located on National Resource Lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and is the joint effort of the Bureau, the Lemhi County Historical Society and the Jay N. (Ding) Darling Foundation of Des Moines, Iowa. BLM provided and set the rock, the Lemhi County Historical Society researched the project, and the Darling Foundation provided the plaque.

Although the area is little changed since 1805, the site is at best only an approximation. We now know that in crossing from the headwaters of the Missouri to the "waters of the great Columbia," the party actually traveled from the head of Red Rock River in Montana across the Continental Divide to Horseshoe Bend Creek

a tributary of the LemhiSalmon-Columbia drainage into the Pacific Ocean. This was the first time the party had moved away from a main water course and the exact route they did follow is a bit confusing.

The Journals make clear that after leaving Red Rock Creek in Montana a point now submerged beneath the waters behind Clark Canyon Dam the party followed what Lewis described as an Indian road. At this point, Lewis was not looking for the shortest way to the Columbia River, but for the surest way of making quick and peaceable contact with the native Shoshones.

Several years ago the Bureau of Land Management took aerial photographs of the area on the Idaho side of the Lemhi pass in an effort to determine the route the party might have followed. If the party followed what appears to have been the most probable route the flag would have been unfurled in the close vicinity of the new memorial. The dedication will mark the 171st anniversary of that event.

DAVID G. AINSWORTH

Lemhi County, Idaho Historical Society

3

THE 49ER
IN 1976

Miners Take a New Look
at the Mineral Resources

of the Public Lands

EVALINE A. OLSEN
Colorado State Office

The battered gold pan, the rust encrusted pick and the shaggy faithful burro are but relics now. The crude mining camps have been replaced by the paneled board rooms of the mining corporation where manners are refined and technical jargon has replaced the salty language that characterized the miner's talk. But there is still gold in "them thar hills."

The "gold fever" that spawned the westward migration has soared and ebbed according to the whims of the market. Other metals such as silver, platinum, radium and uranium, if less exotic than gold, have frequently replaced the royal metal as the object of the prospector's dream. But hard rock mining still continues to be a major use of National Resource Lands in the West, and because of today's favorable market, the search for gold and other precious metals has enjoyed a revival throughout the West.

But it was the "yallow stuff" that started it all. In 1848 it began with the discovery of a single nugget (now on display in the Smithsonian in Washington) in the mill race of Johann Augustus Sutter's mill on the American